20/20 Vision for The Physics Classroom

Early January is one of those times of the year when we do a good deal of reflecting and planning about the future. We have to admit, our plans are usually overly-optimistic, but they are nonetheless our plans. And as plans, they fuel the activity that is to come. For this coming year, we have developed a 3-fold plan. We'd like to share it with you.

1.  Concept Builders - Version 2

Our Concept Builders have been a priority for some time. Over the last six months we have been quietly working on a project to upgrade the Concept Builders to "Version 2." The work has involved contracting with an outside agency for professional programming and advice. Version 2 Concept Builders will have the same functionality as the existing Concept Builders, except that they will include one added feature for those teachers and classrooms that opt in to the program. They will include the ability for teachers to create an account for themselves and their students. The account will allow them to "make assignments" with published due dates, view student progress, and print reports. For students, they will be able to view their assignments and have their progress tracked. If they complete the Apprentice Level at school, then that progress will be saved. When they continue working at home, they can continue working on Master and Wizard Levels. And once completed, their teacher will be able to view the entirety of their progress. 

We are about ready to roll the project out for all of our Physics Concept Builders. Chemistry Concept Builders will be rolled out shortly thereafter. We suspect that we will be ready to run our first trials sometime in January. We will hope to sign teachers up for the trials in masses by early February. Use of Version 2 Concept Builders will be Free up until August of 2020. As we approach the Fall term, the cost will be $50 per teacher per year for up to 50 students with additional students costing $1 per student. We encourage teachers to opt in during the free trial stage to evaluate the effectiveness of the program prior to the summer months.

2. Video. Video. Video.

Another one of our relatively quiet projects has been the inclusion of video at The Physics Classroom. We have started the video version of our Physics Classroom Tutorial. We will continue this development throughout the coming year. We currently have 44 videos and nearly three units completed. We hope to have 5-6 units completed by the start of the Fall term. We will continue working on this project throughout the 2020-2021 school year with the hopes of having it completed by the start of the 2021-2022 school year. 

But in addition to our Video Tutorial project, we plan to implement video into several other aspects of the website. For instance, we will use short 1-2 minute video clips to augment our written Tutorial. We hope to begin a Concept Builders series in which each Concept Builder is accompanied by a short video addressing the objective of that Concept Builder, thus providing video support for students working on the CBs. And if video works for the Concept Builders, it should also work for the Calculator Pad problems. In the end, we see ourselves creating lots of videos in 2020 ... and the years to follow.

3. Other Plans

Finally, sometime during the Fall of 2020 we hope to use our back-end Concept Builder database for other purposes. As we worked with the programmers of the outside firm, we recognized the importance of designing the database so that it could serve purposes that extend beyond the use of Concept Builders. We hope to begin experimenting in the Fall of 2020 with the use of teacher and student accounts for the Calculator Pad. With the back-end database, we will be able to randomize numbers in the problems at the Calculator Pad, evaluate student answers, and allow teachers to assign problems and view student progress records. And if that's successful, then we suspect that we will be able to use the same strategy for other sections of the website - like Minds On Physics the App, the Science Reasoning Center, and more. But that takes us way past 2020 and that's when our vision gets a little blurry. 

How Are We Going to Do All This?

Here's the exciting part! Our lead developer - Tom Henderson - is a full-time high school teacher. The Physics Classroom is his "second job" ... though Tom prefers to think of it as a passion rather than a job. In June of this year he will be taking an early retirement with the intent of working full-time on The Physics Classroom. Over the past 4-5 years, most of our efforts could be summarized as efforts to modernize the site ... one section at a time. The Physics Classroom is a very old website. By website standards, it should be dead by now ... if efforts were never made to update it. Tom's biggest frustration is that the website ages faster than he is able to update it. By working full-time on The Physics Classroom, Tom hopes to "catch up" on these modernizing efforts over the next few years. So in June, Tom will roll up his sleeves and go to work full-time on this "passion project". 

https://www.physicsclassroom.com