Current Flow and Loads:

The Anatomy of a Virtual Lesson

Last Friday afternoon I taught my first lesson of grade nine science that went well by non-COVID standards. I was so pleased and surprised with this, that I thought I would share the blow-by-blow with you! I hope there might be something from this lesson that is helpful in your own teaching.

Lesson: Current Flow and Loads

I began by welcoming my students to our afternoon virtual class and explaining the connection between the new lesson and our two previous ones. In an earlier experiment we observed that some electrons passed through an LED light, but we couldn't decide if all of them did:

In the previous lesson we learned how to make current measurements using an ammeter. Now we had the tools ready for a testing experiment that would help us eliminate rival hypotheses and find out what’s happening to those electrons!

Introducing the New Investigation

I pointed out that today’s lesson would again call on the skills of using multiple hypotheses to generate rival predictions for a testing experiment. To help discuss and show these predictions, our groups would use a jamboard where they will add sticky notes to represent ammeters and write descriptive words that represent their predictions. It’s the job of the Recorder to do the jamboard work and share their screen with the group. The Manager should call me to their breakout room once the group has their predictions ready.

I also mentioned that I adjusted some of the groups in cohort B and that they should introduce themselves when we start the breakout rooms. I pointed them to our Google classroom assignment that has the links they need for the jamboard and a set of videos that corresponded to the observations for their experiments. I have these videos organized by lesson and with the corresponding question numbers so students can easily find the right one:

My final comment to the class was that this lesson would be almost entirely group work. When their group is ready, simply move on to the next part of the investigation. Once the whole class is finished part A, I will call everyone back to the main room for a quick discussion. And with that I started the breakout rooms. Here you can see the first part of this investigation:

The Group Work Begins

After giving them a 30 second head start, I began to visit each group and say hello to each student – my way of taking attendance. The visits also gave me a quick chance to make sure the groups were okay starting things off. After about 5 minutes students began calling me into their breakout rooms to check their predictions before they make their observations. When I arrive in a breakout room I asked them to share their jamboard screen with me and have the Speaker describe their predictions. Here’s an example of one jamboard.

One comment I sometimes made to groups was that predictions are not a student's opinion about what they think might happen in an experiment. A prediction applies a hypothesis to a new situation (an experiment) and describes what should be observed according to that hypothesis. As a result, we should all agree on the predictions that each hypothesis makes. So after some quick discussions I approved their predictions and the students were ready to watch the video of the experiment:

A Quick Class Discussion

After all the groups had made their observations and drawn their conclusions, I called the groups back to the main Zoom meeting for a discussion. I shared my screen and quickly flipped through each group's jamboard where they had noted which hypotheses were supported or refuted by the experimental evidence. We found agreement amongst our scientific teams and felt confident in the one hypothesis that was supported. I made sure the students drew large X’s through the hypotheses that were refuted – I didn’t want them looking back at their notes and seeing the unreliable hypothesis that electrons get used up in the load!

A number of groups had already started working on the next part of the investigation, so I quickly gave some comments to help them interpret what they see in part B. Our experiment in part A convinced us that electrons do not get used up in a load since the electron currents entering and leaving the load were the same. But something is getting used up and what is this? Energy! Or more carefully described, it is energy that is being transferred from the system of electrons to the load.

Back to Their Groups

At this point we had about 20 minutes left in the class and I sent the students back into their breakout rooms. Throughout this lesson, my time was spent visiting the breakout rooms when students requested help. What pleased me the most about this lesson was the high level of engagement I observed when I visited their breakout rooms. I still haven't managed to convince many students to keep their cameras on, but their microphones were on and there was lots of chatter and discussion.

The final part of the lesson explored a rope model for a simple electric circuit. Groups that finished up early called me to their breakout rooms and I asked them to describe the parts in this analogy. Then I suggested they start the homework together while they still have time in their group.

Wrapping Things Up

2 minutes before the end of class I closed all the breakout rooms and had a final discussion about the rope model. Many groups had completed that part, but a few were just starting, so I made sure that I shared the answers for the rope model. I mentioned that once they had a rope model chart complete, their work on the lesson was finished and they should scan and upload it. Here is the second part of the lesson:

And that was it! I felt the lesson was successful due to the high level of engagement of the students and how well their groups worked online. The jamboard was really helpful for the groups as a collaborative workspace but also for me because I could monitor the progress of all the groups by quickly flipping through the jamboard frames. Since this class I have been trying to recreate this level of success, but not quite getting there. I think this worked really well because the group tasks were fairly clear and meaningful, there were check-in points for students to call me, and not too much back-and-forth between videos, jamboards, and class discussions.