Greg Burkhart is a physics teacher at Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington. Greg was a participant in the ACE program, the technology training that preceded Intel® Teach Program. He is currently a master teacher in the program, helping other teachers learn to integrate technology. Greg is studying for a master’s degree in physics, and has a special interest in instructional design.

Greg has used technology to support his lessons since 1996. He learned about inquiry methods (backward design, framing questions, and evaluation) previously, so there was a natural fit when he developed this project-centered unit. “In the past several years I’ve restructured the way I think about teaching. I plan instruction the way I do because it’s student-centered, and causes students to engage in higher-order thinking and collaborative effort.”

Greg designed his with both pedagogical and practical underpinnings. His purpose was to engage students in a project that:

• Caused them to leap off from prior learning into new topics
• Introduced potential career choices
• Encouraged higher order thinking and cooperative effort, AND
• Served as a tonic for springtime senioritis

Greg’s main intent in developing the unit was to connect school physics to what is occurring in modern physics research. He said his students love physics in high school, but go on to major in other subjects in college. He wanted to help kids make a connection between their school experiences and physics in the modern world, with the hope they might envision themselves working in the field of physics one day.

Students were charged with looking at new physics research and the practical and ethical considerations that might drive or inhibit further study or application. By investigating a particular topic of interest and then imparting their learning to classmates who studied other topics, students had to thinking through what they’ve learned more deeply. Greg structured his lessons so the weight of student effort was on research and presentation (public speaking and persuasive writing), not the use of computer applications.

PowerPoint* slides supported an informative talk, and students used a newsletter format to develop a persuasive appeal. Greg had the best results using the multimedia and newsletter software. He’d like to share student work over the Web, but the infrastructure wasn’t in place at his school. Greg will teach the unit again in May, 2002.

In a practical vein, Greg teaches seniors and knows that learning often grinds to a halt in the last weeks of school, so avoiding “senioritis” motivated his planning as well-- the unit offered students a chance to explore their interests and stay meaningfully engaged right up to the end of school. Students enjoyed being experts for one another, and even developed quizzes for classmates to take following their presentations! The appealing nature of multimedia also captured their interest-- students had creative control over the way they presented their material, and this increased their investment in it. “The best part about this unit was seeing the students become really engaged in the material - I had kids become experts on chaos or fusion and they exhibited enthusiasm when they talked about it.”

Greg has used some of these same planning strategies in other courses. He often divides subject matter for small group research and peer teaching, and the more recently added technology elements support this structure well. He thinks his approach “adds purpose and allows kids to know one topic well, rather than many topics superficially”.