Self-organizing classroom

On Leslie's notion of today being an incredible day, I would like to report a very exhausting (at least for me) 45 minute episode that happened this afternoon. Hunter was drawing a graph on the board, showing potential energy (the upper half in the picture below).


After some initial discussion about representing positive and negative potential energy, Lisa stood up, came to the front of the room and drew the same potential energy graph, but below the x-axis. Next came a very very long whole class discussion about the differences of representing the physics in negative or positive potential energy (whether it be gravitational potential energy or magnetic potential energy). Since I was taking field notes, and was trying to write down what happened in the whole classroom, as well as what happened in the group that I was observing, I couldn't really follow the detailed contents of the discussion. But I realized that the teachers took over the classroom. They really wanted to talk about that. A few people were slamming arguments around other people's heads, it was really fascinating. But the most fascinating thing that I noticed (in light of me still analyzing Monday's ET episode) was Hunter, quietly walking to the back of the room, at some point, completely holding himself back, even having his hand near his mouth (as if to actively prevent himself from speaking). It was just so amazing to see how the classroom was managing itself without an instructor having to intervene somehow. At some very late stage in the discussion, Hunter helped mediate the discussion when there was a gap, and the momentum of the discussion was gone. It was just one of those gorgeous moments where a classroom organized itself and the instructor just stepped back to let it happen. Very impressive...