nearpod

The Physics Teaching Podcast

Thomas and Robin are joined by the marvellous Will White not only a great guest but also an NQT physics teacher who teachers at the school where Thomas and Robin both used to teach, and indeed where they met (there is no blue plaque – shouldn’t we write a letter or something?) Will also has the pleasure of teaching Thomas’s daughter and works with the brilliant Wendy who we would like to clone (but who knew how bad our biology was, so wouldn’t let us try).

Will introduces us to Nearpod which is a beautifully designed teaching aid that has lots of excellent features to help you with AFL during lockdown. For example, Will introduced us to the questioning functionality that Nearpod embeds in YouTube. He points out that maintaining focus is tough for kids and the ability to sharpen focus with a question every now and again is a great feature.

The AFL functions involved in the package are really useful allowing you to interact and see students ideas in real time, sharing answers anonymously – definitely worth checking out. Quizlet and Plickers are alternative packages that the three of us have tried, and there’s some links below.

Will has had a disrupted (!) start to his career, but it doesn’t stop us from pinning him down about a favourite practical. Despite becoming momentarily confused about a different science subject that we’d barely heard of, we chat about the beauty of the solar spectrum on a CD experiment (link below).

It was terrific to hear from Will and to hear how he is embracing the challenges of these difficult times. Thanks to Will for joining us, and to you joining us to develop your physics teaching in spite of the pandemic.

Links

Make your own CD spectrometr – https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/lab-camera-action/make-your-own-cd-spectrometer

Quizlet – https://quizlet.com/

Plickers – https://plickers.com/

Nearpod – https://nearpod.com/

Join in!

Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions – on our Facebook Page: https://fb.me/physicstp . You can also message us via our website contact form at the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, Twitter @physicstp, email using the address given in the podcast (if we remember), you could even email us an autio file if you are feeling really keen.

Music

• Season 5: Crescents by Ketsa.
• Seasons 3 and 4: Disco Sheik by Podington Bear.
• Seasons 1 and 2: One legged equilibrist polka by Circus Homunculus.
• Occasionally we also use Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith.

The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License

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