EDUCATION PROJECTS
While the lecture model of instruction and multiple-choice "one and done" tests are efficient for the teacher, they do not improve student understanding as well as more time-intensive methods of instruction and assessment. I have coded several tools and a fully-functional gradebook website to allow me to better serve the needs of students and colleagues and designed many pieces of apparatus to help students as they explore the concepts of physics and engineering.
Selected Projects
SBGBook
SBGBook is an online gradebook, with support for standards-based grading and gradeless (feedback-only) courses. Multiple rubrics and grading policies are supported and each grade can be annotated with an HTML comment and an uploaded evidence file. After grading, students and advisors can be notified via email or log in to see all grades and all previous feedback, sortable by date or standard. Students use this specific, actionable feedback to guide their improvement, and future scores update the scores for each standard in several ways. Allows entry of scores for whole-class or individual assessments. Created with Django.
Curriculum Guide
This Python software addressed an in-house need to create a flexible, unified method of collecting and communicating course information and student learning objectives for an entire school. Teachers add learning objectives in a Google Sheet, allocating each to a course, major topic, and sub-topic, and write detailed course descriptions. The software imports the data via the Google API and uses Reportlab to create an easily-updatable curriculum guide with unified formatting and internal hyperlinks. Each course has a one-page summary with photos, description, and topic/subtopic list, as well as a detailed list of learning objectives. The one-page format is suitable for students, parents, and other schools, while the detailed format helps teachers within the school align expectations from grade to grade.
Reassessment Genie
Allowing students to demonstrate their improvement via individually-scheduled reassessments helps their learning, but can be a difficult and time-consuming logistical problem for the teacher. This Python software (including GUI) imports reassessment requests from a Google form, references a list of problems for reassessment and the student's history, and automatically creates an individual reassessment for each student from a custom LaTeX problem database, along with a page containing rubrics for each standard used in the assessment. Also manages whole-class assessments.
Low-g Simulator Boards
This innovation was the result of a collaboration at the Physics Teacher Camp professional development group that I am a part of. The most difficult part of understanding projectile motion involves appreciating the independence of dimensions of the motion. The strips of tape on a long narrow board allow student to hear the difference between constant-velocity motion and constant-acceleration motion when a pool ball is rolled across a flat or tilted board, respectively. Once they have done that, rolling the ball in a parabolic path across the large board will reveal exactly the same types of motion, depending on which direction the strips are set up in. This aural connection is visceral, helping students solidify this important concept.
Benchmark Assessment Tracker
After learning objectives are established, measurement of a selection of core skills allows teachers to adjust their instruction from year to year. This web-based in-house tool allows teachers to enter student scores (or for students to take concept inventories via the web) for pre- and post-test and gives histograms of results and analysis of normalized gain in each section and course for the year. Created with Django.
Spaghetti Bridge Truss Tester
When students in my engineering class learn about structural engineering, truss bridges are one obvious focus. There are a huge number of designs for bridge trusses, and I have students build trusses of different types out of spaghetti in order to test their strength and compare their failure modes. This truss tester allows us to measure the load size which will cause failure in each truss, and then students can calculate each truss's structural efficiency.