Here's what I learned from grading exams this year:
- When asking students to design an experiment, someone in every class will try to use every piece of equipment you offer to them to use.
- The better the student is at mathematics, the more likely the student will overcomplicate an experiment.
- Nobody seems to know what a motion detector is.
- We used motion detectors on at least eight labs. I called them motion detectors every time.
- I told my students they didn't HAVE TO simplify their answers. So they didn't. And that meant future questions got harder to do. Also, it meant that they couldn't tell how the answer to part (b) and to part (c) looked oddly the same...
- My students really understand velocity-time graphs. I feel like they must have learned that in math class or something.
- My students really don't like solving problems with variables. I feel like this is 100% my fault.
- Simply restating what is in the problem is not justification.
- In the last ten minutes of class, when students are hoping for inspiration to strike, it's fun to watch what they're doing on their papers. I saw at least two students writing and rewriting the µ's on their papers so that the descending bit was just so.
- As a whole, my students are learning more than my students did last year, but they're not where I want them yet. I can't ask for anything more as a teacher.