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When my kids were in middle school, their school didn’t have a certified science instructor. The teachers were doing their best, but I could tell they were overwhelmed and needed support. I wanted to help—and I missed seeing that spark of curiosity that science can bring—so I started a small after-school science club. At first, we had ten students. We did simple experiments, explored how things worked, and laughed a lot when things didn’t go as planned. Within a year, that li

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring something I’ve wanted to do for years—create an app that allows students to draw and save their own free body diagrams (FBDs). As a physics instructor and instructional designer, I’ve long recognized how valuable it is for students to be able to visualize forces interactively, but until recently, the technical barriers made it difficult to bring this idea to life in a simple, browser-based way. Using Claude, I was able to build and

Teaching Growth Mindset, Living Fixed Mindset As educators, we often encourage our students, especially first-generation college students, to believe they can grow their intelligence through effort, feedback, and persistence. We tell them that mistakes are opportunities, not failures. Yet, somewhere along the way, many of us stop giving ourselves that same grace. After years in the classroom, it’s easy to settle into routines that feel safe. The lecture that’s “always worked,

Designing for Curiosity After thirty years of teaching physics and a decade as an instructional designer, I’ve come to realize that curiosity, not content, is the true engine of learning. Physics has always been my favorite laboratory for exploring how people make sense of the world. Over time, I’ve discovered that the same laws that explain motion and energy also apply to how students engage and grow. Whether I’m helping students visualize Newton’s laws or supporting faculty