The "Pretty Good Physics" mailing list has migrated! Here's how to join.

For many years now, the "Pretty Good Physics" email group has been one of the fundamental resources for physics teachers that I recommend in my summer institutes.  Teachers email questions to the group, and they're answered within hours, usually by people who know what they're talking about.  Most importantly, the PGP group is positive in culture.  It's not a forum to kvetch about our administrators, the dang kids these days, or that silly College Board.  It's just a place for professionals to collaborate with one another.

The problem:  The email group was hosted by google.  Then it wasn't.  Apparently a significant number of recipients marked emails from the group as "spam."  And thus, the email group is no longer hosted by google, pour encourager les autres.

The solution:  The PGP volunteers created a new google group intended for discussion only.  The other function of PGP is to share files among physics teachers - that functionality is still available the same way it was.  But discussion via email is the strength of PGP, and it can continue on this new group.  

The only difference now is that we may not share secure files via the discussion group.  If you have a question about, say, an AP question that is released only under the course audit, well, you need to be sorta cagey about your question.  You can't just send a copy of the question to the group.  Silly, I know, but them's the College Board's rules, and we've gotta obey them if we're gonna keep this discussion group going.

How do you join the new discussion group?  If you're logged in to a google account at which you want to receive discussion posts, go to this site.  If you prefer to join with a non-google address, then you need to email Dan Hosey via dan dot hosey at prettygoodphysics.org, letting him know the desired email address and whether you want to receive every post or just a weekly digest.

If you do sign up, never ever mark a post as spam.  Just unsubscribe if you're sick of us.  :-)

The people who make PGP happen:  Pretty Good Physics is a completely volunteer effort on the part of four amazing physics teachers.  If you get a chance, thank them profusely, buy them a coffee, chant their name at your local physics shrine.  We so, so appreciate the efforts by these folks to keep this service operating:

• Paul Lulai
• Robert Casao
• Dan Hosey
• Gardner Friedlander

Thanks, all.  Looking forward to seeing your posts to the new discussion group.

GCJ

Creating appropriate attitudes toward judged performance

I did a six-year tour in competitive marching band.  The band practiced longer hours than most varsity sports in preparation for weekly competitions in the autumn.  We usually won – sometimes we lost.  Yet the philosophy of preparing for judged performance has been ingrained in me, and has lasted for decades.

The band’s leaders – student leaders and adult leaders alike – emphasized controlling what was controllable.  There’s no “defense” in marching band!  We can control our own performance, but not what competing bands do; and not what a given judge might think of our performance on the day.  We got better every practice, with the goal of marching the theoretical “golden show”. 

After any competition, we listened carefully to judges’ comments and considered how to use constructive criticism to improve.  We gave full-on effort in practice five days a week, holding each other accountable for our level of effort, because, fundamentally, we wanted to WIN.  Without the chance to be declared winner, I doubt that we would have prepared as intensely.  Nevertheless, we knew when we had marched a nearly “golden show” without waiting for the judges to consecrate the performance with a score or ranking. 

This “control what is controllable” philosophy bled into my academic and then professional life.  To me, a grade is like a judge’s score – it provides validation and motivation, but is secondary to the pursuit of knowledge itself.  I remember friends in college being shocked when I earned a B+ rather than an A- in a political science class… then being even more shocked when I shrugged and said “yeah, but I probably deserved the B+ in Russian where they gave me an A-, so it all evens out.” 

Then I myself was shocked in my first years of teaching when I discovered such a philosophy was utterly foreign to the majority of my students.  They felt personally wounded when a grade was lower than they expected.  They wanted a prescription to earn a grade: do these things, get this grade.  The idea of learning for the sake of learning, of education as an end in itself rather than a means to an end, did not compute.

Thus, I’ve adapted my approach to grades over the years to reflect my marching-band-informed philosophy of preparing for judged performance.  Many years ago I made grades translucent; and recently in my AP class, made them irrelevant throughout the year by means of a contract.  (The band didn't get official judges' scores after every practice run-through - only at each contest, and then only the end-of-year state contest mattered for our collective memories.  Just as designed in my AP class's contract.)

More importantly, I've led my in-class culture in the direction of our band's culture.  Nowadays, my students know that I will hold them accountable for just three items: work hard, take care of one another, and get better every day.  We talk about how to accomplish each of these three goals, which are attainable for every student in my class, no matter their natural talent.  

Someone could get a good-enough-for-them grade while sleeping through class?  Well, that someone isn't making progress on any of the three goals, and thus is called out until they improve - just as a star football player who half-arses practice and taunts teammates is shunned until they change their attitude (and then welcomed back into the fold when they do, ala the Jamie Tartt arc).

The weakest student in the class meets all three goals?  Generally, such a student's grades improve throughout the year.  In the positive culture we've established, even low grades tend NOT to be perceived as a character judgment.  I've delivered my judgment on this student's character by trumpeting to their classmates, advisor, and parents that they are indeed working hard, taking care of classmates, and getting better every day.  We celebrate every success, even small successes.  Such a student is, in fact, controlling what is controllable, and achieving what they're capable of achieving.

Now, understand I'm in my 28th year of teaching, at a school with tremendous administrative support, and trusting parents who live hundreds if not thousands of miles away.  Even here, building my class culture to attain a positive attitude toward judged performance has been a long and treacherous road.  It only takes one not-dealt-with bad apple to ruin the barrel for everyone.  It's taken long-term investment such that I have confidence that colleagues, parents, and administrators will see the positive aspects of the culture we've built, and thus support my efforts to maintain that culture.  

And just as importantly, my long-term unflagging dedication to culture building means that those colleagues, parents, and administrators who don't agree with my approach to schooling at least recognize that it's not worth trying to fight me on culture issues.