TAG, Mass and Weight

The teacher assessed grade plan has thrown a curveball at the profession, leaving teachers scratching their head on what exactly is needed as ‘evidence’ to support the grade that they award. Of course, we are particularly worried about those teachers who wouldn’t call themselves physics specialists but are assessing grades anyway. Thomas and Robin discuss a few strategies you might use.

Once again, the profession is being asked to go above and beyond, and as always, we will rise to the challenge, but make sure you take care of yourselves and remember the maxim: good enough is good enough.

Mass and Weight are a perennial source of confusion for students, and it would seem national newspapers (see the Guardian article below). Thomas appeals for advice on how to untangle this confusion. Please do get in touch if you have any insights.

Meanwhile, as we home in on our 100th episode, we are once again asking YOU to get involved. Teachers learn the most from other teachers, so please put your experience out there by getting in touch and guesting on the podcast… it’s either that or you’ll have to listen to more from us two, so that should be incentive enough.

Links

• JCQ Summer 2021 Arrangements
• JCQ A and AS Level Descriptors (ie “what a grade feels like”)
• The Guardian on Ingenuity Helicopter

Join in!

Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions by messaging us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/physicstp.bsky.social .  You can also message us via our website contact form on every page of the web site at  the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, or email using the address given in the podcast (if we remember). We are moving away from X but can be found there as @physicstp.

Music

• Season 7: Physics Is Our Business by Miracles of Modern Science.
• Seasons 5 and 6: Crescents by Ketsa.
• Seasons 3 and 4: Disco Sheik by Podington Bear.
• Seasons 1 and 2: One legged equilibrist polka by Circus Homunculus.
• Occasionally we also use Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith.

The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License