Things you'll need to decide on as you plan: Efficiency and Calculations

Bringing together two sets of constraints

Focusing on the learners:

Distinguishing–eliciting–connecting. How to:

• bring calculations back to the lived-in word
• relate very abstracted descriptions to very practical concerns
• keep power and energy separate, yet related
• keep calculations linked to physical concerns, showing what cannot happen

Teacher Tip: These are all related to findings about children's ideas from research. The teaching activities will provide some suggestions. So will colleagues, near and far.

Focusing on the physics:

Representing–noticing–recording. How to:

• deal with power as that which accumulates energy
• separate descriptions that link snapshot to snapshot from descriptions of processes
• construct explanations in careful, explicit steps

Teacher Tip: Connecting what is experienced with what is written and drawn is essential to making sense of the connections between the theoretical world of physics and the lived-in world of the children. Don't forget to exemplify this action.