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Reflections on the SQA Technical Consultation
On Friday 14th August, the SQA announced its Arrangements for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses in the 2020-21 session. This included links to the SQA's Technical Consultation on proposals for modifications to the assessment arrangements for the 2021 exam diet. The announcement also included links to a survey which closed for responses on...
Thoughts on Assessment (given all that's been going on)
The recent issues surrounding assessment and certification both in Scotland and around the UK, have prompted a great deal of discussion.With a recent increase in traffic to this blog, mainly to my previous posts on assessment, following a piece I had published in the Times Educational Supplement, I thought it'd be worth putting together an...
Thoughts on SQA Exams & Certification
In response to a discussion about assessment on the IOP Sputnik email forum for Scottish Physics teachers, I posted some thoughts on what the SQA could do differently. Some replies to the post suggested I should share these ideas further. It's a bit 'sassy' in places, as one of the replies put it, but here's...
Perimeter Institute - EinsteinPlus 2016 - Day 3
Day three began (after breakfast) with a session on Quantum Mechanics. The session was based around the 'Investigating the Nature of the Electron' activity from the Perimeter Institute's materials on 'The Challenge of Quantum Reality'. The first task, 'Classical Particle Behaviour', uses very simple apparatus - sand and a paper coffee cup, to model the...
Perimeter Institute - EinsteinPlus 2016 - Day 2
Day 2 of EinsteinPlus 2016 saw the group formally welcomed to the spectacular Perimeter Institute building after an equally spectacular breakfast. (There are two excellent bistros at PI, which provided the group with a fabulous range of meals over the week long visit. I'd say more, but there'd be a real danger of this becoming...
Perimeter Institute - EinsteinPlus 2016 - Day 1
Earlier in the year I was delighted to receive an invitation to the annual Einstein Plus teachers' summer school at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. A total of forty two teachers from across Canada, USA, Europe and Asia attended the event, comprising workshops, lectures and visits from the 6th to the 12th of July. Having registered...
Newton's G-ball
'Newton's G-ball', marketed by Swedish company Mollic, is a simple electronic timing device which can be used to measure the freefall time from its point of release to impact on a surface below. It is available from a number of third party suppliers, including djb microtech, Better Equipped and TIMSTAR in the UK and Arbor Scientific in the US. The...
Model Linear Accelerator
Last June, I made a model particle accelerator using a plastic salad bowl. This was courtesy of a great 'cook-along' online CPD via Google Hangouts hosted by a fellow IOP Network Coordinator, Dan Cottle (@blendedlearner). Dan's video can be seen here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yU7rzgrg6A This tweet from @ArdAcadPhysics shows the accelerator in action - First there...
Response to SQA Consultation on Assessment
The SQA have released a consultation on the assessment arrangements for the new qualifications, which can be found here - surveymonkey.com/r/TFJQCX2 Having blogged recently on the subject of assessment, I have decided to publish my own response. [SQA questions shown in bold, my responses below] 1. Which subject(s) do you deliver? Physics 2. It was intended that Units...