Luz: Poetry and the Physics of Light
Abie Lane Benítez-Quinones
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My intent in writing this unit is to address an important and critical issue in education and in my own classroom. All of my efforts to find a way to convey and help students process information are in an attempt to help them think. When I talk about thinking I refer to Thompson's and Zeuli's (1999) definition of thinking:
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"By ''think", we mean that students must actively try to solve problems, resolve dissonance between the way they initially understand a phenomenon and new evidence that challenges that understanding, put collections of facts or observations together into patterns, make and test conjectures, and build lines of reasoning about why claims are or are not true. Such thinking is generative.
It literally creates understanding in the mind of the thinker. Thinking is to student's knowledge as photosynthesis is to a plant's food. Plants don't get food from the soil they make it through photosynthesis, using nutrients and water from the soil and energy from sunlight. No photosynthesis, no food. Students do not get knowledge from teachers, or books, or experiences with hands-on materials. They make it by thinking, using information and experiences. No thinking, no learning-at least, no conceptual learning…" In Darling-Hammond and Sykes pp346.
In the end I do not want to loose sight of the purpose of my teaching. I want my students to become learners who can think, question phenomena, and can apply their learning to everyday life.
This unit will emphasize students' performance in scientific inquiry. Through the exploration of light I intent to expose them to the scientific method. I want them to observe, pose questions, make predictions, observe some more, document their observations, and finally come up with answers. Thus, this unit focus will be on designing activities that will encourage inquiry processes as a group but also as individuals. Following you will find an outline of the unit. Immediately after I will discuss the physics background needed to help students explore each topic.