Girls in the Physics Classroom: A Teachers' Guide - Institute of Physics

3: Lessons from videos
his approaches to camera and an adviser from the Institute
of Physics comments on the success of the lesson. Barry
starts by asking the whole class the “How did you get to
school today?” question. He then conducts a lesson in
which he is rated by an unseen commentator on his application
of the five fab physics formulae.
Step two in the lesson is the question “What happens
when a car driver sees the brake lights come on in the car in
front?” Barry asks groups (which he has arranged as allboys
and all-girls) to discuss the question and then report
back. The concepts of thinking distance and braking distance
emerge from the exercise. The former is illustrated
with a reaction-time game in which selected students report
back to the class on the interactive whiteboard. During the
discussion of braking distance, Barry is shown to be open
to students’ ideas. This time the ideas are written on individual
whiteboards so that the teacher can check the
response of the whole class.
The class discussion of factors that might affect braking
distance leads into a session of group practical work. Barry
enjoys the moment when the students realise that he has
anticipated where their discussion would lead – he has all
of the equipment that they need. He explains his reasons for
single-sex groups for this work. The lesson comes to an
effective end when the conclusions of the class about how
speed relates to stopping distance are found to challenge
their initial predictions. Barry and the adviser both express
satisfaction at the outcome of this “ambitious” lesson,
while Barry acknowledges that there was some room for
improvement.
24 I NSTITUTE OF P HYSICS R EPORT G IRLS IN THE P HYSICS C LASSROOM: A T EACHERS’ GUIDE FOR A CTION D ECEMBER 2006