Making Work Work

SOCS - P  Wow, I am still spinning after reading tonight.  Paper could have been called Making more Work out of Work.  The way I find it in books seems consistent with exams.  (Schwackhamer)

I knew that bar graphs and energy flow diagrams were coming up since looking at O'Shea site.  I have not used her worksheets since I did not know the proper way to make this learning more concrete.  But I will have to look at hers again, listen a little harder in our workshop and try to see where this makes understanding work and energy stronger for students.  I get it that they are circular in definitions but I have not come across an issue before.  This unit has thrown me for a loop.

SOCS - P  Another Arons reading, discussing a chapter from any high school physics book, that focuses on the need for clear language usage.   It seems so easy to gloss over these definitions an move on.  (Arons 4.1-4.5, 4.8 - 4.9)

Arons 3.1-3.12

SOCS-C  Arons writes of dynamics and new preconceptions students bring to class.  I read about cautions in defining force and mass and guess I understand that these words are not used in the first chapters of a physics book.  But can we really not rely on something being taught in the middle school? (Arons)

SOCS-C  The big workbook of lessons is a nice addition to a teachers resource bookshelf.  When a conceptual problem is addressed as the concept is introduced can start the conceptual change in the student maybe without really knowing it.  (Camp, Clement)

In the past, before I knew I was a transmission physics instructor, I would have told a rookie teacher that they would be nuts to spend two lessons and a lab on the Normal Force!  My students seem to have the idea that a table pushes back, possible not to the microscopic target range, but where they have trouble is the direction a ramp pushes back while at an angle or what happens to the normal force when two forces push against it.  As I think, just after I write, maybe I see what a stronger definition can do to help my students work.  Never mind.

Minstrell's 1st Law

SOCS-C
The author seemed to have a magic bean that would grow into the Modeling Instruction.  I believe N1L has a few sticking points, but Minstrell shows deep-seated views that students need changed.
(Minstrell)

I think this was the most interesting article in terms of what we have been doing and what we will be doing next.  His implications of having a class discussion, showing a few different events, searching for a similarity and having students argue an explanation was an nice read.  I feel I have heard each of these things maybe in grad classes or PD's, but never to be used all together in a package with clear example of why they are needed.

Mestre's L&I

SOCS-C
Mestre tells of the needs of educators, schools and text book authors to look at the cognitive science research and use it better.  If how students learn is understood, learning can be done more efficiently.
(Mestre)

Again the article seems old - 1991.  I have found myself floored that these ideas were never shown to me as an aspiring young teacher.  Before I read these articles now, in our fourth day, I look at the references to see who I recognize and if I have seen their paper.  The names are the same and the results are all similar and I have not read any of them until the mid part of my career.  That bums me out.  Or that Mestre points out the lack of a good text book to address constructivist thinking 20 years ago and I can't saw I have seen or heard of a big change.

The science ed classes I have had from Wayne State, in about 2003, used the constructivist, scafolding inquiry lessons.  I thought they were nuts.  But my searching for answers on Google (is there anyplace else), connected results from inquiry to learning circles to McDermott, Halloun, Hakes, Hestenes and more.  This has been my reading since and slowly have altered my class.

Hammer's two approaches

SOC-P
Another article pointing out the false education practice of those traditional teachers (I'm not anymore).  Good students find a way to survive and have learned to play the game for grades.
(Hammer)

I have notice with students when I give a deductive/inductive reasoning logic puzzles, the students who earn the A's are not the first ones to finish.  They would get frustrated because they were the "smart kids."  A C student can solve the puzzle clearly and quickly.  I thought, if only the C student did his homework, they could earn better grades.  I then wondered if the C student maybe bored with formulas and problems.  How do I engage them more into physics?