Following on from my post back in May 'Do Exams Pass Under CfE?', I have given the issues of assessment and certification some further consideration, which I discussed in my presentation at this year's Teachmeet SLF 'Breakout' event held at CitizenM, Glasgow back in September. This post is an attempt to summarise and explain the...
CERN visit Sept 2013 - Day 3
The final day of our visit began with a visit to SM18 - the magnetic dipole manufacture and test facility. The 27 km long LHC ring at CERN is made up from over 1200 individual dipoles. Every dipole section contains the two proton beams, each of which is surrounded by super-conducting magnets used to change...
Physics Summer School - Day 2
Friday morning saw us leave Erskine early for a visit to the Physics Department University of Strathclyde. Here we were shown around the first-year labs, seeing experimental set ups used by students for finding - speed of sound in air using tuning forks and resonant air columns wave speed for wave on a string, using...
Physics Summer School - Day 1
For the last few days I've been fortunate to have been in Erskine, attending the SSERC/Institute of Physics Physics Summer School - a residential CPD event for physics teachers from all over Scotland. We started on Wednesday evening with an icebreaker session after registration and dinner. Armed with a small video camera we conducted 30...
Brilliant CPD - Medical Physics
I went along to Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow tonight for an IOP event in the medical Physics Department. About 70 physics and biology teachers from around the west of Scotland attended the event, staffed by some brilliant folk who had given up their time to give us an insight into the work they do in...
#makeuseofglow
I gave a quick 'showcase' demo of Glow at our staff in-service yesterday. Despite a technical hitch - the projector failed 10 minutes into it - I got to show all of my colleagues a few of the things that I think make Glow an valuable tool in education. Encouragingly, a few people have spoken...
Signalling Challenge
image from www.athropolis.com As an end of term activity I thought I'd have a go at getting my S3 class to try some old fashioned telecommunications methods, with an outdoor learning/group work/challenge slant. So we've got 4 teams, sending the same message - 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog' - by four...
Must blog properly soon....
Been ages since I last posted, or at least it seems that way. I've been busy. Too busy. Apart from the apparently endless cycle of reports, I've done a few things I meant to blog at the time, but didn't get around to. In no particular order, I have - Attended Teachmeet Perth CfE -...
10/10 for trying.
I thought I'd have a go at combining some written work with a bit of peer assessment with my two S2 classes, and rather than just doing it to them, tell them the whys and wherefores of what we were doing. Having given them the task of writing up a piece of practical work, with...
Space Topic - Gas Sampling Apparatus
I'm currently planning a new Space topic for S1, as part of my department's CfE development. I'd like to do something on sustaining life in space, looking at providing space travelers with clean air, clean water, food and communications during various types of missions. I've yet to decide on a format for the unit, but...