Initial Proposal for the Ib Physics Standards Through the Year 2023
INITIAL PROPOSAL FOR THE IB PHYSICS STANDARDS THROUGH THE YEAR 2023
1. Purpose and rationale.
1.1. The purpose of this document is to clarify the standards for the three proposed physics courses offered at Rufus King International School: Year 1: MYP Physics, Year 2: DP Physics SL and Year 3: DP Physics HL.
1.2. There are three standards pedagogies that must be incorporated into the hard sciences (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics): the Middle Years Program standards (MYP) chosen by our school, the New Generation Science Standards (NGSS) chosen by our District and State, and the Diploma Program standards (DP) chosen by our school and others in the district.
1.3. The single standard set that is common to all three years of the hard science tracks is the DP standard set. As such, it should be the overall guiding standard set in any IB school which has a Diploma Program. My reasons are as follows:
1) Rufus King is first and foremost a Diploma Program school. Confusion as to whether we are MYP, NGSS, or DP can only lead to mediocrity in our DP standing. This is not to say that we cannot address the standards of MYP and NGSS. We can adequately address these two standards, but these two standards must be placed within the DP standard set, in the sense that we do not spend inordinate time on them to the detriment of DP standards which will be the focus of the three papers comprising the exams. With these constraints in mind, we can still fulfill all of the requirements of the District, while still remaining true to the standards that have traditionally made the IB program so desirable to students and parents in the district.
2) If at all possible, complete coverage (by early April) of the DP standards within the two-year time frame leading to the Standard Level exams is desirable in order to facilitate students practicing complete Papers 1, 2 and 3 from previous years as much as possible. For this to occur, MYP and NGSS standards must be met within the context of the DP standards as much as possible. A brief perusal of any of the DP Program Guides for the hard sciences (DP Biology, DP Chemistry, and DP Physics) should convince the reader of two things: Firstly, that the curriculum is intensely broad and detailed, and secondly, that it is not only process-based, but it is first and foremost content-based. Thus, using an MYP standard, say “MYP – B. Inquiring and designing;” is all well and good (and certainly useful and valid), but it is NOT sufficient, and it is NOT tested for on Papers 1, 2 and 3 in the Diploma Program (75% of a student’s overall IB grade). It IS valid as a standard, though, in that the DP internal assessments do require inquiry and design (25% of a student’s overall IB grade).
3) Many of the NGSS standards are naturally covered within the two-year tracks leading up to the standard level hard science exams. Unfortunately, many of them are NOT. This means that students and instructors will be even more pressed for time to meet the DP requirements by sacrificing time covering the NGSS. Apparently the District is not able to practice differentiation among schools, as we are expected to practice it in the classroom. I can only hope that it is not because the District is lazy, inflexible, or incompetent, but that it is in response external pressure from the state or the federal government.
2. Background.
The Diploma Program hard sciences
2.1. All of the DP hard science standard level (SL) courses (Biology SL, Chemistry SL and Physics SL) have a two-year period in which to cover the Core material, two class / instructor dependent Options, and lab practicals (called Internal Assessment).
2.2. All of the DP hard science higher level (HL) courses (Biology HL, Chemistry HL and Physics HL) have a three-year period in which to cover the Core material, the Additional Higher Level material, two new Options or extensions of the SL Options or a combo, and lab practicals (Internal Assessment).
My experience
2.3. I have 27 years of experience in teaching physics, ranging from complete project-and-theme-driven physics classes using cooperative learning exclusively, to AP physics (calculus treatment), to DP physics (next year will be the third DP cycle for which I have designed a course). I have completed Level 2 training. I have 18 graduate credits in physics, and a degree in math. Thus, I think that it is correct to claim that there is no teacher in this district who knows more about the Diploma Program physics pedagogy (and perhaps the physics pedagogy, in general) than me. With that said, I hope that my recommendations will be considered with forethought and care.
3. Assumptions used in organizing the standards.
Assumptions regarding the schools involved:
3.1. For Rufus King I am assuming that the typical first year physics course is populated with 10th, 11th and 12th graders. This is how it has been for the past seven years, and it is difficult to see how this could change without harming the physics program. If this population for first-year is allowed to change, here are some of the possible problems:
1) If 10th-graders are disallowed from taking first-year physics, and the physics track can only be entered by 11th-graders, then the third-year (higher level) physics will expire, and second-year physics (standard level) will contract.
2) If it were possible to create a first-year physics class comprised of only 10th-graders, then what course title would you have for an 11th-grade first-year track. Or if you were to eliminate this track you would eliminate a majority of the standard level track.
3.2. Since we are MYP-certified, the first-year physics course is rather awkwardly expected to fit in with the MYP program (9th- and 10th-grade only) even though it will contain a majority of 11th- and 12th-graders. This is in contrast to first-year biology (all 9th-graders) and first-year chemistry (all 10th-graders), which do indeed dovetail with the MYP. My assumption, here, is that although being awkward in both the application of a variety of standards to different grade-level students within the same class, that MYP Physics standards will remain a requirement in my design. If, for some progressive and enlightened reason, the MYP standards are removed from first-year physics, I will most happily reorganize the physics standards to reflect this change.
My recommendation would be to NOT call first-year physics MYP – for three reasons:
1) Ronald Reagan may not be MYP certified, in which case their first-year physics course would need a different name. Furthermore, new IB schools may grow in the district within the next 7 years and not be MYP certified.
2) If, somehow, Rufus King could program all 9th-graders into a single class of MYP Physics, then what would we name the course which would accommodate first-year 11th-graders entering the standard-level track, or first-year 12th-graders who will never become second-year physics students but still want the physics experience?
3) Maintaining the current course name “Pre-Diploma Physics” would take care of these difficulties, and MYP standards could still be applied to 10th-graders, while appropriately servicing 11th- and 12th-graders (depending on the flexibility of Infinite Campus, of course).
My further recommendation would be to not treat the first-year physics class as MYP at all – for two reasons:
1) Since any 10-graders (a distinct minority of the class list) who have enrolled in first-year physics are already taking MYP chemistry concurrently in a class that IS truly a 10th-grade class, they will already be receiving their MYP indoctrination.
2) First-year physics has always been an 11th-grade science class – being an elective science which followed the track Biology (9th grade), Chemistry (10th grade), and Physics (11th grade). Thus any 10th-graders in first-year physics are special cases and are ahead of the pack.
Assumptions regarding Infinite Campus:
3.3. Unfortunately we have been tasked with proposing coherent standards for an SBG software package which we have not yet used. Thus, questions such as “How many standards can one link to a single Summative Assessment?”, and “Just what, exactly are the Display Name, Description, and Short Name used for, who sees them, what shows up in instructors grade displays, students’ and parents’ browsing sessions, and what shows up on the report card?”, and “Can Summative Assessments be weighted?” are all currently unanswered.
3.4. Ignoring the unknowns, I am assuming that the following statements are true for the new SBG software package that MPS has purchased:
1) The standards in any of the three physics courses may overlap. This is to accommodate student review (for example, a second-year physics class needs to review first-year concepts), to accommodate sequence variations (for example, instructor choice of Options or Core topics to satisfy the NGSS), and to accommodate population variations (for example, having 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-graders in a single first-year class, with the potential of 10th- and 11th-graders to continue to second-year physics).
2) Unused standards are not a problem with Infinite Campus for any particular year so long as all appropriate standards for that year or year-range are used. Thus, all MYP standards must be met in the first-year physics class that has 10th-graders. All NGSS standards must be met by April of the11th grade. All DP standards must be met in two years for the standard level course, and all DP standards must be met in three years for the higher level course.
3) Individual Formative Assessments (practice) and individual Summative Assessments (evidence) can be linked to more than one standard. For example, a single Summative Assessment (evidentiary in nature) which I might call “Pendulum design” and which might have students design and carry out labs exploring the dependence of a pendulum’s period on its amplitude, mass, and length, will satisfy at least the following four standards:
MYP-B. Inquiring and designing;
MYP-C. Processing and evaluating;
(NGSS-)PS-2. Motion and stability,
DP-4. Waves.
3.5. I am assuming that parents, students, instructors, and administrators, will all want the standards to have in their names not only an English rendition of the standard, but a reference to their primary sources. This is exemplified at the beginnings of each of the four standards shown above. The first two standards are important to the MYP administrator. The third is important to the District and perhaps the State. The last standard is the most important one for students in the DP track (either the two-year standard or the three-year higher level track) and for their parents. Therefore the DP standards must be included in each of the three levels of physics.
4. The proposed physics standards.
4.1. Given that we are entering a new 7-year physics cycle, the following standards were chosen keeping in mind these eight important considerations:
1) These standards must hold up until the year 2023.
2) MYP standards, NGS standards, and DP standards must all be incorporated.
3) The names of the standards must be transparent, so that parents, students, teachers and administrators know which standards apply to a particular Summative Assessment (piece of evidence) and which primary source that standard is drawn from.
3) Sequencing must be flexible so that NGS standards can be met by the 11th grade, depending on which options a physics instructor may choose and which year a student entered the physics track.
4) Sequencing must be flexible so that differentiation can occur reflecting variations in a school’s unique program (for example, HL Physics is / is not offered or it is offered only after school, or the school is / is not MYP certified).
5) Sequencing must be flexible so that differentiation can occur reflecting variations in the student population (for example, sometimes “the class of 201X” is behind “the Class of 201Y” for reasons like “Northwestern Academy closed and its students were absorbed by Rufus King kicking and screaming.”).
6) Sequencing must be flexible so that courses may be designed by instructors (in conjunction with other instructors in the same school) as they see fit. For example, some instructors may want to teach the Options first, or want to change the order of presentation of Core material. Part of the spirit of the IB science curriculum is precisely this flexibility, allowing for different styles of teaching and learning. As a more concrete example, an instructor might want to satisfy the standard (NGSS-)PS1-8. Fission, fusion and radioactive decay by satisfying the standard DP-7. Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics, or by satisfying the standard DP-12. Quantum and nuclear physics. Allowing flexible sequencing of the standards will respect the instructors’ professionalism, improve the students’ learning, and foster a more empowered culture in the IB learning community.
7) The scope of the material must assume a two-year path for the DP Standard Level, and a three-year path for the DP Higher Level.
8) The scope of the material must assume, regardless of which year a student entered the physics track, that the NGSS are completed by the 11th grade in preparation for the Next Generation test.
4.2. The proposed standards for MYP Physics:
Standards for course called MYP PhysicsIB-Specific / NGSS-PS
DP / NGSS-HS-PS1
DP-1. Measurements and uncertainties / PS1-8. Fission, fusion, and radioactive decay
DP-2. Mechanics / NGSS-HS-PS2
DP-3. Thermal physics / PS2-1. Newton’s laws
DP-4. Waves / PS2-2. Momentum conservation
DP-5. Electricity and magnetism / PS2-3. Collisions
DP-6. Circular motion and gravitation / PS2-4. Gravitational and electric force
DP-7. Atomic, nuclear, particle physics / PS2-5. Magnetic field
DP-8. Energy production / PS2-6. Designed materials
DP-9. Wave phenomena / NGSS-HS-PS3
DP-10. Fields / PS3-1. Conservation of energy
DP-11. Electromagnetic induction / PS3-2. Internal energy
DP-12. Quantum and nuclear physics / PS3-3. Energy conversion
DP-A. Relativity / PS3-4. Thermal energy transfer
DP-B. Engineering physics / PS3-5. Energy in fields
DP-C. Imaging / NGSS-HS-PS4
DP-D. Astrophysics / PS4-1. Wave properties
MYP / PS4-2. Digital transmission
MYP-A. Knowing and understanding / PS4-3. Wave / particle duality
MYP-B. Inquiring and designing / PS4-4. Effects of radiation
MYP-C. Processing and evaluating / PS4-5. Information technology
MYP-D. Reflecting on impacts of science
4.3. The proposed standards for DP Physics SL: