Memories are stronger when we are able to connect a new experience to a prior one. The concept of “just in time telling” leverages this idea. Rather than dumping a bunch of new information on students, we recognize that students will be able to do more with the new information when we tell them the answer at just the right time.
Curricula in which students are engaged in activities to “discover for themselves” often gets a bad rap from the science of learning community. However, when experiences are paired with the just-in-time telling afterwards, the results are more robust than either method alone. In fact, if we are only lecturing our students are greatly limited by the amount of sense they can make due to their lack of background knowledge. This is often touted as the reason why constructivist learning is a problem, however when the activities are carefully selected and followed by just in time telling, we have provided students the background knowledge in an experience that permits us to then provide a lecture through which they can then make more meaning!
You’ve likely done this before in some context for students. Demos frequently take this experiential role. But what if we made experience before telling the cornerstone of our work? What if we viewed experiences not just as “fun demos” but as critical components to the learning cycle?
Here again is where I am going to sing the praises of the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) curriculum because it does exactly this! (In ISLE it’s called “Time for Telling”)
During the learning cycle for uniform circular motion students engage in a series of experiments. The first are observational experiments: get a bowling ball moving in a circle on the floor, swing a force sensor in a vertical circle and observe the force readings for the tension in the string, make a constant velocity buggy move in a circle. When I do this with students the next step is to ask them to represent and reason based on their observations. In this case, I ask them to sketch the force diagrams and look for patterns.
One of the key features in this sequence of activities is that the experiences chosen are very carefully constructed to be precise and matched to the intended learning outcomes. At the end of this series of experiments we do, indeed just tell students that in order to move in a circle we require an unbalanced force AND that force is directed towards the center of the circle. I provide my students with the following page for their notes (modeled after notes from Building Thinking Classrooms)
Students are indeed told the correct physics, but since it is after engaging in experiences, the memories should be more robust. This work is then also paired with the elaborative interrogation of the textbook that evening to prepare for the following day.
Today I challenge you to think of one topic where you have started the class by “just telling them”. What is an experiment that students could engage with prior to telling them?
A word of caution: As you take on this exercise I want to strongly discourage you from falling into the “trick your students” trap. A classic example of this is setting up the projectile demo where one ball drops straight to the floor while the other is launched horizontally. Many teachers set this demo up at the beginning of projectiles, ask students to make a prediction, they pretty much all guess wrong, we run the demo and say “aha!”. If we want to create a classroom of belonging, its important to take advantage of any opportunity to provide our students with recognition. In order to create an experience that will enrich our student minds, build their knowledge and support their self-perception, the experiences must be carefully chosen and scaffolded so that the answer we need is the answer we are going to obtain from our students. This typically requires students to engage in data collection in some way, even if that data collection is visual (such as dropping beanbags behind a rolling bowling ball, or observing the direction of an applied force).
The skeleton for this blog series has been the book The ABCs of How We Learn by Daniel Schwartz, Jessica Tsang and Kristen Blair at Stanford. As I am doing my prep work for my blog series where I include and adapt the ideas within my physics classroom there are a few chapters that don’t quite have a 1:1 connection. In the original book, the authors write chapter I for Imaginative Play. The research is a bit on the weaker side (causation or correlation?) and is focused on the youngest students and their social dynamics. Although we could absoultely discuss the ideas of imagination and creativity in the physics classroom (consider the utilization of movies like Interstellar, or the discussions that launch units in OpenSci ed, for example) I’m going to make the decision to stick to the strategies that I feel most confident discussion. So here I diverge from the text and we will discuss Interleaving.
Interleaving simply means that students are engaging in activities that require them to problem-solve out of the order in which they were taught and/or by jumping around in terms of ideas/topics within a practice set. By requiring students to retrieve from a variety of topics/skills, students create even stronger neural networks in their brain which leads to stronger retention and comprehension.
For example, perhaps you have a homework set that looks like this: 4 balanced force questions, 4 unbalanced force questions where the object is speeding up and 4 unbalaned force questions where the object is slowing down. Interleaved practice would jumble these questions up.
Another example of interleaving is that perhaps students are currently learning about momentum but on a particular problem they are asked to calculate force from a force diagam, then determine the impulse and solve for the change in kinetic energy. In this case students are interleaving entire topics.
The value of interleaving is at its best when implementing similar problems (in terms of deep structure, which may look like different topics on the surface). This allows students to begin to focus on the problem solving structure, rather than the algorithm, and they can begin to notice subtle differences.
AP problems are often a great example of interleaving. Very often students need to pull from multiple units in order to complete the problem. Recently I provided students with this momentum practicum challenge as part of their AP review. The physical task was modeled after an old FRQ, but students were not initially aware of this fact. Students rolled a happy and sad ball down a hotwheel track where the ball collides with a block at the end of the track which falls to the floor.
Students are asked to do the following:
Make a claim: Which ball will result in the wooden block traveling farthest (this should be physics-ly correct)
Gather some evidence and quantify as much as possible. The more things you can quantify (momentum, energy, force, velocity etc) the more points you get!
Reasoning/Discussion: Does your evidence support your claim? Explain in detail why or why not. For every quantity you measured or calculated you should be able to explain how that piece of evidence supports or refutes your claim! It is possible that you evidence does not support your claim. If it doesn’t examine your videos carefully and look for anything that happened that we were not anticipating.
To “level up the spiciness” students are asked to find a different way to find the ratio of distances. I provide students a hint to drop the balls vertically. The goal here is to investigate with energy methods.
The last level includes the following prompt: The balls rolled down the track and you should have determined the velocity of the ball at the bottom. Assuming the balls are solid spheres (moment of inertia 2/5MR2) determine how much energy was lost on the track from the top of the track to the bottom.
In this final challenge students are using energy and rotation.
For the “glass of milk” I have students work through the original FRQ and link it up with the practicum they just completed.
This example takes advantage of a number of previously mentioned strategies. In addition to the interleaving we have engaged students in a hands on exercise that ultimately leads to working through a problem with feedback.
The Information Processing Model for memory is an incredibly important foundation for establishing much of the what and how around teaching strategies.
We begin with the sensory input… the words on this page, the hum of my air conditioning, the sound of my typing, the sound of my husband reading to my son, the motorcycle that just passed by. The edge of my sleeve is a bit damp from washing my face a few minutes ago which feels a bit tight and needs moisturizer and my foot itches. All of these are inputs into my sensory memory, and my brain makes decisions about what I will attend to. I will typically ignore most of the sensations as I’m writing in order to focus on the task at hand. The words that I’m writing, and where I plan do go with this post are living in my short term memory. Meanwhile, I am simulaneously retrieving knowledge from my long term memory about this topic, while also reviewing certain details and aspects so I can correctly quote them here. Writing this post requires all parts of my memory: working, long term, retrieval and rehearsal.
The same is true when students are engaged in the learning process, and it is something we must be particularly attuned to.
When we learn something new and we have a way to connect it to prior knowledge, we are engaging in elaboration which provides us with some additional pathways to access when the time comes to retrieve the information.
I recall when I was taking AP psychology and the teacher warned us that the biopsych unit was often difficult for students due to the amount of vocabulary required. I can also still recall the various ways in which I attempted to elaborate in order to remember the terms we were given. For example, I can still retrieve that the cerebellum is responsible for fine motor movements and balance. My elaboration? It’s the cere-BELLE-um and Belle was a beautiful and graceful dancer.
Making connections like this is one way we can elaborate. For example, I will tell my students they can remember that a CONcave is also known as a CONverging mirror. Many of us are familiar with remembering that velocity is a vector while speed is a scalar. Velocity vs speed is often the first place we make the distinction between vector and scalar quantities and they convienently start with the same letters.
But elaboration does not need to be confined to definitions. We use elaboration in science classrooms quite often if we are asking our students how, why and making connections! This is referred to as elaborative interrogation. Elaborative interrogation is about asking questions to make those connections between ideas.
One of the features of the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) I found truly appealing is the use of the textbook. Unlike a traditional textbook, Etkina’s Exploring and Applying Physics engages readers with the experiments which were hopefully conducted in class and the text is meant to elaborate on those experiences. Additionally, students are expected to engage in an interrogation of the text, which then becomes elaborative interrogation. Rather than passively reading, students are taught to read the text by asking questions about the claims, “why is this true” seeing if the reasoning makes sense, and actively connecting the material to what was presented in class. It is also teaching students to behave like scientists because this is the way in which a scientist would read an article or paper while making a discerning judgement about the content they are reading.
I recently heard an eduinfluencer make the claim that teachers can only name and describe 3 evidence based strategies they use in their classroom. Challenge accepted. Each day I’m working through the book The ABCs of How We Learn and pairing a strategy with physics content/activities in my classroom.
Contrasting cases is about noticing the difference between two or more examples that seem the same at a glance.
That core learning mechanic should absolutely scream physics problems to you!
Acceleration is a FANTASTIC example of the benefit of contrasting cases. Students frequently come to us believing the following to be true:
“Acceleration” describes speeding up only
“Positive acceleration” describes speeding up while “negative acceleration” describes slowing down
“If an object’s velocity is zero, its acceleration must be zero because it has stopped”
How do we help unlodge these incomplete conceptions in our physics students? If we could “just tell them” then it wouldn’t be a problem. However, these ideas are engrained deeply in students, and they need another way to approach the idea.
In the Investigative Science Learning Curriculum students conduct several observational experiments using a bowling ball. We drop a mark (bean bag for example) at equal time intervals as the ball rolls. Students copy the resulting pattern and then construct motion maps. This is how we begin to make sense of velocity change, acceleration and force.
The contrasting cases, in this instance, are the diagrams themselves.
Through a simple series of activities, we can build the ideas that constant velocity is not the absence of force, but the absence of an unbalanced force. Accelerations happen due to unbalanced forces and the direction of the acceleration is the direction of the unbalanced force.
We do a similar task shortly thereafter with an object that is accelerated vertically. When I review the material, I specifically grab the set of activities shown below. In the top two cases, the bob is experiencing upward motion. However, we see the change in velocity is different due to the difference in accelerations.
Next, I have students compare the top and bottom experiement (4 and 6). In both of these instances the delta v (acceleration) is directed upwards, however these both describe two very different motions, up and speeding up, and down while slowing down).
Again, while I could certainly just tell them, there is a lot more power to students constructing the diagrams based on their observations and then we can look for patterns and we can look at the fine details in contrasting cases. We can then use these details in the contrasting cases to more deeply understand the concept. We are also doing something incredibly critical for our students in the science classroom. We are teaching them to argue with evidence. That their answers and assumptions about how the world works need to be grounded in evidence over feeling and intuition. I would argue that fact is far more important than any piece of content they remember 10 years from now.
I recently heard an eduinfluencer make the claim that teachers can only name and describe 3 evidence based strategies they use in their classroom. Challenge accepted. Each day I’m working through the book The ABCs of How We Learn and pairing a strategy with physics content/activities in my classroom.
Alumni Speak with current junior students, Fall 2023
In the physics world there is a sizable body of research on belonging in physics, and another related body on how that belonging relates to success. Women continue to be underrepresented in physics and so this has been of particular interest to me. As my career progressed I began to understand more deeply the true weight of belonging in physics as it relates to so many different positionalities.
One of the most critical contributors to persistence in STEM is a STEM identity, and that identity is a collection of factors and includes belonging. Threats to belonging include stereotype threat and imposter syndrome, but recognition is one of the strongest mitigating factors. In short, when I think of belonging, I think of two complementary parts: creating a space where students can see themselves as scientists by seeing others like them as scientists, and secondly opportunities for recognition from both myself and peers.
I think most teachers might lump this into “building relationships” with students, but creating a classroom of belonging requires true effort and intentionality.
This is a difficult post to write succinctly, as it could easily be several books worth of content and materials, so I’ll share some of the activities that link directly to belonging.
Early on in the school year I implement STEPUPs Physics Careers Lesson in which students take a short survey and then are “matched” with people who have a degree in physics but do a whole variety of jobs. The critical component of this lesson is where students build their own bio imagining they completed a physics degree prior to their job of choice. I’ve also taught lessons from the Underrepresentation Curriculum Project so we can speak directly to the problems and stereotypes in physics.
During COVID I got the idea of “identity encounters” where students watched a video interview of a contemporary physicist from an underrepresented group talk about their work, success and challenges.
I really like Kelly OShea’s “Being Smart in a Physics Class“. This year, not only did I have students shout each other out, but I read these aloud for students in class.
Using plenty of activities with low floor, high ceiling and multiple entry points are also a way to ensure the content-specific activities are designed in such a way that anyone can belong. A good example of these activities include cart sorts, but along that note I also firmly believe that physics curriculum such as the Modeling curriculum and the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) are critical contributors to belonging as well. When students are simply asked to find patterns based on carefully crafted observational experiments, we provide students opportunities to see for themselves that they are capable as scientists.
While our content is important to us, we miss the opportunity for the deepest and longest lasting gains in our students if we neglect our students’ sense of belonging.
I returned from doing work at the district office to a disaster.
My students were supposed to take their “check-in” (that’s what I call quizzes because their function is to literally check in on student learning) and at first glance I was walking into a mess.
Students should of had enough time to finish the two problems, however the vast majority of my class had half of the assessment blank.
I started looking at the students who finished.
Only three.
All three had done great!
But I have 30 students in this class. Not good.
At first, I will admit I was really upset for a number of reasons.
So I started planning what we were going to do. When I looked more closely at the assessment I noticed that about two thirds of the class was actually doing pretty ok, they just needed more time. Regardless of the fact that I felt strongly that they had enough time, I couldn’t argue the evidence that what was complete was good.
The students who had not done anything beyond opening the assessment were the same ones who have been disengaging with the material and straight up refusing to attempt. As much as I was frustrated that this was on the student (because, after all, my other class is flying and the students who are doing things every day are succeeding). I took a deep breath and regrouped.
What if I made it tactile?
We’ve been working on multiple representations for momentum. So I made up little squares to represent units of momentum. I made a set of red and blue (for each car) and added labels for 1 kg across the bottom and 1 m/s upward.
Sample of cards. This could represent a 2kg and a 1kg object stuck together post-collision moving at 2 m/s
Within table groups I assigned group roles that I borrowed from Marta Stoeckel (check out her article with Kelly OShea!) and then also added a task, one representation needed to be done by each student in the group on the large white board and then they were all responsible for doing it on their own paper.
Step by step we worked through the original problem in small groups. Since I had reduced my “class size” to eight, I was able to give the students with the most need all the attention they needed while the rest of my class completed their assigned tasks.
One of the cool features, aside from students commenting that they liked placing the blocks, was that it allowed us to discuss the limitations of using discrete blocks. In the assessment problem the final velocity was 3.6 m/s, so while I had some students show 22 blocks, demonstrating they understood that the total momentum was constant, they had uneven heights for an inelastic collision. It’s better, then, to just label height and width and go from there.
By the end of the hour everyone was happy.
My three students who did great were given this handout. They were asked to come to consensus and then reflect on their gaps/needs. I checked in with them at the end and they were able to communicate confidence and what they needed.
The large group felt satisfied that they had the chance to go back into their assessment. When I went back in to review the work I found that their performance matched my previous hour, even though they take more time.
The small groups were kind of amazing. Most of these students had been really checked out, but this small shift got pretty much everyone fully on board and verbalizing that they understood what was happening. In order to make up for the assessment, a second problem was on the backside of the worksheet for them to do independent of my help.
At the end of the day I reflected on how the only reason I was able to do this on the fly is due to the fact that I’ve been teaching for a long time. This was a new-to-me activity (although I’ve set up differentiated groups like this before) but at the same time this was effectly three different lesson plans in the same space. Elementary teachers might laugh at my overwhelm, but the reality is that teachers (all of us) are simply not given the kind of time required to plan high quality experiences for our students. This also shows how important data is in our work. Data can allow us to be a bit more objective in our judgements, moving from “they didn’t do anything” to “what else could I try to fill their needs?”
This job is challenging, but it wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t!
“Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” Hamilton the Musical
I continue to reflect a great deal after the AAPT winter meeting this year. This year we are celebrating 40 years of the Physics Teaching Resource Agents and Karen Jo Matsler gave one of the plenaries. During her talk I couldn’t help be realize the legacy that I’m connected to as a physics teacher.
Karen Jo Matsler Recognized with AAPT’s 2025 Melba Newell Phillips Medal
One of the most bittersweet encounters is that with a well-loved teacher who is retiring. Over the course of a 35 year career that teacher has potentially impacted as many as 5000 of their own students, and that excludes the many more they may have impacted through extra curriculars. The best teachers become legends in their communities, and as those students grow into adults they continue to share the stories about how their teacher made a difference. I know I continue to do the same to this day.
But when a teacher retires from a school, their legacy is rarely left in the building longer than a year. A new teacher fills their place and within a single year the program either shifts into a new entity, or, in some cases, is completely decimated.
The very real truth about teaching is that although teachers leave an impact that lasts forever on their students, there is no legacy left in the very place where they poured all of that work and love.
However, that does not mean that there is no place for teachers to leave a legacy.
It is in the professional societies that legacy lives on.
I saw this while listening to Karen Jo’s plenary. Slides filled with photos of activities, demos and labs that I grew up believing were specific to the teachers in my area. No, it wasn’t that. Many of those teachers were also involved with PTRA. They brought their learning back and forth from PTRA, AAPT and their local communities.
I saw this in an interactive session I attended. At the end of the presentation I was in the back with two college faculty and one shared that she loved seeing this presentation, shared as the teacher’s own, which originated from the work of Alan Van Heuvlan. We proceeded to talk about how Alan was her adviser.
I saw this when Duane Merrill offered a presentation about creating community around “Phood, Physics and Phun”, which is also the tagline for Chicago Physics Northwest meetings.
I encounter this with nearly every conversation at AAPT, especially those who are near retirement. Each of us was inspired by someone who came before us, someone who brought us in, pushed us forward, encouraged us to grow and learn and lead.
And the memory of these educators lives on. It lives through the stories that go along with the demonstrations and the activities. It lives through the work that continues to excite and engage others in teaching. Professional societies are not only the spaces that allow current educators to network, connect, receive support and grow. They are the spaces that house the professional legacies of educators, not just as inspirational teachers, but as exemplary professionals in their craft.
Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here. Do you know so and so? Let me introduce you. You should give a presentation about that idea; I would love to hear more.
These three simple statements were something that I came to believe were a norm of the physics teacher community. Early in my career I took for granted just how transformative they are, and how special the community I had entered was. It’s because of this that I find myself frequently repeating these same words over and over at events like our national meetings. Unlike other aspect within our community, I’m not sure there’s a particular person these can be tied to, yet everyone has a story about an individual person who pushed them forward in the community. I’ve seen the great power of these simple three sentences
Welcome to the community, I’m so glad that you’re here
When it’s your first time at a large conference like AAPT, it can be so easy to feel isolated. A large conference is a large undertaking. You have to arrange a great deal of finances, rearrange your schedule, arrange for substitute teachers and lesson plans, and it can be defeating to do all of this work just to feel alone at the conference. What was the point? Hearing, “I’m so glad you’re here” makes it inevitable for a smile to spread infectiously from one person to the next.
“Have you met so and so? Let me introduce you”
This weekend I met one of my student’s professors!
So many of us are quick to say that the reason we come back meeting after meeting after meeting is because of the community. In order to form community, you naturally need to have more than one person as a familiar face.
Engaging in conversations with others with a true curiosity to learn about the other person does a few things. First, when we engage others with curiosity they immediately feel valued! It’s actually been researched, the more a person engages positively with others, the more positively viewed they are by others! It seems simple, but as in all relationships, creating a strong community is about building up others, not trying to make ourselves look impressive. The second piece is that if we lead with true curiosity, we may find ourselves easily connecting members of the community with one another, bringing them in. I’ve witnessed this and participated in this first hand on so many occasions, I find myself eager to engage in opportunities for helping others connect.
You should give a presentation about that idea; I would love to hear more.
Without a long CV to create for a tenure dossier, high school teachers don’t necessarily have a specific, extrinsic motivator to give a presentation at a conference. Add to that these national conferences can create huge waves of intimidation and imposter syndrome. “What do I possibly have to offer?” a teacher asks themselves. “Everyone knows so much more than me” or “I’m sure they’ve seen this before”. Of course, as I’ve learned and many others have learned, it’s simply not true. Telling someone that an idea that they have from a casual conversation should be presented at a conference is validating and empowering. And when that presentation happens? It creates one of the strongest positive feedback loops you can gain from community. Quickly, you find yourself presenting out of a desire to give back to the community that has given so much.
“Hi. Welcome to the community. I’m so glad you’re here.” Now there’s joy across my face.
“Have you met so and so? Let me introduce you” Now I have someone with whom I can relate and possibly co-create.
“That’s such a great idea. I’d love to hear more about it. You should present it.” I gain the confidence to get up in front of my peers share my ideas, and it results at a positive feedback loop where people ask questions and come up to me and tell me that they liked my idea.
After those three questions have been answered, and after you’ve been the one presenting, now it’s your turn. It’s your second, third, fourth time presenting at the conference. Are you asking those questions?
So glad to see you. Have you met so and so? I hope you present that I want to learn more.
This is how our community grows, and it’s how each of us is able to grow within our community.
I’ve been awarded the Presidential Award in Excellence for Math and Science Teaching for 2023!
We all received an email notification this afternoon from the NSF and the White House published the press release. Over 300 educators were recognized today as they finally attended to the backlog from 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Some of us are wondering based on the language of the email if we are going to get a DC trip, especially since the Biden administration has made the announcement as he prepares his exit from the White House.
I started documenting the journey shortly after I submitted my application, mostly to give myself an outlet. Today I can publish it!
It’s February 20, 2023 as I begin this draft...
I have no idea, at this point, if I will post this, because who wants to hear about an incomplete journey or one that never arrives at the destination?
I’m in waiting for my PAEMST application to be evaluated at the state level.
I’ve noticed a number of previous awardees documented their journey, so I figure why not? If for no other reason than for myself and this post can sit in drafts.
August 1st, 2022 – Applications Open
I got the email from PAEMST and saw it immediately because I was sitting in a chair at the University of Illinois participating in the IPaSS program. I started the process to begin my application and within a few hours my twitter friend and 2019 awardee Jeremy sends me this message. It’s important to note that I might not have actually gone through with the whole process had it not been for Jeremy reaching out. It was a small gesture of validation that this process was worth it. We chat a bit about a possible lesson (I already have one in mind). I don’t leave UIUC before asking one of the post-docs if at her visit she could also record me for the purposes of my application. We set a date and I mostly don’t touch the application.
Monday October 10th – Lesson Day
Today is the day of the recording! I actually forgot and didn’t bother to wear anything extra nice or style my hair. I know I’m going to regret this later. Unfortunately the only video that turns out is 8th hour. Fortunately I still have one to use. That night I start writing my narrative based on what I can remember from earlier that day
Later that week I ask for my references. In addition to a follow up with my principal, I send one to Annie Baddoo, the coordinator for the education pathway programs at Rockford University and Maggie Mahmood, the coordinator for IPaSS.
My principal passes the letter off to the assistant principal we hired in August.
Sometime between November and December…
I’m pounding out the narrative on my couch, often working on it to procrastinate other things like grading. I reach out to get a mentor, but I hear nothing back. I contact the general PAEMST email and still hear nothing from my state coordinator. I find my state coordinator’s real email and email her there and the generic PAEMST. After this point the amazing Natalie Johnson, our math coordinator, reaches out to me. We have a wonderful phone conversation. I send her recommendations to my letter writers and hone in on my own writing. I get connected with a mentor who reads my application and says it looks great. Unsatisfied (sigh… perfectionism…) I start looking up previous winners in Illinois and decide to reach out to the 2019 winner. She agrees to read my narrative.
January
I’m anxious because as far as I’m concerned I’m just DONE with the whole process. I send follow up emails to my remaining letter writers. Tanya gets back to me with some actionable feedback. I rewrite my resume so I can actually fit everything on it. It’s a crazy editing process to maximize your space. I’m wishing my name was “Mia Kim” so my name wouldn’t use so many characters on the rec letters (that seems… inequitable?) Basically I’m panicking about anything that could be panicked about. One of the requirements for the application is a letter of recommendation from your “building principal”. The building principal has the ability to assign the rec letter to someone else, but according to the PAEMST info folks, you, the applicant, cannot list anyone other than the building principal.
In highly diverse and underfunded districts its not uncommon to have high turnover rates. I have been at my current building for 7 years and have seen no less than 15 different administrators come through. The 2022-2023 team is entirely new except for the building principal. When I sent my second request to her for the letter she asked my new evaluating principal to write it. This created an obvious amount of anxiety as he had not yet learned who I was. I drafted an email that outlined my involvement and reach within and outside of the district so he could craft that into a letter. In my opinion this was really unfair to him, but that’s just what happens in some places.
February
I finally meet with my assistant principal about my rec letter and submit my application on February 5th, just 24 hours before the deadline. After I hit the button my colleague pops in and immediately asks “what’s wrong” to which I respond “nothing”. Unconvinced he asks again, “what is wrong” I explain that truly nothing is wrong, I’ve just submitted this application I’ve been working on for the past 6 months! It’s relieving and nerve-wracking at the same time.
February to March must have been some of the worst because after obsessing daily for six months suddenly there was nothing to do but wait. In the meantime I cranked out a bunch of blog posts and an article for Edutopia. It was time to really focus on the Master’s course I was teaching that semester and my family.
March
On March 2nd I ran across the timeline that explicitly stated state finalists are determined by March 10th. Later that day I received an interruption to my 7th hour class. One of the admin walks in with a sizable edible arrangement.
My students, of course, joke that I have a secret admirer. I open the note and it’s from the PAEMST Illinois team, thanking me for applying to the program! Believe me this is NOT what my nerves need at this point!
My mind immediately goes to negative thoughts: “well, obviously they only had 3 or fewer applicant this year because these arrangements are $60, if I become a finalist it’s just because no one applied….. this arrangement is a consolation prize for all the work but none of the glory…. let’s be honest, if I get anything it’s just because I followed the directions and the rubric.”
I’m still unsure what my motivation for going through the process is anyway. I’m not seeking attention by any means, in fact the only people who know I’m applying are my rec writers, my closest colleague and my twitter family. I’m pretty sure there’s a part of me seeking validation and redemption after the trauma of my early years teaching. Not making the finalists will just confirm that I’m exactly the kind of teacher I believe myself to be: not quite enough yet.
March 8, 2023
At 6:27am I’m sitting on the couch drinking my coffee and post the daily countdown to March 10th.
I head to school as usual and I’m setting up for my AP Physics C students to learn circuits at the ungodly hour of 8:05am (Physics C at 8am is the absolute worst, by the way.)
At 8:00 my watch is buzzing as my phone rings and I see in all caps TARA BELL. I know that Tara is the science state coordinator so I’m assuming it’s good news.
“Hello?”
“Hi this is Tara Bell”
“Hi”
“How are you doing today?” (oh my god can you just tell me already?)
“Fine thanks” (my response when I really don’t want to know how you are as well.
And then she shares that the committee met last night and I’ve been selected as a finalist! She also shares that the committee was “very impressed with your application” (and I wonder if that’s just a thing they say or if it’s genuine in regard to my application vs what they’ve read before”). She also shares that they will be sending my feedback soon so I can get a jump on the addendum.
I jump out of my chair to tell my next-door chem collegue and… he’s not in the room. So I run down the hall to the workroom, bursting with excitement. No one else in the room has a clue what I’m talking about because I’ve kept it under wraps for the last six months. Next I text my husband and my siblings. But now it’s 8:04 and I have to teach!
I kept trying to get a hold of my mom (who also didn’t know about it) during my entire two preps, calling every 15-30 minutes. I realize that if she ever looks at her phone she’s going to think I’ve died, so I text her “if you see your phone before you see dad it’s good news” because I eventually got a hold of dad.
Later that afternoon I received the feedback from the state. I was actually still suprised I made it as a finalist [enter bad thoughts] because I earned the following scores: 3, 4, 3, 3, 4. The dimensions are weighted x7, x6, x5, x4, x3 so even though I earned the highest score on the last dimension, it has the smallest weight. I know that if I want a chance on the national level I need to bring those 3’s up to 4’s. Fortunately there’s a lot of strong feedback for every category… except the first one!
March 11
I created a twitter DM chat with a handful of finalists of folks I’ve followed plus a few more I’ve started talking to in the process. Scott adds a few more folks. We loosely talk about our state feedback. On Tuesday NSF holds a zoom for all of the finalists to discuss the addendum.
March 18
Scott finally puts forth that we start looking at each other’s work. An email chain is built and we start sharing our applications, state coordinator feedback and our proposed addenda. This is by far the most meaningful part of the entire process, even though it’s the one with the shortest turnaround time! It’s so great to actually read through each other’s work and see what a state finalist looks like. I quickly learn that the actual scores you earned from your state coordinators are somewhat meaningless. In our group I would probably give one application perfect 4’s across the board, even though many earned that score. Otherwise the rest of our applications are fairly comparable which makes sense given how motivated we all are to succeed.
April
I know that the national review happens around this time. One one particular weekend my mind jumps to the review and I get a stomach flip. I know this sounds weird, but I’ve had that flip before when people are talking about me.
May-December
So much nothing. I know it’s better to not think about it. 2021s are still waiting.
Janurary
Our state alumi reps plan on a recognition event. Meanwhile, the national AAPT meeting is held in New Orleans. The math alumni rep attends the meeting, now working for FermiLab. Since I know we are far removed from the formal process I ask her a bit about her side. I learn that there are around 60-some applications for the awards, and that elementary has more applicants than secondary (to my surprise). I share the twitter collaboration and how much I appreciatedo the kind of feedback we received at the state level. I also shared my fear because many of the folks in this group had received perfect or near perfect scores. My lowest scoring area was domain 1, which has the greatest weight. She assures me that I had a very strong application.
March-April
Everyone is hoping for an announcement. There is no announcement. One person posts in a facebook group they got a FBI check request for 2021 a year ago. That post is promptly removed, but I can’t help but wonder if the 2023 awardees already know.
May 16, 9:04am
I actually wrote this part on a document on my computer! They swear you to secrecy!
I’m outside with George. My husband is out of town and George was under the weather so I took the day off of school. I hear my phone that I have an email. I check it and see that it says “PAEMST Award – Requested…” I quickly open the email, skim down and see the words FBI. My heart jumps. I immediately call my husband to share the news. I know that I’m now in the running! I have to re-read the email 5 more times. It’s addressed to “PAEMST nominee” Not Finalist! Nominee! The email says I can ONLY tell immediate family. I’m literally jumping to try to shake off the excitement. I wish I could tell certain people right now: the individuals who wrote my recommendation letters, my former math teacher and PAEMST awardee, my best friend at work. But no, I can’t tell anyone for who knows how long! In fact, due to the nature of the secrecy I’m not even writing this in my WordPress draft, but offline!
3:34pm I receive the email from the PAEMST team to provide by bio, headshot and quotes for the website, “if selected”. I have about 6 days to get this completed. Interestingly, this email says that everything is strictly confidential and to tell no one. I wonder if I should mention that the email from EASE says “immediate family” but if I did that is it a test? So I don’t ask.
6/5 – I get an email from PAEMST that my bio is ready for review. I go through the now edited version of my bio, feeling ok that this means its still happening.
6/10 – It’s the last day of school and I go to my principal’s office to drop out my checkout form. He asks if I’ve heard anything from PAEMST, to which I respond, “well if I did know, it would be confidential because only the white house gets to say anything after awardees are already in DC” he then proceeds to tell me that he received an email about PAEMST to verify my employment (or something like that). He also shares there were two emails and they both went to spam!
Which takes us to today…
After 8 months of secrecy I can finally announce that I am an awardee!
Physics.Teacher.Momma. 