My name is Jack Replinger and I am the physics teacher at the Soulsville Charter School in Memphis, Tennessee, and a Teach For America alum. I am currently in my ninth year teaching high school physics. During my second year of teaching, I reached the painful conclusion that the traditional method of teaching physics I was employing was simply not working for my students. For the past eight years, through much trial, and unfortunately error, and with help and patience of my amazing students, and the invaluable assistance of Nick Barnhart, Memphis Teacher Residency class of 2015, we have developed a new physics curriculum, Positive Physics, designed to make physics accessible to all learners.  I have been truly shocked by this success of our program and I was even named 2015 Tennessee High School Teacher of the Year by the Tennessee Charter School Center. 

I am currently in the process of turning the curriculum into an interactive, online program that I will use for all homework and assessments in my classroom during the 2015-2016 school year, will make available to two other teachers and their students for the 2016-2017 school year, and widely available for the 2017-2018 school year.  More details as well as an interactive demo-problem can be found at positivephysics.org. 

Positive Physics Is Different

+ We don’t start with long, complex, traditional problems.

+ We break traditional physics problems down into well-defined skill sets.

+ When the student has mastered the skill, he or she moves on to the next skill, and only after mastering all of the skills will the student be asked to combine them to solve traditional, “complete” physics problems.

The Next Step

Our interactive, online program, will offer numerous advantages:

+ Provide immediate feedback to students so they can be sure they are practicing correctly.

+ Allow other teachers and students to access our curriculum beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. 

+ Provide teachers with simple and efficient tracking and grading.

Goals:

+ 2015-2016 school year:

 Use positivephysics.org for all homework and assessments in my classroom.

+ 2016-2017 school year:

 Allow two other Memphis high school teachers pilot positivephysics.org in their classrooms for free!

+ 2017-2018 school year and beyond:

 Make positivephysics.org available to all Title 1 schools in Memphis for free!

+ Long term:

Make positivephysics.org a self-sustaining program available to students across the country, while continuing to provide the system to low income schools for free or low cost.

Why Positive Physics Needs You

Thanks to generous donations we have been able to purchase a classroom set of chromebooks so that my students can access positivephysics.org and have created a functional prototype of the website.  We need additional funding and support to turn that prototype into a fully operational system that. Over the next three years the web development will cost approximately $37,800, as we will need to pay our web developer $25/hr for 40hrs/month for 36 months for development maintenance and technical support  (I do not take a salary for this work) and $50/month for 36 months for hosting fees.  Tax-deductible donations can be made by going to positivephysics.org and clicking on either of the yellow donate buttons. Any amount donated is greatly appreciated. If you would like any further information or have any questions concerning this proposal, you can contact me via phone at 206.595.4675 or via email at jreplinger@tscsmemphis.org.

Back Up Plan