Post Lesson 4 Check-In

Last week we assigned the Idea Journal questions 1-3 and 5 for homework (1. position-time graph idea, 2. speed-time graph idea, 3. strobe diagram idea, 5. acceleration-time graph idea). Students were to make sure in their responses that they addressed the 5 kinds of motion we've been looking at (no motion, slow constant speed, fast constant speed, speeding up, and slowing down).

Today we checked for completion of this assignment. Though homework completion was low, we had students change groups and summarize their ideas on the whiteboard in pairs or threes. I was looking and listening primarily for quality on task conversations between group members and if they were able to explain their ideas to another in their group. I was very excited to hear the thoughtful way they discussed and checked back with their experimental results. Here's a couple whiteboards they created:

If there were places where the speed-time and position-time graphs were the same, we pointed that out and asked students to support their ideas within their group. The most challenging part was speeding up and slowing down as represented on the graphs and the acceleration graph. This makes sense since students have only had one experience with it. They will be building on this first experience in Lesson 4 with Lesson 5 and the simulators.

In the second whiteboard, you can see that the speed-time graph looks just like the acceleration-time graph. There doesn't appear to be a connection between speeding up as acceleration (nor slowing down as negative acceleration). Otherwise, students have shown some solid understanding from this task. One question I would ask this group is: "Is there another way to show "no motion" on the position-time graph?"