Lesson 4.1 went pretty smoothly. I reworked the order of the lesson so that students did all their predicting first for the three types of motion (constant speed, speeding up and slowing down) before using the equipment.
After they took constant speed measurements, we stopped and did a thought check - did they get the results they expected? They have seen this type of motion before, so they should know what constant speed looks like on each of those graphs. This was a great time to readjust equipment and retest if needed.
Students seemed to respond well to being careful with the equipment; but I created roles or jobs for each student to have within their groups. The first is the "reader/checker" who is really the manager of the experiment. When the group is off in the wrong direction, I ask who the reader/checker is. There is the "computer driver" who runs Logger Pro. The "walker/starter" who lets the car go and starts the motion and the "catcher" who stops the car at the end of the track. With four batteries, the fan gets the car going quite quickly, so the "catcher" needs to use both hands. To start with, I have asked students to decide who takes each role and rotated them through the "computer driver" role.
The Logger Pro files in the pickup work folder are named for the Investigation they go with - Part1_Lesson4-1.cmbl and Part1_Lesson4-2.cmbl. Students are getting better about problem solving through the equipment issues.
We got to the part of 4.1 where students are using the tracks for the slowing down motion. Be sure to not let the cart move back toward the motion detector.
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