Teacher Workshops

Schedule, Friday October 8; Pre-register (required) here, free to participants, with dinner provided

  • 1:00 – 2:00 Meet & Greet and Registration. Library Building. Academic Computing Center. Room: GC1 Grotto. (The Grotto)
  • 2:00 – 4:00 Workshop: “Video Analysis in the Physics Classroom”. Library Building. Academic Computing Center. Room: GC1 Grotto. (The Grotto)
  • 4:00 – 4:30 Break and Registration. Seminar 2 B Building. Room: B1107. (Sem 2 B1107)
  • 4:30 – 6:30 Workshop: “The role of guided questioning in science instruction: An Example from Geometric Optics”. Seminar 2 B Building. Room: B1107. (Sem 2 B1107)
  • 6:30 – 7:30 Dinner & Discussion (pizza dinner provided to participants). Seminar 2 B Building. Room: B1107. (Sem 2 B1107)

In association with the Section Meeting of WA-AAPT, we offer Teacher Workshops for all physics and physical science teachers. The Workshops provide opportunities to engage in guided inquiry in a collaborative learning community and experience with materials and techniques for immediate classroom use. Successful completion can earn clock hours, awarded through Evergreen’s Teacher Education program. Another goal of the Teacher Workshops is to develop collaborative networks and professional learning communities. There is no cost to participants in the workshops.

Pre-registration for these workshops is required, due to limited space and we need to arrange for the pizza dinner in advance. Registration closes on Friday October 1; you can sign-up for either or both workshops on a first-come basis. Pre-register using this form.

  • “Video Analysis in the Physics Classroom” – Facilitator: Krishna Chowdary, The Evergreen State College. Video analysis is a powerful tool for engaging students in focused and open-ended investigations. It can support the development of conceptual understanding and the formation of mathematical models as well as traditional problem solving. In this workshop, aimed at pre-service and in-service teachers with minimal experience using video analysis, participants will learn to use video analysis software to examine physical phenomena.  Time will be spent discussing technical details of video production as well as looking at readily available sources of videos. Participants will complete the workshop with enough experience to bring this tool into the classroom immediately.
  • “The Role of Guided Questioning in Science Instruction: An Example from Geometric Optics” – Facilitators: Andrew Boudreaux, Western Washington University; Krishna Chowdary, The Evergreen State College. Questioning is a time honored teaching tool and can be of great value in bringing student ideas out in the open and guiding students to deeper understanding.  This workshop uses the context of image formation by a mirror as a setting to practice examining student ideas and developing  formative assessment questions.  Participants will work through a short inquiry activity drawn from Tutorials in Introductory Physics, and will then analyze written student work in order to identify productive and problematic aspects of student thinking.  Participants will draw on these experiences to collaboratively develop questions that could be used to guide students to develop and deepen their own understanding.  Finally, participants will reflect on general questioning strategies that could be applied in other content areas.