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Register a new userMultiple Conceptual Coherences in the Speed Tutorial: Micro-processes of Local Stability
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Brian W. Frank
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Researchers working within knowledge-in-pieces traditions have often employed observational approaches to investigate micro-processes of learning. There is growing evidence from this line of work that students intuitive thinking about physical phenomena is characterized more so by its diversity and flexibility than its uniformity and robustness. This characterization implies that much of the dynamics of students thinking over short timescales involve processes that stabilize local patterns of thinking, later destabilize them, and allow other patterns to form. This kind of change may only involve dynamics by which the system of intuitive knowledge settles into various states without changing the system structure itself. I describe a case study in which a group of college students shift their thinking about motion several times during a collaborative learning activity. Instead of focusing on micro-processes of change, I describe these dynamics in terms of mechanisms that contribute to local stability of students conceptual coherences.
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Research in student knowledge and learning of science has typically focused on explaining conceptual change. Recent research, however, documents the great degree to which student thinking is dynamic and context-sensitive, implicitly calling for explanations not only of change but also of stability. In other words: When a pattern of student reasoning is sustained in specific moments and settings, what mechanisms contribute to sustaining it? We characterize student understanding and behavior in terms of multiple local coherences in that they may be variable yet still exhibit local stabilities. We attribute stability in local conceptual coherences to real-time activities that sustain these coherences. For example, particular conceptual understandings may be stabilized by the linguistic features of a worksheet question, or by feedback from the students spatial arrangement and orientation. We document a group of university students who engage in multiple local conceptual coherences while thinking about motion during a collaborative learning activity. As the students shift their thinking several times, we describe mechanisms that may contribute to local stability of their reasoning and behavior.
We describe a study on the conceptual difficulties faced by college students in understanding hydrodynamics of ideal fluids. This study was based on responses obtained in hundreds of written exams and oral interviews, which were held with first-year Engineering and Science university students. Their responses allowed us to identify a series of misconceptions unreported in the literature so far. The study findings demonstrate that the most important difficulties arise from the students inability to establish a link between the kinematics and dynamics of moving fluids, and from a lack of understanding regarding how different regions of a system interact.
Students in interviews on a wave physics topic give answers through embodied actions which connect their understanding of the physics to other common experiences. When answering a question about wavepulses propagating along a long taut spring, students gestures help them recruit information about balls thrown the air. I analyze gestural, perceptual, and verbal information gathered using videotaped interviews and classroom interactions. I use conceptual blending to describe how different elements combine to create new, emergent meaning for the students and compare this to a knowledge-in-pieces approach.
We suggest one redefinition of common clusters of questions used to analyze student responses on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Our goal is to move beyond the expert/novice analysis of student learning based on pre-/post-testing and the correctness of responses (either on the overall test or on clusters of questions defined solely by content). We use a resources framework, taking special note of the contextual and representational dependence of questions with seemingly similar physics content. We analyze clusters in ways that allow the most common incorrect answers to give as much, or more, information as the correctness of responses in that cluster. Furthermore, we show that false positives can be found, especially on questions dealing with Newtons Third Law.
A bicycle wheel that was initially spinning freely was placed in contact with a rough surface and a digital film was made of its motion. Using Tracker software for video analysis, we obtained the velocity vectors for several points on the wheel, in the frame of reference of the laboratory as well as in a relative frame of reference having as its origin the wheel`s center of mass. The velocity of the wheel`s point of contact with the floor was also determined obtaining then a complete picture of the kinematic state of the wheel in both frames of reference. An empirical approach of this sort to problems in mechanics can contribute to overcoming the considerable difficulties they entail.
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