09-10 school year begins

Here it is another school year and we are almost a week into it. We started class last Thursday at Putnam City High School.

So far things are going well for me. I am teaching an Earth Science Class this year for the first time. Its a slightly different population than what I usually teach in my Physics classes, but not really any different than my Physical Science classes. They are just 2 years older than the Physical Science students. Many of these students have not had success in science in the past so I have to think outside the box to get them engaged.These guys will challenge me, I'm sure! Only time will tell if I am up to that challenge.

My Physics classes seem to be typical except for two things:

1. I am teaching a section of Physics I which has over 25 students in it.


2. On the information sheets, many students said they decided to take the class because of me. Talk about pressure. Its like being chosen for a role in a play and asked to perform. This really makes me feel good about being a teacher because it tells me students are talking about me and that those are good things.

I have also started a new educational chapter in my own life as I have begun the Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction at SNU. I did some serious study about whether to attend OSU, OU, or SNU. I did give UCO a precursory glance, but never any serious thought. I chose SNU for a few reasons over the other schools. I was a little hesitant to pick them just because I didn't really want both degrees from the same school, but alas, fate had different plans.

The MACI program at SNU is eligible for the teach grant. This was a big one for me. The grant is from the federal government and is available to anyone who is working on a teaching degree, either undergraduate or graduate. It comes with some conditions but they are easy for me. First, you have to be teaching in a school that receives Title I money. Putnam City High School qualifies. You also have to agree to teach in a high need field such as English Language Learning, Special Education, Math, or Science. I teach Physics, so that's taken care of. You also have to agree to teach for four years for each TEACH grant program you participate in. Since I'm not planning on leaving teaching, that seems to be taken care of, as well.

SNU's program also works towards getting their master's candidates certified as National Board Teachers. In Oklahoma that means a yearly stipend of $5000 which will go a long ways towards paying off student loans incurred during my time at SNU. If you don't already know, they are a private university and have some pretty pricey tuition. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm just saying its expensive. Concerning that, I do feel like I was very well prepared to get into the classroom and teach.

OSU and OU had some great programs and I felt like all three had options that were suited for an older student like me, but the National Board put me over the edge with SNU. None of the state institutions offer National Board certification and that was a great component of SNU's program. Of course they don't guarantee that you will pass the certification, but then no school guarantees that you will pass ANY certification test once you finish your education. All one can hope for is that the school will prepare you well enough that certification will not be an issue.

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I am really beginning to feel at home in my classroom. I was able to have my SmartBoard mounted to the wall, I got a fish tank full of fish, and due to the departure of some of my colleagues, I am an old face around school. These are all good things and just endear my job to me even more than it already is. I am even able to help a new teacher work with the development of a brand new class: Earth Science. He is coming to me for help and guidance and ideas, which is weird since it seems I was JUST finishing school and staring my first year right in the face. Good things are happening in my school and in my classroom and I am excited to be a part of them!

thanks for reading,

jb

concerning the upcoming school year

This week is a special time of year. I am nervous, excited, and a little bit giddy. Classes start at Putnam City High School this week. I have learned to enjoy the anticipation of the start of school over the last two years. I get to the point of not being able to think about much other than school.

I am going to be doing some technology training this week with teachers in our building, so that has done a good job of keeping my brain occupied with other stuff. But now the week is nearly here! Its almost time to begin working with the most amazing students ever to walk the hallowed halls of Putnam City. My Pirate Time students will all be seniors, so that makes it even more exciting!

I have done a wiki with my students in the past. However, this year, I am going to be teaching a section of Earth Science, as well as my regular schedule of Physics I and Pre-AP Physics I. I found a great blog post today about using a wiki in a history classroom. He is working on getting his students to think critically when they write. What a terrific concept! I am trying to figure out how to adapt that to my classroom. I am also trying to decide what to do about using the wiki in my Earth Science classroom. I'm just not sure exactly what direction to go with it. Its really easy to have students choose a famous physicist and write about them, but Earth Science? I'm stumped. If you have ideas on how I can improve the current assignment for Physics or adapt it to fit Earth Science, I'd love to hear about it!

A "working" summer

This summer has been the busiest so far, at least since I've been teaching. I used to tint windows, so summers were my busy season. Its been refreshing to have a few weeks off to relax by the pool, catch up on some yard work, that kind of stuff.  This summer, I only had June to "goof off". I did do some pretty heavy goofing off, too! However, once July came around, I started going to Stillwater to Oklahoma State to do some research in the physics department. Specifically, I worked in High Energy Physics. Wow. That is some abstract, cool, mind-blowing stuff. It was awesome! I also was invited to present at the Oklahoma Alternative Education Conference. That was really good. I enjoyed presenting, but more than that I got some really good information that will carry over into my classroom. I did do a little bit of technology training during June. It was only three days, but I ended up getting a Mac out of the deal, so that was a really good deal. I also got to look at some great pedagogy methods for technology integration during the training. Plus, I was able to share my passion in a one day class I taught called Wikis, Blogs, and Discussion Boards. Definitely worth the time I spent preparing for it. I got good responses from the other teachers, so I guess it was as good for them as it was for me!

I guess I'll have to get used to this kind of stuff. I got so much out of my experiences I'm going to try to do some more of the same stuff next summer. The monetary compensation wasn't half bad either!

Oklahoma Alternative Education Conference

Yesterday I drove to Stillwater one last time to meet with Dr. Khanov and try to get my data analysis finished. I didn't quite get it done since we are having a little trouble with finding a data file that fits our parameters. I only meniton that because it means my research done! I'll have to finish some writing and work on a little bit more data, but for the most part, I'm done. It was a great 5 weeks and I am glad I took the opportunity. Very glad.

Today is the Oklahoma Alternative Education Conference. Its a conference for teachers who work with students in alternative education programs, such as the Putnam City STRIVE program (credit recovery) or the Putnam City Academy. I was asked to present (still haven't figured out why) by the state department of education Alternative Ed. director. I decided to talk about stellarium and Exploring your Universe. Stellarium is an open-source virtual planetarium developed by some french folks who are interested in Astronomy. Exploring your Universe is a companion lab manual, designed to go along with that software. It takes students through the process of first learning to use the software, then some exercises which teach them about constellations, coordinate systems, and even has them recreate Galileo's observations of Jupiter's 4 largest moons way back in the 1600's. Its a really useful tool which I will be employing in my Astronomy/Meteorology class next year.

I'm a little nervous, but very excited to share a resource I have with some very special teachers who work with some very special students.

As always, thanks for reading

jb

why am i so fortunate?

Call it blessed, lucky, fortunate; it doesn't matter what name you give it, its me. Over the last year I have been blessed with so much technology, I don't know what to do with it all. Since January of 2008 I have received two laptops (1 PC and 1 Mac), a SmartBoard, a Cosmic Ray Detector, and basically anything else I ask for to outfit my classroom for student learning. I don't know what I have done to deserve this. I'm not anything special in the classroom. I don't "brown nose" to get what I want (do I?).

I know teachers who ask for this kind of equipment and never see half of what they ask for. I, on the other hand, don't even have to ask for stuff and I keep getting it! What's the deal? Just this week, my research mentor asked me if there was anything I would like to have for my classroom, physics related. She said they had some money left over from a grant and would like to buy some equipment for me. I thought to myself, "self, you'd better jump on this opportunity because this isn't going to happen very often". So I said Sure! I can find somethings I need. She encouraged me to ask for more than what I really wanted just in case the grant person decided it was too much to spend. I looked at some dynamics carts, motion detectors, and photogates (along with a few other things). I came up with about $1600 worth of stuff thinking "at least I can get the dynamics carts and track". Wrong! They approved it all! Of course my first thought was "I should have asked for more!" Then I realized what an arse that made me and I got into a thankful frame of mind.

I have no idea why these good things happen to me; but I sure am happy about it. So, thanks for the physics equipment, thanks for the MacBook, thanks for the SmartBoard, thanks for mounting my SmartBoard on the wall. Why thank you? Because ultimately its your tax dollars that are paying for these things and I really appreciate them!

as always, thanks for reading

jb

Signal to Noise ratio

This post is from my Summer Research summary which can be found here. Its long and probably a bit boring to many of you, but if you are interested in how I've been spending my time, check it out. I am only publishing this because I am proud of the analogy about "Where's Waldo" and wanted to share that with a broader audience. I had to post all of it, because the analogy alone wouldn't make any sense without some background.

Any time I hear this phrase (Signal to Noise Ratio), I always think of the guy who once came to my house to work on my cable service. He told me they can sit in their truck and measure the amount of background noise that is leaking from bad connections or improperly insulated wires. They even once told me the signal was turned up/amplified too much which was causing my On Demand problems. (it generally wouldn't work and kept giving some sort of error code)

In particle physics, when you talk about signal to noise, you are not too far away from this same idea. During particle collisions, there are processes that occur in which we are not really interested. This is called background. That doesn't mean its not important, it simply means for the particular process at which you are looking, its just not something you want to observe. You would like for your detector to measure this background so that you can then calculate a value for it and subtract it from the actual signal. If you tune out all of the background, you won't get an accurate depiction of the event in which you are interested. The signal is a value which is predicted (theoretically) by the Standard Model and can be verified (with a particle accelerator) experimentally. If you know the value of your signal, and by know I mean verify a theoretical prediction experimentally, you can then go on to look for new physics above and beyond the energy level at which you are working.

While driving from Oklahoma City to Stillwater, I had an epiphany on how to explain the concept of "signal to noise ratio". Think about the popular children's books and games called "Where's Waldo?" Remember those? (try it by double clicking the picture to find Waldo) You stare at a picture looking for a goofy-faced kid who is wearing a red and white striped sweater with a similarly-colored knit cap. You look and look and look until finally he pops out of the background, plainly obvious and you wonder "why didn't I seem him sooner?" The key is the red and white striped sweater. If not for that, it would be nearly impossible for you to see Waldo. He would blend into the background.This is especially true as you advance to harder and harder levels of the game. There are more and more people in the picture, therefore Waldo is harder and harder to spot.

Studying the Z boson, as we are, is the "putting on of the sweater". We are painting a better picture of what the signal, the actual Z boson looks like. When we advance to the next level of the game, i.e. searching for the Higgs, we will have a better understanding of what the background looks like so scientists may then look at whats left and determine whether there is evidence for the Higgs or not. If not, the Standard Model will have to be revised.

Let me know what you think and as usual, thanks for reading.

jb

40 years ago today

40 years ago today the United States was about to accomplish an unprecedented feat: we were about to land on the Moon. I know, there are people who don't "believe" we landed there, but I think there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that we did. Especially in light of the photos that came out this week from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Way back then, I was just a few days short of 4 months old, so I don't remember the event. In fact, as a kid, I doubt, based on my interests, that anyone who knew me would have ever expected me to teach any kind of science, especially not physics. So I probably wouldn't have cared had I even been old enough to remember. However, when I look back on my life, its really not a surprise to me that I became a physics teacher. I learned electricity in the Army, I have always been fascinated with the internal combustion engine, and I was a whiz a trajectories when riding (and wrecking) my motorcycle. What does surprise me is that I ever considered Pre-Medicine as a major. What was I thinking? Biology? Applied Chemistry? Come on! Everyone knows those are just extensions of Physics.

So, let's get back on topic: the amazing-ness of the Moon landing. I can actually understand why people so readily buy the notion of us not going to the Moon; not based on physical evidence such as videos or pictures, but based on the fact that the Physics that got them there was 300 years old! The only Physics you need to know (other than the radio technology) were discovered by Isaac Newton way back in the 1660's when he formulated his 3 Laws of Motion (he didn't publish these until the 1680's). That blows my mind and here is the reason: the basic Physics I teach in high school are all you need to calculate a trajectory to get to the Moon. Newton's 3 Laws of Motion and his Theory of Gravity are pretty much all you need to understand to get there. Wow. It reminds me of "The Astronaut Farmer", which is a story about a (modern day) guy who builds a rocket in his barn and goes into space.

As I sit writing this, I am listening to the recording of the Apollo 11 mission which can be found here. It really is quite exciting to listen to, although much of what they are saying doesn't really mean anything.  What it does do is let me be a part of what they did. I imagine that I am a NASA worker, sitting in Mission Control, listening to all of it while it is actually happening. Ah, the wonders of modern technology. It is the epitome of virtualness. I am no longer in 2009; I am transported back to 1969. Hmmm... sounds like a Time Machine of some sort. I like it.

As a side note, while looking around for some links for this post, I found this. I think I'm going to try to by one of the US landing sites. Or maybe, I should find the next proposed landing site and buy that. Then I could charge NASA usage rights.

thanks for reading,

jb