Trish Loeblein and Karen Fasimpaurphet.colorado.edu

Workshop Sponsored by P2PU July 11, 2012

Using PhET Interactive Simulations Live Discussion 1

Please mute your microphone in upper left corner

Salts and SolubilityAre you early? Check out this sim

• Q&A: How does the homework help be a collaborative learner?

• Address participants comments from homework.

• Give more info about sim design and best practices for use

• Explore the simulations and activities• Next homework: Ideas for planning use in

your environment – Watch for “Tasks”

Goals

How does the homework help be a collaborative learner?1. Get to know each other2. Explore some PhET resources

Chat or Raise your hand

Q&A

Some answers to comments

Next slides include more details than in “Replies” from online course Feel free to chat or raise your hand

• Trish — teaching chem, physics, math since 1981

• 7 years of PhET use in High School

Whose Trish?

• See “Using PhET simulation activities in High School Chemistry: Examples”

Experience with PhET

How can PhET be free?

National Science Foundation

The Hewlett Foundation

The O’Donnell Foundation

The University of Colorado

Carl Wieman & Sarah Gilbert

Corporate sponsors, schools, and individuals like you!

Who is PhET?

What makes these sims effective educational tools?

Beer’s Law Lab

Designed for Inquiry

Inviting, intuitive interface, usable without instructions

Highly interactive: instant animated feedback as students explore

Accurate, dynamic visual representations; show the invisible

Allow actions that would be difficult or impossible in the real world

Game-like environment Interface design that implicitly scaffolds inquiry

PhET design principles?

Initial designInitial design

InterviewsInterviews

RedesignRedesign

Final designFinal design

ResearchResearch

ClassroomsClassrooms

PhET design process?

Learning goalsLearning goals

Is the sim intuitive?

Do students find the controls?

Redesign

Before After

Can you spot the changes?

PhET’s goals for students?

Engage Engage

Learn Learn

Have Fun! Have Fun!

Take Ownership Take Ownership

Make Connections Make Connections

See Science as Accessible See Science as Accessible

PhET’s goals for teachers?

Student Centered Student Centered

Multi-Level Goals Multi-Level Goals

Value Student Ideas Value Student Ideas

Engage with Students Engage with Students

Encourage and Guide Inquiry Encourage and Guide Inquiry

Build On Student Prior Knowledge Build On Student Prior Knowledge

Research behind sims?

Acid-Base Solutions

How can an activity affect student interaction with the sim?

Three different activitiesG

uida

nce

A3: HeavyIn the “Solutions” section of the control panel, select “Strong Acid.” Record the equation.

A2: MediumUse the “Introduction” tab to compare strong and weak acid solutions. Describe all the ways that the solutions are similar and different.

A1: LightExplore the sim. Make sure to investigate all of the factors that affect the pH of a solution.

Guidance affects interactionG

uida

nce

Sim

Inte

racti

on

clicks per minute

More guidance = less exploration

Dunked pH paper

Completed circuit

Dunked pH meter

Selectedbase

Showedsolvent

See “SEI Resources on Instruction”

Salts and Solubility

Activity design – your thoughts

Keep BigBlueButton open -Play with this sim for 4 minutes. Listen to be called back for discussion

Designing inquiry activities

Add 100 silver bromide pairs to the water. How many silver and bromide ions dissolve in the water? Repeat this for all salts.

Investigate different salts. What features do salts have in common, and how do salts differ from each other?

What will students be doing and learning?

Specific learning goals Students reason and make sense Connect to students’ knowledge & experiences Collaborative activities Minimal directions Students self-check understanding

Research based inquiry strategies

Next homework: Check out phet.colorado.edu for more PhET Advice for Inquiry

• Context and activity are very important!

How might you use PhET sims?

• Start with 5-10 minute open play– Establish student ownership of the sim

• Minimize or eliminate “sim-specific directions”

• Use open, investigative questions

Tips for productive inquiry

Set the acid concentration to 0.010 M …

Explore all the things that

affect pH.

• Get activities online– Over 500 activities– Open-use license: Creative Commons – Attribution– Gold stars align with PhET strategies

PhET activity database

• Write your own activities and share– Posting to the database is easy and helps other

teachers– Combine existing activities or write from scratch to

address your learning goals

Thanks for participating!

• Visit us on the web – http://phet.colorado.edu– Watch for new sims– Download handouts from today– Contribute a teaching activity

• Contact us – phethelp@colorado.edu– Suggest new sim topics– Report bugs

• Keep in touch

Explore the sims and tasks

See you next Wednesday for another live discussion