The Spherical Cow: Physics Teaching Blog

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System Schema: How to Teach Newton's Third Law The Right Way

Teach with system schema to eliminate misconceptions about Newton's Third Law.

Physics Memes

Student and teacher generated physics memes.

Structuring and Assessing The "Goalless" Inquiry Lab

A strategy for structuring open inquiry and authentically assessing lab skills at the same. How do we structure open inquiry? My mantra...

Standards Based Grading 2.0: Using Rubrics Based on The AP Science Practices

In this post I outline my new assessment strategy which uses rubrics tailored to the AP Physics 1 & 2 Science Practices within a...

Points Are Bad and You Should Stop Using Them

When discussing grading with other physics teachers, the one thing that I always emphasize the most is the value of getting rid of...

Physics Photo Project

A great way to have your students connect their learning to real-world phenomena and beautify your room at the same time. Want to skip...

VPython Glowscript

VPython Glowscript is a great free tool for creating simulations of mechanical systems. Here is an introduction and a link to my UbD unit.

Implementing Standards Based Grading

UPDATE: Since writing this post two years ago, I have refined my assessment system quite a bit. To see some of the changes I've and my...

Reasoning, Intuition, and the Fundamental Importance of Whiteboarding

What the science of human reasoning tells us about our intuitions and the fundamental importance of collaboration.

End of Year Enrichment Projects

The AP exam is over, what do we do now? Student Project Guide: Resource given to students with explanations of each project and scoring...

Why Does Your Graph Look Different from Mine???

A Deep Look into The Power of Analyzing Sources of Error in The Lab A Missed Opportunity As a high school science student, I was required...

Hot Dog Circuits

Which cooks faster: Hot dogs in series or in parallel? I did not come up with this idea. A lot of physics teachers I have spoken to have...

Can We Teach Special Relativity to HS Students? (Yes, We Can.)

Special relativity is one of those branches of physics that wows students. For some, it can even provide that spark of inspiration that...

Particle in a Box for APP2

A cool and important QM problem that is not only worth introducing, but well within the context of this course's curriculum Why Should We...

Using “Shell Equations” to Scaffold Inquiry Labs

A practice for guiding the inquiry process in the development of accurate mathematical models. Inquiry vs. Content Are we supposed to use...

Resistivity of Clay

A deeper look at some different pedagogical approaches to this classic experiment. Student task sheet is available in classroom...

More About Me

About Me

I teach AP Physics 1 and AP Capstone Research at Korea International School. I also have extensive experience teaching AP Physics 2. In this blog, I hope to share the good ideas I've come across with other physics teachers.