Please download the PDF version of this lesson plan to view comments and connections.
Topic: Force and Motion Physics 11 Time: 4-5 Hours
Big Idea (Students will understand): Newton’s three laws of motion describe the relationship between force and motion.
Prior Knowledge: students understood the basics of Newton’s three laws of motion in Grade six. In Physics 11 and 12 students will understand these concepts in depth(evidence of spiral learning built in our curriculum). Force and Motion unit cannot be completed in one day as there is a lot of content to cover. Thus, we will pick one topic- balanced and unbalanced forces- Free body diagrams from the unit and do a lesson. During this whole unit, Newton’s three laws of motion and other basic concepts are going to be used again and again. However, with each lesson, complexity of the word problems, labs, and projects is going to increase. Thus, this whole unit needs spiral instruction so that before starting each lesson, the previous lesson is reviewed properly to scaffold the student learning.
- Lesson 1 – Newton’s First Law of Motion
- Lesson 2 – Force and Its Representation
- The Meaning of Force
- Types of Forces
- Drawing Free-Body Diagrams (We are focusing on this)
- Determining the Net Force (We are focusing on this)
- Lesson 3 – Newton’s Second Law of Motion
- Newton’s Second Law (We are focusing on this)
- The Big Misconception (We are focusing on this)
- Finding Acceleration (We are focusing on this)
- Finding Individual Forces (We are focusing on this)
- Free Fall and Air Resistance
- Double Trouble
- Lesson 4 – Newton’s Third Law of Motion
Note: Please click on the links to find the content of highlighted topics.
Core competencies to cultivate 21st-century skills: students will generate hypothesis’, make predictions, and test their predictions. Throughout the process, they will communicate their understanding in any modality while respecting the audience. The demonstration of involvement, collaboration, and mutual respect during the lesson will foster positive personal and social identity. This unit is also an inquiry-based unit, where critical and creative thinking is an essential part of the learning experience to be successful.
1. Connect and Attend: (60-80 minutes)
Teacher’s Role – Motivator and Witness, Method-discussion, Question to be answered – Why?
The objective is to allow the learners to enter into the experience, to engage them, and to integrate the experience with personal meaning. Thus teacher will try to create an engaging experience for students asking some questions relevant to their daily life. The teacher can still do the chair demo where teacher can ask a few students to sit on a chairs and ask other students to pull the chair without making the student fall. It is possible that the students will fall, or he/she will apply equal and opposite force to counterbalance the gravity (make certain that classroom environment is safe, caring and respectful. Students must not laugh at each other). Students will come up with similar examples from their daily life.
In this section, students will draw upon their past experiences and in-class demonstrations to answer the following question one more time via a group dialogue-
- What is the difference between motion caused by balanced forces and motion caused by unbalanced forces?
- How balanced and unbalanced forces are evident in your life?
- How can you represent balanced and unbalanced forces in pictures?
Students can record their reflections in a google doc/blog/Padlet wall. They can also click pictures of their hand-written work and post on any online platform.
In attend stage, students may play around with PhET simulation experiments to understand how balanced and unbalanced forces can be represented with the help of vectors. Teachers can download inquiry lab worksheets from PhET website.
Content (Students will know): What is a free body diagram and how do we draw a free body diagram.
Curricular competencies (Students will do): Questioning and predicting, Communicating
2. Image and Inform: (60-80 minutes)
Teacher’s Role – Conceptualizer and “Teacher”, Method – Imaging and direct instruction, Question to be answered – What?
It is the place where they link their personal, subjective experience with the objective, analytic world of the content at hand. Students will now move to deep reflection. Thus, they will focus on understanding balanced and unbalanced forces and use free body diagrams to solve the word problems. The teacher may provide systematic direct instruction supplemented with enough real word examples and visuals.The lesson may look like-
I do (10-15 minutes) Teacher solves 1-2 word problems for the students.
We do (10-15 minutes) Teacher and students together solve 1-2 problems or until maximum students feel comfortable to solve the word problems independently.
You do (30-40 minutes) Students will solve 5-10 word problems without minimum to no help.
Exit slip(10 minutes) Teacher will assess their understanding by giving them a word problem as an exit slip. Students can upload their solution on any agreed upon online platform at the end of the class. This step will help the teacher to design next lesson with proper scaffolding.
Content(Students will know): Students will learn to solve free-body diagram word problems.
Curricular competencies(Students will do): Processing and analyzing data and information
3. Practice and Extend: (60-80 minutes)
Teacher’s Role – Resource and coach, Method – Facilitation, Question to be answered – How does this work?
Students will do a small quiz to test their understanding. In the quiz, the teacher will design some questions that will address the common misconceptions (The Big Misconception). Clicker/Plicker question/answer session instead of a traditional quiz is better to figure out the common misconceptions among students and provide scaffolding. After mastering the basics of free body diagrams and balanced and unbalanced forces, this step will challenge their understanding (to create disequilibrium). Students will be motivated to explore further to make everything clear in their brain.
Content (Students will know): Addressing the misconceptions of Newton’s laws
Curricular-competencies: (Students will do): Evaluation, applying and innovating
Refine and Perform: (60-80 minutes to perform)– unlimited time to explore outside the classroom)
Teacher’s Role – Evaluator/Re-mediator and Co-Celebrator, Method – Evaluation and Self – Discovery, Question to be answered – What If?
Refine is the step where the learners are asked to analyze what they have planned as their “proof” of learning. This analysis should be based on:
Students will design real life labs/games/simulated labs/projects (situated learning experience) of their choice on Newton’s laws of motion under teacher supervision and guidance. They will get timely peer and teacher feedback, along with feedback from involved community members. The feedback on their project may help get proper scaffolding to improve the projects further. During the performance, the teacher may invite other teachers, admin, and community to showcase students’ success. Along with that, students need to reflect upon their learning in their project reports.
Content (Students will know): Nothing new
Curricular competencies(Students will do): Communicating, Planning and conducting, performing
Please click on this “Read More” button to explore the content of Newton’s laws of motion in depth.
Assessment and Ed Tech tools: please see Assessment page to explore more about possible assessments, rubrics, and EdTech tools.
_____________________________________________________________________________
References
4MAT Lesson Plans. (2016). Retrieved August 10, 2016, from http://www.4mationweb.com/4mationweb/4mation.php
Building Student Success BC’s new curriculum. (2015). Retrieved 12 August 2016, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/10-12/science/en_s_11_phy.pdf
Forces and Motion. (2016). PhET. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/legacy/forces-and-motion
Newton’s Laws. (2016). Physicsclassroom.com. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Physics-Tutorial/Newton-s-Laws