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At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2008

Are Self-explaining and Coached Problem Solving More Effective When Done by Pairs of Students Than Alone?

Although cognitive science has discovered several methods for increasing the learning of complex skills, such as physics problem solving, detailed examination of verbal protocols suggests there is still room for improvement. Basically, students do not always apply the meta-cognitive strategies that the instruction invites. For instance, when prompted to self-explain, students may still choose to not explain. We conjecture that most students know which meta-cognitive strategies are good and bad. When they work in pairs, they are more likely to choose the good strategies. We hypothesize that social accountability improves meta-cognitive strategy choice, which thereby improves learning. Our experiment compared individuals and pairs learning from state-of-the-art instruction. The results suggest that the dyads solved more problems and requested fewer hints during problem solving than individuals. We also discovered a new form of self-explanation, wherein students generate explanations to account for the differences between their solutions and the instructor's.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2008

Productive Dialog During Collaborative Problem Solving

Collaboration is an important problem-solving skill; however, novice collaboration generally benefits from some kind of support. One possibility for supporting productive conversations between collaborators is to encourage pairs of students to provide explanations for their problem-solving steps. To test this possibility, we contrasted individuals who were instructed to self-explain problem-solving steps with dyads who were instructed to jointly explain problem-solving steps in the context of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). The results suggest that collaboratively developed explanations prompted students to remediate their errors in dialog, as opposed to relying on the ITS for assistance, which is provided in the form of on-demand hints. The paper concludes with a discussion about implications for combining proven learning interventions.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2008

Objects In Telescope Are Farther Than They Appear: How diffraction tricked Galileo into mismeasuring the distances to the stars

Galileo determined distances to stars based on the assumption that stars were suns, the apparent sizes of stars as seen through his telescope, and basic geometry. However, the apparent sizes that he measured were the result of diffraction and not related to the actual sizes of the stars. Galileo's methods and observations were good, but since he was unknowingly observing diffraction artifacts and not the physical bodies of stars he greatly underestimated the distances to the stars.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2025

Physics education research: Resources for graduate student instructors

This resource letter intends to provide physics instructors - particularly graduate student teaching assistants - at the introductory university level with a small but representative collection of resources to acquire a familiarity with research in physics education for guidance in everyday instruction. The resources are in the form of books, articles, websites, journals, and organizations.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2008

Situational diagnosis for preservice elementary teachers on some basic astronomical phenomena

The present situation of the teaching-learning relationship in astronomy is rarely investigated in our country. This is so, even when it is widely recognized that astronomy is an integral discipline, at the crossroads of advances in physics, geology, chemistry, etc. In this project we aim at contributing with the situational diagnosis in topics of astronomy of preservice elementary teachers, and to try and develop didactic tools that better collaborate with their formal education. We work with an open written questionnaire, designed to put in evidence some of the most frequently used models on a few basic astronomical notions. We here describe the main questions included in the test, and show our first results and some conclusions after having addressed the questionnaire to a number of preservice elementary teachers.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2009

Motion of the heavens: a pedagogical proposal for secondary education teachers

First part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the day and night cycle and the seasons, including the construction of a simplified solar system model and its use as a resource to discuss some common misconceptions found in students. Multiple suggestions and clear guides are given for teachers of the first two years of secondary education to implement theses activities in their classes.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2009

Precession of the Equinoxes: a pedagogical proposal for secondary education teachers

Second part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the real shape of the Earth, the gravitational interactions between our planet and other celestial bodies, and the resulting movement of the rotational axis of the Earth, leading to the precession of the equinoctial points. All elements are given for the construction of a simplified Sun-Earth system model, with a zodiacal band surrounding it, in order to show in a pedagogical manner how precession involves a shift of the zodiacal constellations in time.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2009

Computational Physics and Reality: Looking for Some Overlap at the Blacksmith Shop

The paper describes two general problems encountered in computational assignments at the introductory level. First, novice students often treat computer code as almost magic incantations, and like novices in many fields, have trouble creating new algorithms or procedures to solve novel problems. Second, the nature of computational studies often means that the results generated are interpreted via theoretically devised quantities, which may not meet a student's internal standards for proof when compared to an experimental measurement. The paper then offers a lab/programming assignment, used in a calculus-based physics course, which was devised to address these problems. In the assignment, students created a computational model of the heat flow involved in heating an iron rod in a blacksmith's forge. After creating the simulation, students attended a blacksmithing seminar and had a chance to work with iron and take data on its heating in a coke-fueled forge. On their return to campus, students revised their computational models in light of their experimental data.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2009

Intelligent Agents: A Physics Education Opportunity in Latin-America

Intelligent Agents are being applied in a wide range of processes and everyday applications. Their development is not new, in recent years they have had an increased attention and design in learning and as mentoring tools. In this paper we discuss the definition of what an intelligent agent is; how they are applied; how thy look like; recent implementations of agents; agents as support in learning process; their state in Latin-American countries and future developments and trends that will permit a better communication between people and agents.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2009

Geometric phases without geometry

Geometric phases arise in a number of physical situations and often lead to systematic shifts in frequencies or phases measured in precision experiments. We describe, by working through some simple examples, a method to calculate geometric phases that relies only on standard quantum mechanical calculations of energy level shifts. This connection between geometric phases and off-resonant energy shifts simplifies calculation of the effect in certain situations. More generally, it also provides a way to understand and calculate geometric phases without recourse to topology.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2009

The Revolution in Astronomy Education: Data Science for the Masses

As our capacity to study ever-expanding domains of our science has increased (including the time domain, non-electromagnetic phenomena, magnetized plasmas, and numerous sky surveys in multiple wavebands with broad spatial coverage and unprecedented depths), so have the horizons of our understanding of the Universe been similarly expanding. This expansion is coupled to the exponential data deluge from multiple sky surveys, which have grown from gigabytes into terabytes during the past decade, and will grow from terabytes into Petabytes (even hundreds of Petabytes) in the next decade. With this increased vastness of information, there is a growing gap between our awareness of that information and our understanding of it. Training the next generation in the fine art of deriving intelligent understanding from data is needed for the success of sciences, communities, projects, agencies, businesses, and economies. This is true for both specialists (scientists) and non-specialists (everyone else: the public, educators and students, workforce). Specialists must learn and apply new data science research techniques in order to advance our understanding of the Universe. Non-specialists require information literacy skills as productive members of the 21st century workforce, integrating foundational skills for lifelong learning in a world increasingly dominated by data. We address the impact of the emerging discipline of data science on astronomy education within two contexts: formal education and lifelong learners.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2009

La Nube: La Manera Mas Emocionante De Experimentar Espejos Planos

ESPANOL: Una experiencia que parte del uso de un espejo plano colocado horizontalmente a la altura de la nariz del observador, que permite uma nueva dimension a la experiencia de ver imagenes com espejos simples, sirve para discutir lo que aun puede hacerse para que el estudiante gane uma vision mas profunda y conceptual en el aprendizaje de la fisica. El enfasis esta en la idea de independencia mental, que incluye la de que nuevos resultados pueden surgir en el analisis de experimentos que no necesariamente precisan ser hechos con elementos nuevos o de sofisticada realizacion. ENGLISH TRANSLATION: The experience of employing a plane mirror located at the height of the nose of an observer, giving a new dimension to the experiences made with simple mirrors, is used as an example into the discussion of what can be done for the student to reach a deeper and conceptual insight in learning Physics. The main idea lays on the mental independence, which includes that new results can come through the analysis of experiments which not necessarily needs to be made with new elements or through a sophisticated procedure.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2009

The movement of shadows: a teaching proposal for the secondary school

A didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the length and orientation of shadows cast by a gnomon, the movement of shadows during daytime in different seasons of the year, and finding the true astronomical North, is fully developed. It also includes a discussion of observations from different frames of reference and of some topics in the history of science to enrich a debate among students, as well as the construction of a simplified model for the apparent displacement of the Sun, and of a sundial, and their use as resources to discuss some common misconceptions found in students. Multiple suggestions and clear guides are given for teachers of secondary education to implement theses activities in their classes.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2010

On Equivalent Expressions for the Faraday's Law of Induction

In this paper we give a rigorous proof of the equivalence of some different forms of Faraday's law of induction clarifying some misconceptions on the subject and emphasizing that many derivations of this law appearing in textbooks and papers are only valid under very special circumstances and not satisfactory under a mathematical point of view.

physics.class-ph↗
arXiv2010

Beyond epistemological deficits: Incorporating flexible epistemological views into fine-grained cognitive dynamics

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' troubles with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology: students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning can hinder them from activating and integrating productive knowledge they have. But such explanations run the risk of substituting an epistemological deficit for a concepts/skills deficit. Our analysis of an undergraduate engineering major avoids this "deficit trap" by incorporating multiple, context-dependent epistemological stances into his cognitive dynamics.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2014

Does it matter if you answer slowly?

In this paper, we have analyzed item response times measured at a large scale unspeeded low stakes test for primary-school students. We have demonstrated the existence of significant difference in the response time for boys and girls as well as difference in response time of correct and incorrect answers on this test. We have also demonstrated existence of the warm up effect for this test. The results show that responses given by girls exhibit much greater warm up effect and that difference appears to be the most important cause of the difference on the test level.

physics.ed-ph↗