Teacher Monitoring Guide
Grade 8 · Cycle 2 · Week 1 — Newton's Laws of Motion

Learning Goal

Students will apply Newton's three laws to predict the motion of objects in everyday scenarios, and plan investigations to provide evidence for the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration.

Station Checkpoints

Station 1 — Hook & Phenomenon
Look for: Students connecting the phenomenon to prior knowledge and generating testable questions
Common misconception: A heavier object falls faster than a lighter one — use free-fall simulation data and Galileo's thought experiment to show that gravitational acceleration is independent of mass (ignoring air resistance)
Station 2 — Investigation / Data Collection
Look for: Accurate data recording and identification of emerging patterns in the evidence
Common misconception: An object in motion needs a continuous force to keep moving — address Aristotelian intuition directly; Newton's First Law states that forces change motion, not sustain it
Station 3 — Sense-Making
Look for: Students revising their model based on evidence collected during investigation
Common misconception: Action-reaction forces cancel each other out — clarify that Newton's Third Law pairs act on different objects; they cannot cancel because they are not on the same system

Exit Ticket Monitoring

Score Range Interpretation Next Step
18–23 pts Meeting target Extend with synthesis question
10–17 pts Developing Small group re-teach at day start
0–9 pts Needs support 1:1 intervention before next station

MTSS Tier 2 Supports

For students scoring below 10 pts on the exit ticket: use the sentence frames below during the next class's hook.