Physics Teacher Creates Amazing Videos
Aaron Podolner, 2004 Golden Apple Fellow
Aaron’s Videos:
Hear the cheers! Feel the energy!
This month's Free Resource is a practical primer on using videos in the science classroom. Aaron Podolner’s students produce, star in, and watch YouTube videos that advance concepts and skill development in physics. Aaron has figured out how to download, splice, and take animations and applets from the internet to enhance their videos and not anger his school system. (He likes a program called, “Handbrake,” and simple programs to edit videos.) He is continually learning new techniques for video-making.
E-mail Aaron at: aaron.podolner@gmail.com.
Aaron’s sophisticated videos are filled with energy and excitement. The videos are exemplary models of student-focused, project-based learning and inquiry science. Educators can view these videos themselves or with colleagues in professional development seminars or show them to their students as motivators. Watch Aaron’s students create community while building roller coasters and catapults. Aaron suggests you video your own Science Fairs and post the videos, so that students can share their experiences.
Here are the links to YouTube where Aaron posted his videos:
http://tinyurl.com/PodoRollerCoasters2010
http://tinyurl.com/PodoCatapults2010
http://tinyurl.com/PodoPhysicsFair2010
Aaron’s Lesson Plans:
New teachers will admire Aaron’s design of a relatively simple first day of school, and then how Aaron builds on concepts and process over just a few days. Aaron’s lesson plans cover eleven weeks, including the first days of schools. The plans are formatted according to the needs of Aaron’s school, Oak Park River Forest High School (OPRF) in Oak Park, Illinois. What is impressive is that they are working lesson plans, just enough information to organize the conceptual growth and activities of all students. These are living lesson plans: Newton meets the Vomit Comet. The “metric Prefixes Worksheet” meets the “Kobe jumping clip on YouTube with example of finding Delta X.”
Download Aaron's Lesson Plans For the First Days of School >
Award-winning Aaron Podolner has been teaching math and physics for 11 years at OPRF. As a Golden Apple Fellow in 2004, he spent his Northwestern University sabbatical learning everything he could about digital video. In the summer, Aaron is a valued reflective seminar leader for the Golden Apple Scholars who meet on the DePaul University, Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA), Elmhurst, and St. Xavier campuses. Aaron has a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from National Louis University and is presently completing a PhD in Curriculum at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has been published in online “Ask Popular Science.”
In 2003, Aaron received a SEAstar Award from Supported Education Association (SEA). This is what SEAstar says about Aaron: “Aaron Podolner, physics teacher, OPRF, deserves recognition because of his outstanding ability to open the eyes of his students to the world of disabilities. Each year, his students design an assistive technology device for a person with disabilities, using physics principles. Many students get first-hand experience with a family affected by disability as they meet with them to design something useful and practical. To prepare the students, Mr. Podolner has them participate in disability awareness activities and has persons with disabilities address his class. His students get first-hand experience with persons with disabilities and see beyond disabilities to the people and their abilities. What a gift Mr. Podolner is giving his students!”