final episode and my favorite from today
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
happy medium
Here's a clip from Wednesday with a different view of energy theater. Eric and Jamie are in conversation; transcript follows the clip.
[00:00:05.03]
eric: you know one thing that I've been kind of arguing with myself about here, a lot of the stuff that we did, it's all, the inquiry based, you know how we have this big emphasis on inquiry based learning. That's great. But I think we're pushing it to the point where we're kind of skipping the facts part, you know what I mean? I've got, I've met so many kids--high school kids--that have no concept of fifth grade principles, you know what I mean? Hard learning stuff, they should know. And you're not going to be able to do your inquiry based learning as a sophomore if you don't already have this background knowledge. And we're kind of not..., I mean, when I went to school, they focused on that. Man, they went bing, bing, bing [repeated hand chopping gesture], they beat all the hard knowledge, you know, all the book work, right? And you did some experiments. So, there wasn't a lot of inquiry based learning, but [looks away, shrugs with lower arms] later on, when I got into a situation where there was inquiry based learning, at least I had an idea of what to expect, or knew what was happening because I had the...[puts hands in pockets], I don't know. You've got to have a happy medium! I think we're, you know, but it's just like it swings back and forth [motions hand back and forth] Do it this way, no do it this way.
[akbar leaves conversation].
jamie: It's actually, lends itself more to, at least the way we've been learning, more to learning theory about how, actually, people learn.
eric: yeah
jamie: you know, taking our prior knowledge and either using that, or expanding on that, so, um, how do you..., some of that can be done through experimentation. some of it has to do with, you know, there is some of that 'sage on stage,' we have to explain it [motions with both hands in front of him]. We know [hands motion forward, as if handing something], we have to explain it. So, totally, I agree with you. It's like, finding the happy medium, the happy medium between the two.
this is awesome
This post is intended as a comment on Sam's "Sick of Energy Theater" post. This clip is from Friday's energy theater, and is just one tiny data point, but is still some positive feedback. Watch it and see [interesting comment occurs ~0:30]...
Jamie's end comment, "I wish our kids could do this..." is enigmatic. Watching him directly, and looking at his gestures now, I think he means that the kids would be puzzled and unable to physically work through energy problems like the teachers were doing right there. However, it could be that he simply wants to use energy theater in the class. Other interpretations?
Speeding up processing
We have enough cards that if you're sitting near the camera, it's pretty easy to just swap the cards out during a break and start processing video in the background while you're still in class recording and taking notes. Then when you're off you can focus on making episodes and doing intellectual work rather than grunt work.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Cropping video
I am actually making an episode. Hooray! The group I'm watching takes up a tiny portion of the screen, and there's lots of distracting stuff happening all around them, so I wanted to crop the image to show just the group I'm watching. A little googling found the following video explaining how to do this with Quicktime Pro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZDjX3o9mQ
It's boring to watch, but the directions work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZDjX3o9mQ
It's boring to watch, but the directions work.
cycling on the water cycle
The water cycle keeps coming up in teacher discussions. I'm assuming it's an important part of grade 4-5 curriculum in the state. Also, it seems to be where teachers have a concrete understanding of something "not being created or destroyed."
Today, I listened to two teachers, Sara and Charlene, working to create energy theater scenarios for their classrooms. Sara wanted to apply energy theater to earth science:
"What if we were to do some sort of energy theater with land and water? We could do faster water, which does erosion, and slower water, which does deposition. But how do you demonstrate a bigger object [like a river, vs. a chair or a plate of spaghetti]? "
Sara and Matt discussed kinetic energy, how there is more in the faster moving water, how the kinetic energy transfers from the water to the soil. "But how does it transfer in deposition?" Sara struggled with both how to understand the energy concepts and with how to create an exercise for her students. At this point, she dropped her questions and focused on on teaching the process of energy theater to kids.
While the water cycle seems a really huge thing to tackle with energy theater, I wonder if there's some way to capture the connection teachers have with the concept. I also find myself wondering how Sara might have worked through her question about how energy transfers in deposition if she had been doing this as energy theater in a group, rather than discussing it sitting at a table.
Today, I listened to two teachers, Sara and Charlene, working to create energy theater scenarios for their classrooms. Sara wanted to apply energy theater to earth science:
"What if we were to do some sort of energy theater with land and water? We could do faster water, which does erosion, and slower water, which does deposition. But how do you demonstrate a bigger object [like a river, vs. a chair or a plate of spaghetti]? "
Sara and Matt discussed kinetic energy, how there is more in the faster moving water, how the kinetic energy transfers from the water to the soil. "But how does it transfer in deposition?" Sara struggled with both how to understand the energy concepts and with how to create an exercise for her students. At this point, she dropped her questions and focused on on teaching the process of energy theater to kids.
While the water cycle seems a really huge thing to tackle with energy theater, I wonder if there's some way to capture the connection teachers have with the concept. I also find myself wondering how Sara might have worked through her question about how energy transfers in deposition if she had been doing this as energy theater in a group, rather than discussing it sitting at a table.
Energy Theater for 3rd graders : What's too hard?
The one piece of interesting data I got today was a group of teachers planning an activity of Energy Theater on global warming to do with 3rd graders, or maybe 4th graders (there was a lot of discussion about whether the activity was too advanced for 3rd graders). They decided that the objects would be the sun and the earth, and the kids would be the heat energy and the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. One teacher asked, "So some people are energy and some people are gasses?" The first teacher said yes, and the other teacher went with it. She corrected her once, when the first teacher lapsed into referring to the thermal energy kids as "the sun", saying, "They're the energy, not the objects!" Otherwise, everybody seemed fine with this odd mix of people playing both energy and objects. Aside from the one lapse, I don't think they were actually confusing matter and energy, just confusing the rules of energy theater. But I could be wrong.
The basic plan was that the heat energy kids would travel from the sun to the earth, and then the greenhouse gas kids would try to leave the earth, and the heat energy kids would stop them. The activity definitely illustrates something, but not really what's going on with energy in global warming.
The really depressing part of this discussion was the part about how much the kids should be allowed to figure out on their own and how much they should be told. The teachers debated all aspects of this issue for a long time, but it seemed like every time they concluded that the kids would not be able to figure anything out on their own and should just be told what to do. At one point, a teacher asked if you should let them come up with their own representations and present them and come up with a consensus representation a la the Algebra Project, or if that was too hard. They all decided it was too hard, and they should just give the kids a representation. After all, it was hard for them, so it would be extra hard for their students.
This brings up an interesting general question: If something is challenging for teachers, does that automatically mean it's too hard for students? For these teachers, the answer was yes. My answer is probably yes for content, but no for process. If instructors are struggling with the content of a quantum mechanics course, it's probably too hard for students (and everyone in Maine will know what I'm talking about). But students are capable of a lot more complex processing than we give them credit for, and you don't need to be an expert at process to teach it.
The basic plan was that the heat energy kids would travel from the sun to the earth, and then the greenhouse gas kids would try to leave the earth, and the heat energy kids would stop them. The activity definitely illustrates something, but not really what's going on with energy in global warming.
The really depressing part of this discussion was the part about how much the kids should be allowed to figure out on their own and how much they should be told. The teachers debated all aspects of this issue for a long time, but it seemed like every time they concluded that the kids would not be able to figure anything out on their own and should just be told what to do. At one point, a teacher asked if you should let them come up with their own representations and present them and come up with a consensus representation a la the Algebra Project, or if that was too hard. They all decided it was too hard, and they should just give the kids a representation. After all, it was hard for them, so it would be extra hard for their students.
This brings up an interesting general question: If something is challenging for teachers, does that automatically mean it's too hard for students? For these teachers, the answer was yes. My answer is probably yes for content, but no for process. If instructors are struggling with the content of a quantum mechanics course, it's probably too hard for students (and everyone in Maine will know what I'm talking about). But students are capable of a lot more complex processing than we give them credit for, and you don't need to be an expert at process to teach it.
Swackhamer and Form
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read the following post if you have not yet read the Swackhamer article posted here. You should come to your own conclusions before reading mine.
Fair warning given, I finally read this on the plane home from Maine, and have a few thoughts...
When Swackhamer argues against form, I think what he is really arguing against is the misconception that a particular form is always associated with a particular kind of object, in other words, a straw man. This is particularly evident in his information analogy: “…it would be nonsense to say that hard disk information is transformed into wire information and then into RAM information and then into CD information.” Indeed, it would be nonsense to say this, but the analogous thing to say about energy would be that it is transformed from hand energy to box energy to floor energy, and this is such nonsense that even our most confused students don’t say this. I almost get the sense that Swackhamer himself has the misconception that particular forms of energy are always associated with particular objects. He sees that it leads to nonsense, but instead of recognizing his misconception, he tries to eliminate the notion of form.
I think he makes a very important point that what we really need to pay attention to in energy transfers is how gaining or losing energy changes the state of the object. But the way I understand the idea of form is that it is a shorthand for describing the state of the object in exactly the way he talks about. If an object has kinetic energy, it means it is moving; if it has thermal energy, it means its molecules are moving; if it has spring potential energy, it means it is compressed; if it has gravitational potential energy, it means it is separated from the Earth; etc. Having this kind of shorthand for the state of an object is important because it makes it easier to systemically represent it. One thing I don’t like about his representation is that the state of the object, which he says is a very important thing that you should always ask students to think about, is not actually part of the representation, so it requires a huge amount of cognitive work to hold it in your head. At least it does for me, and I assume it would be even worse for students. The representation doesn’t actually represent one of the most important things.
Furthermore, his representation doesn’t even represent conservation of energy! As he mentions several times, you have to remember that energy is conserved, and then infer from the diagram that if the arrows in a chain are not the same size, then one of the objects is gaining or losing energy. Not exactly what I’d call intuitive or helpful.
He essentially admits these two failures of his representation in the following statement: “Energy flow diagrams are good for making inferences, so long as students are committed to a hardy energy conservation concept and the fact that energy must always be a state of some system.” What good are they for learning if they can only be used if students are already committed to the two most important and difficult concepts about energy? Energy Theater (along with Emma’s movies and the diagrams the students draw after doing ET) is a superior representation because it forces a commitment to both of these concepts, rather than being conditional on that commitment.
Fair warning given, I finally read this on the plane home from Maine, and have a few thoughts...
When Swackhamer argues against form, I think what he is really arguing against is the misconception that a particular form is always associated with a particular kind of object, in other words, a straw man. This is particularly evident in his information analogy: “…it would be nonsense to say that hard disk information is transformed into wire information and then into RAM information and then into CD information.” Indeed, it would be nonsense to say this, but the analogous thing to say about energy would be that it is transformed from hand energy to box energy to floor energy, and this is such nonsense that even our most confused students don’t say this. I almost get the sense that Swackhamer himself has the misconception that particular forms of energy are always associated with particular objects. He sees that it leads to nonsense, but instead of recognizing his misconception, he tries to eliminate the notion of form.
I think he makes a very important point that what we really need to pay attention to in energy transfers is how gaining or losing energy changes the state of the object. But the way I understand the idea of form is that it is a shorthand for describing the state of the object in exactly the way he talks about. If an object has kinetic energy, it means it is moving; if it has thermal energy, it means its molecules are moving; if it has spring potential energy, it means it is compressed; if it has gravitational potential energy, it means it is separated from the Earth; etc. Having this kind of shorthand for the state of an object is important because it makes it easier to systemically represent it. One thing I don’t like about his representation is that the state of the object, which he says is a very important thing that you should always ask students to think about, is not actually part of the representation, so it requires a huge amount of cognitive work to hold it in your head. At least it does for me, and I assume it would be even worse for students. The representation doesn’t actually represent one of the most important things.
Furthermore, his representation doesn’t even represent conservation of energy! As he mentions several times, you have to remember that energy is conserved, and then infer from the diagram that if the arrows in a chain are not the same size, then one of the objects is gaining or losing energy. Not exactly what I’d call intuitive or helpful.
He essentially admits these two failures of his representation in the following statement: “Energy flow diagrams are good for making inferences, so long as students are committed to a hardy energy conservation concept and the fact that energy must always be a state of some system.” What good are they for learning if they can only be used if students are already committed to the two most important and difficult concepts about energy? Energy Theater (along with Emma’s movies and the diagrams the students draw after doing ET) is a superior representation because it forces a commitment to both of these concepts, rather than being conditional on that commitment.
Monday, June 28, 2010
sick of Energy Theater?
One thing that came up in the instructors' meeting this afternoon is that, based on feedback cards passed out last week and conversations with participants, many of the participants are getting sick of Energy Theater. They think they've already learned all there is to learn from it, and that they can figure out what's going on with new scenarios just through thinking about it, and don't need to act it out. The instructors don't think this perception is necessarily accurate, but this is what the participants think. We had a discussion about how to address this issue, and nobody really knew.
I suggested that maybe we need to give them harder or more complex scenarios, so that they can see where they are still struggling. This suggestion was based on Hunter's discussion of his Yakima workshop: he let the participants pick their own scenarios, and they picked really hard ones, but still got a lot out of it. I have no idea if this would actually help, just a thought.
Lane suggested that maybe the instructors need to act out all the scenarios before class, so that they can get more familiar with all the subtle issues that tend to come up and be more able to discuss them with the participants. After all, if we think it's so critical to act it out, why don't we do it ourselves?
Other ideas?
I suggested that maybe we need to give them harder or more complex scenarios, so that they can see where they are still struggling. This suggestion was based on Hunter's discussion of his Yakima workshop: he let the participants pick their own scenarios, and they picked really hard ones, but still got a lot out of it. I have no idea if this would actually help, just a thought.
Lane suggested that maybe the instructors need to act out all the scenarios before class, so that they can get more familiar with all the subtle issues that tend to come up and be more able to discuss them with the participants. After all, if we think it's so critical to act it out, why don't we do it ourselves?
Other ideas?
Worksheets vs. Whiteboards
We have worksheets with instructions for drawing diagrams explaining what you did after acting out an ET scenario. This step, which Hunter first introduced in his Yakima workshop and which I then stole for my Maine workshop, seems to be a very important step in helping participants process and make sense of their ET experience. In my Maine workshop, I also gave participants whiteboards and explicitly told them to draw the diagram together on the whiteboard FIRST, and then draw it on their individual worksheets. This seemed extremely effective for getting the participants to work together and engage in a collective consensus process for the creation of diagrams. What I saw today was that there were whiteboards on the tables, but participants were not explicitly told to use them for this section (they were at other times), so they all just worked individually on their worksheets. This was really boring to watch as a researcher, but more importantly, it seemed much less engaging for the participants. In the future, I definitely recommend explicitly telling participants to use the whiteboards first.
split ticket
The energy theater I observed this morning began with two different approaches. Table 7 (wearing microphone) sat at their table and discussed their strategy for how to portray a person eating pasta and then running a marathon. The teachers talked only, no drawing, no movement.
I had missed the introduction to the exercise, so I assumed they were following directions for the exercise; I also assumed this was not energy theater. Until Table 8 got up and put strings on the floor. While Table 7 was sitting and discussing, Table 8 started to do the standing/moving/planning we saw on Friday. They were still talking and strategizing, rather than actively doing energy theater, but they were moving about, adding physical aspects to their conversation.
Because of the disparate approaches, I made more assumptions--this time that the two tables were not working together. About five minutes into the exercise, Dan came over to observe and provided feedback about the tables needing to work together. This was the point where I realized that energy theater, as we've been doing it, was happening. Table 7 got up and joined Table 8, working in the middle of the room.
The two teams together did more standing/moving/planning, and then engaged in active energy theater. (I'm still processing the footage for this, so don't have details right now.) Interestingly, Table 7 never referenced anything in the sitting-and-planning session they had just done. I never heard, "Remember, we decided we were going to move here and then here." From my observation, that planning time seems entirely wasted; the group began processing the concepts anew once they stood up and started moving.
We are experiencing technical difficulties
Part of my purpose in being here is simply to learn the technical aspects of videotaping groups in a classroom that is not arranged statically. We've encountered so many technical glitches since I got here - I guess I should be thrilled that I'm getting so many learning experiences?
A new type of equipment we've been using are wireless headphones. The idea is supposed to be that you can position the camera in a location with a good view and plug in the headphone transmitter. This allows the observer wearing the wireless headphones to sit somewhere more convenient, away from the camera, and yet to listen and take notes. But in practice there are a lot of snags. Adjusting the camera angle means walking through the classroom and possibly disrupting things. When you're using two sets of headphones in one room (as we do when two people tape), that's another set of frequencies that you have to keep separate. Also, when you hear static through your headphones, you can't tell whether it's due to the headphones (which is an annoyance, but you can always listen to the tape later) or whether it's due to the wireless microphones the participants wear not being positioned well (which is a serious problem, because then the sound isn't being recorded).
We're also still figuring out the processing of the data. As a rule, it takes almost as long to process the data as it does to tape it. Different platforms have different strengths. The process is to (1) Download a MOD file to the computer, (2) Use HandBrake to change it to a mp4 file, (3) Upload both file types to the server and (4) Copy both file types to the hard drive. The Windows machines can play MOD files, but Macs cannot. The Windows machines can run HandBrake to convert to mp4s, but it takes much longer than on a Mac. (Maybe that task should be reserved for Macs?) I wish it didn't take this long to get the data into a usable form, but there seems to be no way around it. And I definitely think that if it's not put into a viewable, labeled form right away, no one will ever go back to look at the data.
A boring but useful post for those staying on campus
Some people coming for the August workshop will be staying in the campus dorms / apartments, as I have been doing this week. This is useful options, and significantly cheaper than a hotel. There have been some bumps, though, so here's some information I hope will be useful.
Checking in
I called conference services (the phone number on my reservation form) to confirm where to check in after hours. However, when I got there the place was shut down. The apartments are not staffed, and you don't check in at the same building you'll be staying. So, if you have any problems, go to the security office (206-281-2922), which is staffed 24 hours a day.
The apartment
My apartment is spacious. It comes with towels, sheets, and blankets, along with furniture. But that's it. There are no hangers and no garbage cans. I've heard there are laundry facilities but I haven't found them.
Meals
Procuring meals, especially breakfast, has been difficult. There is a buffet-style cafeteria on campus, but its summer hours are tied to the other groups staying here. Hours are limited, variable (breakfast might be at 6am one day and at 7am the next) and some days no meals are served. Conference services offers a cooking set you can rent for your stay here, if you want to cook. Most of the time I walk to Fremont (follow the ship canal and the cross the Fremont bridge, a 20-minute walk) for my meals, and the gourmet grocery store PCC Natural (open daily 6am- midnight) has lots of excellent prepared foods.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Must we only sing in chorus?
Energy theater participants often seem to feel that they need to reach consensus about what to do before they do it. Today I got asked to join a group because they needed more people, and when I got impatient with the talking and said, "Can we try doing it?" they said they had not decided what to do yet, so no, we could not do it. On the one hand this makes sense - it's a multiperson representation, so maybe we have to agree before we can proceed. On the other hand... must we always and only talk talk talk? It's not the only means by which to communicate, and it's not a particularly reliable language in which to convey what energy does. If you say the energy "goes away," do you mean it goes somewhere else, or it disappears? What do "dissipate" and "absorb" mean? etc. Actually walking it through gives us all a lot more to work with, especially since you can talk at the same time. And who said there had to be consensus before we move a muscle? Can we only sing in chorus? Why not just everybody get up and do what they think ought to be done, and talk while you do it if that helps us all understand? Our movements can be part of the consensus-building conversation, rather than requiring that conversation to be only verbal.
Somebody argue with me, here.
Prioritizing
We have been trying to do too much and are becoming overwhelmed, both cognitively and logistically. This is the plan for the rest of this course:
- With only three researchers, we will only attempt to document one room. We're sorry, Room 2, but we can't take you on.
- Each researcher-videographer spends half the day observing (video and field notes) and half the day processing (engaging in reflective discussion and writing, as well as the necessary labeling, filing, converting, etc without which we'll just lose track of it all). Both of these activities are critically necessary and they need equal time.
- There will always be one researcher in the classroom. We need to keep in touch with the flow of the activities.
- There will be no unmonitored cameras. We can't process more than one person can observe.
pat your tummy, rub your head
Watched some energy theater this afternoon--year one students trying to represent a body pushing a chair, beginning and ending in motion. Both groups I observed wanted to have energy-particles in the body be simultaneously chemical energy and kinetic energy. The second group said, "Well, how do we represent being two kinds of energy at the same time?" Wesley started trying to rub his belly and pat his head and said, "Can you walk doing this?" The group quickly realized they couldn't be both at the same time.
The role of the instructor in Energy Theater
As Rachel has already argued here, lots of good thinking takes place during Energy Theater. When the groups are doing Energy Theater, I see instructors having two important functions: reinforcing the rules and checking what the theater is communicating.
When the participants are planning what to will happen (and when they are actually doing it), they run into problems, and their solutions often violate the representational rules that have been established. For example, one group that I watched felt that they didn't have enough people to do everything that they wanted. When energy was leaving one object, they wanted it to go into the air and turn into light and air, and they thought that the person representing that energy could make both symbols at the same time. The instructor reminded them the each energy unit could only be one kind of energy, because otherwise it might convey the concept that energy can have two forms simultaneously. The reinforcing of the rules helps maintain the benefits of Energy Theater: that energy always has to go somewhere and have a form, etc.
The other role is watching the energy theater and "reading it back" to the participants. That is, they tell the participants what theater is communicating to the instructors. This helps the participants see where they still have holes. For example, one group's energy theater for a chair being pushed across the floor by a person had energy going from the person into both the chair and the floor simultaneously. When the instructor pointed out that their theater showed energy going directly from the person to the floor, the participants decided that all the energy had to flow through the chair before going into the floor or air.
What I am missing
This afternoon we are almost entirely processing data, not observing. Room 1 has diagrammed their energy theater work and is engaged in a discussion of whether to come to consensus about the diagrams -- whether their representational diversity is a limitation, or an appropriate freedom. I am torn about not documenting that conversation. On the one hand, surely there is cool stuff getting said. But if we record as much as we possibly can, it's the Heap, and we never get to it anyway so why do it in the first place? I am determined not to repeat the experience of last summer. We buried ourselves in data and have still not dug ourselves out.
On the other hand: The joy of last summer for me was the observation I did. Sam and I had this incredibly engrossing experience, living through the course with one group of participants each day, listening to every part of their conversation in the headphones, watching them for hours in the display, taking copious field notes. (I can't take field notes while filming energy theater because I have to be mobile and hold the camera.) It is not going too far to say that the experience of doing that changed my professional life. Right now I am not doing that.
Any way I do it, there is so much I am missing!
On the other hand: The joy of last summer for me was the observation I did. Sam and I had this incredibly engrossing experience, living through the course with one group of participants each day, listening to every part of their conversation in the headphones, watching them for hours in the display, taking copious field notes. (I can't take field notes while filming energy theater because I have to be mobile and hold the camera.) It is not going too far to say that the experience of doing that changed my professional life. Right now I am not doing that.
Any way I do it, there is so much I am missing!
diagrams & real life
As an English major who decided to teach high school math and science, I had to go back to school and catch up on subject matter. One of the courses I took at community college was the first quarter of trig-based physics.
The text book for the course was fantastic (College Physics by Randall Knight) and is obviously based on current learnings in physics education. In the first weeks of class, we were introduced to motion diagrams. However, we only worked motion diagrams as exercises on paper and as part of lecture. We hated doing motion diagrams--they felt like so much busy work, and they confounded concepts as often as they clarified. Later in the course, we were introduced to free-body diagrams, and it was a similar situation. We saw them as a possibly useful tool, but often tried to figure out problems without doing the diagrams because they felt like make-work tasks.
This morning, the second-year group went into the hall with bowling balls, croquet mallets, and sugar packets. Their task was to apply consistent force to the bowling ball, while dropping sugar packets next to the ball at regular intervals (measured by someone clapping at steady beat). Practically speaking, the teams were creating a physical motion diagram.
The teams had not had anything explained to them, other than the basic rules of running the exercise, and were then sent out to run the experiment. As I observed my team, they worked through various ideas about force, speed, acceleration, abandoning some ideas and refining others. They repeated the exercise until they felt like the data was accurate. The marking dots (sugar packets) were very meaningful to the teams, and as they sketched the diagram on the white board, they continued to engage in the ideas they were discussion while pushing the bowling ball.
Had my community college course introduced motion diagrams through this practical application, I think we would have found much more value in them. It's one thing to figure out the direction and intensity of force, acceleration, velocity while working on paper; it's another thing to figure it out while a bowling ball is rolling up and down a hall.
The text book for the course was fantastic (College Physics by Randall Knight) and is obviously based on current learnings in physics education. In the first weeks of class, we were introduced to motion diagrams. However, we only worked motion diagrams as exercises on paper and as part of lecture. We hated doing motion diagrams--they felt like so much busy work, and they confounded concepts as often as they clarified. Later in the course, we were introduced to free-body diagrams, and it was a similar situation. We saw them as a possibly useful tool, but often tried to figure out problems without doing the diagrams because they felt like make-work tasks.
This morning, the second-year group went into the hall with bowling balls, croquet mallets, and sugar packets. Their task was to apply consistent force to the bowling ball, while dropping sugar packets next to the ball at regular intervals (measured by someone clapping at steady beat). Practically speaking, the teams were creating a physical motion diagram.
The teams had not had anything explained to them, other than the basic rules of running the exercise, and were then sent out to run the experiment. As I observed my team, they worked through various ideas about force, speed, acceleration, abandoning some ideas and refining others. They repeated the exercise until they felt like the data was accurate. The marking dots (sugar packets) were very meaningful to the teams, and as they sketched the diagram on the white board, they continued to engage in the ideas they were discussion while pushing the bowling ball.
Had my community college course introduced motion diagrams through this practical application, I think we would have found much more value in them. It's one thing to figure out the direction and intensity of force, acceleration, velocity while working on paper; it's another thing to figure it out while a bowling ball is rolling up and down a hall.
Get right to it
Energy theater in the first year class: My group is doing a lot of talky negotiation that I think they could accomplish more efficiently by walking. For example, one teacher kept saying that "at the end of the scenario we all need to dissipate," and only when they actually walked it through did we see her back out to the edge of the room, away from any object they had designated, with her hands lifting up in a gesture I interpreted as "fading out." If she had just kept talking, I think she would have said the word "dissipate" about 100 times and I would still not have intuited that she meant something a lot like disappear. Another teacher, representing thermal energy in the floor, said they should all "do this," which was to sink vertically downward in order to show that they were "being absorbed." To me, to be absorbed into the floor is to stand at a normal height within the floor-circle, but I think she was either trying to go out of existence, or was using the physical floor and not the floor-circle designated by the string. This is all very critical information that I (AND THEY) only get by them doing what the energy does rather than talking about it.
The point for me is that instructors should be helping teachers get right to it. People can negotiate verbally all day and not learn what they would learn in five seconds of energy theater. I want the instructors to be always saying, "Can you show me that?"
The point for me is that instructors should be helping teachers get right to it. People can negotiate verbally all day and not learn what they would learn in five seconds of energy theater. I want the instructors to be always saying, "Can you show me that?"
Rights and responsibilities
During the "rights and responsibilities" discussion yesterday in the 1st-year class, a teacher stated rather firmly something like "We have the right to know what we are going to be taught and why." I tensed up... it seemed like a mindset in which there is almost a contractual obligation that the instructors will convey certain content, no matter what. She said something like, "Just like we have to do for our students" - write the objective on the board, stuff like that. Eek. Hunter, who was the scribe, just normally wrote it on the board like he was for everything else. Then, when they were done naming rights and responsibilities, Hunter said he thought they had a right that they had not identified for themselves: The right to influence what they were taught. They agreed. I thought this was brilliant: it did not diminish what the teacher had said in any way, yet it is the seed of the responsive teaching that I thought was at risk of being de-legitimized.
First day reflection
Because I think this is a place to be as straightforward as possible, I will go ahead and say that yesterday was not what I was hoping for on several counts.
1. The class activities were not data-rich for my purposes, i.e., nobody did any energy theater until the late afternoon. They did have some good conversations about energy in the morning - the discussion of the OK Go video in room 1, in which participants' talk was rich with energy metaphors - but even the best conversation is just talk, whereas energy theater is talk, body movements, hand signs, timing, responsiveness to one another, etc. I am addicted.
2. The small amount of energy theater that participants did was not much to work with. In room 1 (that's what I'm calling the first-year room), only one group did a "demo" of a scenario by following Hunter's instructions, with the rest of the class watching. While there were some interesting (mis-)interpretations going on, I saw this more as figuring out the representation than figuring out what was going on with the energy. (I know they are closely related, but this remains my instinct.) In room 2, there was a bit of energy theater that I missed, and then a LOT (as in, an hour?) of standing still talking about the scenario. Many of the participants were checked out; one appeared to actually be asleep.
3. We are understaffed. Not many people were able to visit in June, so there are just three of us. It's hard to rotate anyone out of the rooms for processing, especially while Renee Michelle and Melissa Anne are learning the ropes. We could definitely put six people to good use (once there is more energy theater happening in the classroom). Thus yesterday was observation and no processing -- no electronic processing and no mental processing, either. This is just what I was trying to avoid from last summer!
Today I am making sure that we rotate out of the classroom for processing, even at the risk of missing some of the flow of the activity, because if we don't do that, we wind up with an inaccessible heap of lord knows what at the end of the week. I have a scout in each room whose task is to come running to get us whenever energy theater is imminent.
1. The class activities were not data-rich for my purposes, i.e., nobody did any energy theater until the late afternoon. They did have some good conversations about energy in the morning - the discussion of the OK Go video in room 1, in which participants' talk was rich with energy metaphors - but even the best conversation is just talk, whereas energy theater is talk, body movements, hand signs, timing, responsiveness to one another, etc. I am addicted.
2. The small amount of energy theater that participants did was not much to work with. In room 1 (that's what I'm calling the first-year room), only one group did a "demo" of a scenario by following Hunter's instructions, with the rest of the class watching. While there were some interesting (mis-)interpretations going on, I saw this more as figuring out the representation than figuring out what was going on with the energy. (I know they are closely related, but this remains my instinct.) In room 2, there was a bit of energy theater that I missed, and then a LOT (as in, an hour?) of standing still talking about the scenario. Many of the participants were checked out; one appeared to actually be asleep.
3. We are understaffed. Not many people were able to visit in June, so there are just three of us. It's hard to rotate anyone out of the rooms for processing, especially while Renee Michelle and Melissa Anne are learning the ropes. We could definitely put six people to good use (once there is more energy theater happening in the classroom). Thus yesterday was observation and no processing -- no electronic processing and no mental processing, either. This is just what I was trying to avoid from last summer!
Today I am making sure that we rotate out of the classroom for processing, even at the risk of missing some of the flow of the activity, because if we don't do that, we wind up with an inaccessible heap of lord knows what at the end of the week. I have a scout in each room whose task is to come running to get us whenever energy theater is imminent.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
What to do all day
8am: Arrive at Otto Miller Hall and get everything ready for class.
8:30am: Class begins. You spend the morning either observing class, or processing the video and photos that you collected the day before.
(In the best possible arrangement, two researcher-videographers will observe each class session at the same time, and two other researcher-videographers will process their accumulated video and photos at the same time. In this way of operating, you have two different kinds of partners: one who is in the room with you, and one who is observing the same group as you. This will provide a strong structure for collaboration. In real life we will be flexibly adapting to circumstances such as multiple courses, transitions between researchers, etc.)
Lunch: Take lunch at the same time as the teachers do, unless you have a better idea. You can bring your lunch or you can walk to Fremont and buy lunch. There is barely time to walk to Fremont and back during the lunch period - you may wind up walking while you eat - but it's a really nice walk.
Afternoon, until 3:30pm: Spend the afternoon either observing class, or processing the video and photos you collected in the morning.
3:30-4:30pm: The course instructors meet to talk over what happened in class and make plans for the next day. We are the best source of information they have! Be prepared to report on what you observed that day and line up a video episode or two to share. We need to end the meeting at 4:30, so there won't always be time for video. Be assured it will be put to good use at some point.
Weekends are all yours.
8:30am: Class begins. You spend the morning either observing class, or processing the video and photos that you collected the day before.
(In the best possible arrangement, two researcher-videographers will observe each class session at the same time, and two other researcher-videographers will process their accumulated video and photos at the same time. In this way of operating, you have two different kinds of partners: one who is in the room with you, and one who is observing the same group as you. This will provide a strong structure for collaboration. In real life we will be flexibly adapting to circumstances such as multiple courses, transitions between researchers, etc.)
Lunch: Take lunch at the same time as the teachers do, unless you have a better idea. You can bring your lunch or you can walk to Fremont and buy lunch. There is barely time to walk to Fremont and back during the lunch period - you may wind up walking while you eat - but it's a really nice walk.
Afternoon, until 3:30pm: Spend the afternoon either observing class, or processing the video and photos you collected in the morning.
3:30-4:30pm: The course instructors meet to talk over what happened in class and make plans for the next day. We are the best source of information they have! Be prepared to report on what you observed that day and line up a video episode or two to share. We need to end the meeting at 4:30, so there won't always be time for video. Be assured it will be put to good use at some point.
Weekends are all yours.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How to process, store, and edit video and photos
As with the directions for videotaping a class session, this isn't going to substitute for in-person training, but will hopefully be helpful as an overview or reminder.
Preparation
1. Set up your laptop to access the project server so that you will be ready to transfer files there later. To access the server, connect to smb://physicsdata.spu.edu/classes (or from project laptops, look in the Apple menu under Recent Items for the item called "classes"). The login is "scherr" and the password is "EnergyProject." Navigate to 2010 Summer; you should be able to figure out where to put things within that.
2. Enable yourself to view .mod files without having to convert them first. Instructions here. (If you are using a project laptop, this step may have been done already.)
3. Get the free program called Handbrake, for converting .mod files to .mp4 files.
Data processing and storage
1. Take the memory card out of the camera and put it into a card reader attached to one of the processing laptops. Rename all the .mod files according to the following formula:
E1 100624 1330 Amelia.mod
The first letters signify the course, the first string of numbers is the date (year, month, and day, 2 digits each: the example is June 24, 2010), the second string of numbers is the time that the file was created (1:30pm - the time is recorded as part of the file information so you can always look there; use military time so that they automatically are in the right order), and the name is the name of the microphone wearer. The course codes are as follows (I don't pick the titles):
UE1 and UE2 = Understanding Energy 1 and 2, the courses for elementary teachers
E1 and E2 = Energy 1 and 2, the courses for secondary teachers.
2. If any of the .mod files are unquestionably 100% trash (just a test video, something like that) you may throw them out; but please make this decision very carefully; you're throwing out the original. Don't modify the .mod file. If there's helpful editing to be done, do it on the .mp4 you're about to generate.
3. Copy the labeled .mod files to two places: (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
3. Rename all the .jpg (photo) files according to the following formula:
E1 100624 947 T1.jpg
where everything is as for movie files but instead of the name, you have the table number (T1, T2, etc.).
4. Copy the labeled .jpg files to two places: (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
(There. You're safe.)
5. Use Handbrake to convert the .mod file to an .mp4. For "Format," choose "Mp4 file," and for "Video Codec," use "MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)." Set the quality to 100%. When the conversion is complete, check the resulting movie for basic technical sufficiency. (Does it have sound? Does it look okay?) Assuming all is well, store the resulting .mp4 in (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
6. Erase the camera card (trash all the files and then empty the trash) and put the card back with the cameras.
Episode selection
8. Select interesting episodes. You should be able to locate the good stuff pretty efficiently based on your field notes. Try to keep a single episodes down to five minutes at most.
9. Record the location of the episode within the larger file, using a text file that you save nearby.
10. Use QuickTime Pro to create new files of your episodes. (Select the part you want with the sliders below the playback cursor, then choose Edit -> Trim to Selection. Immediately "save as" so that you don't overwrite your whole movie.) Label episodes as follows:
E1 100624 CatchyName.mov
11. You guessed it - file your episode on the drive and on the server.
12. If you can, transcribe and caption your episode using InqScribe. Instructions here. Save the Inqscribe file in the usual places. Note: Transcription is analysis, and transcribing short episodes is often quite interesting and satisfying. Use the hundred-dollar headphones. Inqscribe makes captioning as painless as it could possibly be.
Reflection and sharing of insights
13. Talk to your office buddy about what you saw today. Yes, this fun task is one of your important responsibilities!
14. Make a blog entry. As I've said before, the exciting thoughts and cool observations you will be having/making are one of the very important outcomes of your participation, and documenting them will be part of your daily activity while you're here. When you're referring to a particular group or incident, include a screen shot or photo.
Preparation
1. Set up your laptop to access the project server so that you will be ready to transfer files there later. To access the server, connect to smb://physicsdata.spu.edu/classes (or from project laptops, look in the Apple menu under Recent Items for the item called "classes"). The login is "scherr" and the password is "EnergyProject." Navigate to 2010 Summer; you should be able to figure out where to put things within that.
2. Enable yourself to view .mod files without having to convert them first. Instructions here. (If you are using a project laptop, this step may have been done already.)
3. Get the free program called Handbrake, for converting .mod files to .mp4 files.
Data processing and storage
1. Take the memory card out of the camera and put it into a card reader attached to one of the processing laptops. Rename all the .mod files according to the following formula:
E1 100624 1330 Amelia.mod
The first letters signify the course, the first string of numbers is the date (year, month, and day, 2 digits each: the example is June 24, 2010), the second string of numbers is the time that the file was created (1:30pm - the time is recorded as part of the file information so you can always look there; use military time so that they automatically are in the right order), and the name is the name of the microphone wearer. The course codes are as follows (I don't pick the titles):
UE1 and UE2 = Understanding Energy 1 and 2, the courses for elementary teachers
E1 and E2 = Energy 1 and 2, the courses for secondary teachers.
2. If any of the .mod files are unquestionably 100% trash (just a test video, something like that) you may throw them out; but please make this decision very carefully; you're throwing out the original. Don't modify the .mod file. If there's helpful editing to be done, do it on the .mp4 you're about to generate.
3. Copy the labeled .mod files to two places: (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
3. Rename all the .jpg (photo) files according to the following formula:
E1 100624 947 T1.jpg
where everything is as for movie files but instead of the name, you have the table number (T1, T2, etc.).
4. Copy the labeled .jpg files to two places: (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
(There. You're safe.)
5. Use Handbrake to convert the .mod file to an .mp4. For "Format," choose "Mp4 file," and for "Video Codec," use "MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)." Set the quality to 100%. When the conversion is complete, check the resulting movie for basic technical sufficiency. (Does it have sound? Does it look okay?) Assuming all is well, store the resulting .mp4 in (1) the project hard drive and (2) the project server.
6. Erase the camera card (trash all the files and then empty the trash) and put the card back with the cameras.
Episode selection
8. Select interesting episodes. You should be able to locate the good stuff pretty efficiently based on your field notes. Try to keep a single episodes down to five minutes at most.
9. Record the location of the episode within the larger file, using a text file that you save nearby.
10. Use QuickTime Pro to create new files of your episodes. (Select the part you want with the sliders below the playback cursor, then choose Edit -> Trim to Selection. Immediately "save as" so that you don't overwrite your whole movie.) Label episodes as follows:
E1 100624 CatchyName.mov
11. You guessed it - file your episode on the drive and on the server.
12. If you can, transcribe and caption your episode using InqScribe. Instructions here. Save the Inqscribe file in the usual places. Note: Transcription is analysis, and transcribing short episodes is often quite interesting and satisfying. Use the hundred-dollar headphones. Inqscribe makes captioning as painless as it could possibly be.
Reflection and sharing of insights
13. Talk to your office buddy about what you saw today. Yes, this fun task is one of your important responsibilities!
14. Make a blog entry. As I've said before, the exciting thoughts and cool observations you will be having/making are one of the very important outcomes of your participation, and documenting them will be part of your daily activity while you're here. When you're referring to a particular group or incident, include a screen shot or photo.
15. Read someone else's blog post and comment on it.
How to document a class session with video and photos
This is not going to be a detailed instruction manual for the specific equipment we use; we'll do that part in person. This is an overview of the procedures for video- and photo-recording a class session.
1. Arrive at 8am so that you have time to get things in order before class starts at 8:30.
2. Equipment check: Make sure the cameras are charged and have fresh memory cards in them, that the mics have fresh batteries, etc.
3. The first order of business is to select a microphone-wearer for the day. You have to know who this will be before you can set up any other equipment. Try to choose a person who interacts a lot and who seems to be part of a good group. Ideally, your chosen person sits physically in the middle of the group, for the best pickup. Approach him or her, introduce yourself, and say something like the following:
You: "Would you be willing to be one of our microphone-wearers today? We're asking different people every day and we would really appreciate your help." *
Participant: "Um, sure, okay."
You: "Thank you so much. It really helps us out. The way it works is, you clip this part to your shirt, and put this part in your pocket or on your belt. If you need to turn it off, here's how - you open it up, and hold down this button. But realistically if you leave the room to use the restroom or for a personal matter you'll go out of range, anyway. You'll see one of us Thanks again, we really appreciate everyone's willingness to take a turn."
(Participants at the table will now make predictable nervous jokes about being recorded.)
You: "I just want to assure you that we're not monitoring you and we're not interested in your private conversation or anything like that. We just know that the best work that you do is the work you do together, and we really appreciate getting the opportunity to observe that."
Before you go, learn their names; you will need them while taking field notes.
* Do not say, "Would you like to wear the microphone today?" - that makes it sound like they may as well let someone else have the privilege. Of course, if someone really doesn't want to, thank them and move on to someone else.
4. Position the cameras so as to see the mic wearer well. Try shelves, countertops, whatever you can swing. The tripods can wrap around things so go ahead and get creative. Always plug in the camera when you can, so that you preserve the battery for when you need to be mobile. Once you are set up, do a sound check, start recording, and find a place to settle in and take field notes.
However, keep in mind that this is the kind of class where they're going to get up and move around. When they do, you will need to grab the camera and microphone receiver (these are both small) and follow them as best you can, be that out into another room or whatever. You will probably need to disconnect the camera's power cord as well as the wireless headphones, since the "base station" for those is big and clunky. Have other headphones handy so that you can still listen.
Of course, do your best to be unobtrusive. They will attend to you occasionally, but most of the time they have more interesting things to do than joke about the camera. Do what you can to minimize the disturbance to the class - the reason they are here is to learn with each other, not to provide us with video subjects.
When you change videographers (probably at lunchtime), you may change mic wearers, or not. I usually don't change unless I'm unhappy with the group I'm watching.
5. We are responsible for still photography, as well. Photograph every white board the participants produce, if possible - all the groups, not only the group you are observing. There is often a "gallery walk" or a break after they produce a white board, which is the time for the photography. It's a little tricky to take the picture in a way that includes information about whose white board it is. The best technique I've found is to ask the participants to hold it upright (to avoid glare from the ceiling lights) and photograph it from an angle that includes the table number in the photo.
6. If you are the one recording at the end of the class, make sure all the equipment is turned off and the cameras are charging (meaning that they are off, but plugged in). We can leave the equipment in the room. Class ends at 3:30. Instructors and Scholars meet each afternoon from 3:30-4:30.
UPDATE: Helpful technical recommendations are accumulating here.
1. Arrive at 8am so that you have time to get things in order before class starts at 8:30.
2. Equipment check: Make sure the cameras are charged and have fresh memory cards in them, that the mics have fresh batteries, etc.
3. The first order of business is to select a microphone-wearer for the day. You have to know who this will be before you can set up any other equipment. Try to choose a person who interacts a lot and who seems to be part of a good group. Ideally, your chosen person sits physically in the middle of the group, for the best pickup. Approach him or her, introduce yourself, and say something like the following:
You: "Would you be willing to be one of our microphone-wearers today? We're asking different people every day and we would really appreciate your help." *
Participant: "Um, sure, okay."
You: "Thank you so much. It really helps us out. The way it works is, you clip this part to your shirt, and put this part in your pocket or on your belt. If you need to turn it off, here's how - you open it up, and hold down this button. But realistically if you leave the room to use the restroom or for a personal matter you'll go out of range, anyway. You'll see one of us Thanks again, we really appreciate everyone's willingness to take a turn."
(Participants at the table will now make predictable nervous jokes about being recorded.)
You: "I just want to assure you that we're not monitoring you and we're not interested in your private conversation or anything like that. We just know that the best work that you do is the work you do together, and we really appreciate getting the opportunity to observe that."
Before you go, learn their names; you will need them while taking field notes.
* Do not say, "Would you like to wear the microphone today?" - that makes it sound like they may as well let someone else have the privilege. Of course, if someone really doesn't want to, thank them and move on to someone else.
4. Position the cameras so as to see the mic wearer well. Try shelves, countertops, whatever you can swing. The tripods can wrap around things so go ahead and get creative. Always plug in the camera when you can, so that you preserve the battery for when you need to be mobile. Once you are set up, do a sound check, start recording, and find a place to settle in and take field notes.
However, keep in mind that this is the kind of class where they're going to get up and move around. When they do, you will need to grab the camera and microphone receiver (these are both small) and follow them as best you can, be that out into another room or whatever. You will probably need to disconnect the camera's power cord as well as the wireless headphones, since the "base station" for those is big and clunky. Have other headphones handy so that you can still listen.
Of course, do your best to be unobtrusive. They will attend to you occasionally, but most of the time they have more interesting things to do than joke about the camera. Do what you can to minimize the disturbance to the class - the reason they are here is to learn with each other, not to provide us with video subjects.
When you change videographers (probably at lunchtime), you may change mic wearers, or not. I usually don't change unless I'm unhappy with the group I'm watching.
5. We are responsible for still photography, as well. Photograph every white board the participants produce, if possible - all the groups, not only the group you are observing. There is often a "gallery walk" or a break after they produce a white board, which is the time for the photography. It's a little tricky to take the picture in a way that includes information about whose white board it is. The best technique I've found is to ask the participants to hold it upright (to avoid glare from the ceiling lights) and photograph it from an angle that includes the table number in the photo.
6. If you are the one recording at the end of the class, make sure all the equipment is turned off and the cameras are charging (meaning that they are off, but plugged in). We can leave the equipment in the room. Class ends at 3:30. Instructors and Scholars meet each afternoon from 3:30-4:30.
UPDATE: Helpful technical recommendations are accumulating here.
Monday, June 21, 2010
How to make a blog entry
Click "New Post" at the top right. Give your entry a title that says what the entry is about, rather than a formulaic title - very likely, this will mean that every title is unique. Write completely informally about something that struck you, just the way you would tell me about it if you stopped me in the hall. If it is about a particular incident (as will often be the case), include the kind of info that will help us find the records of what you're talking about, and post a photo of the group. Insights or theories that are not about a specific episode are also welcome.
How to take field notes
"Field notes" are the notes that we take while we are doing classroom observations. The purpose of field notes is to enable you or another researcher to find good stuff in the video record. (There are other possible uses of field notes: for example, some observers use field notes to record the complete sequence of activities that they observe, or to note every time a participant does a certain kind of thing. This isn't our main purpose and also, I think it's boring. Don't feel an obligation to do that.)
Q. What is "good stuff"?
A. I'm not going to tell you, or not entirely. "Good stuff" is stuff that when you see it, you say, "Wow, would you look at that!" Could be good, could be bad, could be expected, could be unexpected. The project already has some categories of interest (below) which we will be grateful for you to keep your eyes out for. However, a major benefit of your working with us is for you to turn us on to your areas of interest and expertise. So please, whatever you see that you get excited about, we want to see too. Engaging with data in this way involves a particular leap of faith, which is to trust that whatever is genuinely interesting to you, is genuinely interesting.
Some of our areas of interest (this is an off-the-cuff list):
Q. How should we take field notes?
A. Sit somewhere in the classroom where you can see the group that you're observing and can also be out of the way. Use headphones to listen to what they're saying. Take notes in an online spreadsheet that is shared among the people observing the course - that is, on a laptop. (You can either bring one or we'll provide one for you.) There will often be another videographer in the room with you: consider establishing a text chat with the other person so that you can discuss what you're observing. You will also be able to see each other's notes.
This kind of observation is very engrossing and also tiring, at least for me. Take restorative breaks as needed. You can't record everything.
Q. What should we record in order to be able to find the good stuff later?
A. There's a template of basic information that we will always record: the date, the day and approximate time (e.g., Tuesday morning), your name, which teacher is wearing the microphone, who else is on camera, and the basic activity they're doing. Then there is a place just called "Notes." What you put in the "notes" area is ... whatever you think will be helpful to you and to others. This is tricky because you can't entirely tell now what you're going to be interested in later (much less what someone else is going to be interested in). So just do your best. Strike some kind of balance between including plenty of detail so that you have lots to look back on, and being concise so that you don't overwhelm the reader and exhaust yourself. Be as colorful as you like; these are private documents, and the more vividly your notes call the scene to mind, the better. Frequent time stamps are your friend, as you will find when you start trying to locate episodes.
Q. What is "good stuff"?
A. I'm not going to tell you, or not entirely. "Good stuff" is stuff that when you see it, you say, "Wow, would you look at that!" Could be good, could be bad, could be expected, could be unexpected. The project already has some categories of interest (below) which we will be grateful for you to keep your eyes out for. However, a major benefit of your working with us is for you to turn us on to your areas of interest and expertise. So please, whatever you see that you get excited about, we want to see too. Engaging with data in this way involves a particular leap of faith, which is to trust that whatever is genuinely interesting to you, is genuinely interesting.
Some of our areas of interest (this is an off-the-cuff list):
- Conceptual understanding of energy/metaphors for energy
- People's use of their bodies for learning
- People taking the perspective of physics entities, especially hypothetical entities like energy
- People valuing the development of rich content knowledge for themselves
- People showing that they understand themselves/each other to be intelligent agents whose ideas merit careful attention and who can figure things out
Q. How should we take field notes?
A. Sit somewhere in the classroom where you can see the group that you're observing and can also be out of the way. Use headphones to listen to what they're saying. Take notes in an online spreadsheet that is shared among the people observing the course - that is, on a laptop. (You can either bring one or we'll provide one for you.) There will often be another videographer in the room with you: consider establishing a text chat with the other person so that you can discuss what you're observing. You will also be able to see each other's notes.
This kind of observation is very engrossing and also tiring, at least for me. Take restorative breaks as needed. You can't record everything.
Q. What should we record in order to be able to find the good stuff later?
A. There's a template of basic information that we will always record: the date, the day and approximate time (e.g., Tuesday morning), your name, which teacher is wearing the microphone, who else is on camera, and the basic activity they're doing. Then there is a place just called "Notes." What you put in the "notes" area is ... whatever you think will be helpful to you and to others. This is tricky because you can't entirely tell now what you're going to be interested in later (much less what someone else is going to be interested in). So just do your best. Strike some kind of balance between including plenty of detail so that you have lots to look back on, and being concise so that you don't overwhelm the reader and exhaust yourself. Be as colorful as you like; these are private documents, and the more vividly your notes call the scene to mind, the better. Frequent time stamps are your friend, as you will find when you start trying to locate episodes.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Insights about learning about energy
More insights from our work so far in the Energy Project. Mostly, we are really excited about Energy Theater.
- It appears to be very useful for learners to think about energy in terms of chunks which are conserved but can change type, associated with an object specified by a location (as in Energy Theater).
- Using Energy Theater supports students in highly productive conceptual thinking about the nature of energy. Among the conceptual advantages of Energy Theater are the following: energy is conserved, energy is a thing located in an object, energy flows among objects, energy can accumulate in objects, energy has one form at a time, and energy can change form. The nature of energy is not typically a subject of energy instruction at all, and other representations (PET diagram, PhET sim), much as we love them, do not help students engage with certain of these ideas.
- Student thinking about energy (and more importantly, probably, questioning about energy) is enabled and fueled through the promotion of specific metaphors. In particular, when energy is conceived as a multiplicity of invisible (but indirectly detectable) objects, many productive questions about energy arise and flourish, such as: where does the energy come from and go to, and when? (This is easy to say, but can be hugely elaborate, since there are so many possibilities for how a multiplicity of objects can move about and be configured through time.) What form is the energy? Can energy be different forms at the same time, in whole or in part? Can energy be formless? How does the form of energy relate to where it is and how it is moving from here to there? Therefore, the promotion of persistent application of metaphorical thinking creates fertile ground for learning.
- It seems to us that the establishment of a common metaphor (and the embodiment of that metaphor) is sufficiently powerful to shape students’ thinking, regardless of what they may previously have thought about energy. In other words, it does not seem to be necessary for effective instruction to elicit and confront students’ so-called misconceptions, at least not in an explicit verbal, propositional form.
- We think Energy Theater is effective partly because of the benefits of deliberate embodiment of abstract physical entities. Cognitive benefits include harnessing the sensory-motor feedback loop for physics learning, taking the perspective of physics entities (as in Ochs), and making use of embodied metaphors (which Lakoff and Johnson claim is how we understand our world). In addition, Energy Theater is life-size for big group involvement; it forces participation and consensus; there are regular prompts for individual decision-making; and there are regular opportunities for the public construction of symbols. Finally, the body is a free, multimedia technology, naturally dynamic, and with a flexible suite of tools.
Insights about what comes naturally to learners when thinking about energy
The below are some of the insights we have accumulated so far in our work in the Energy Project. You're not responsible for memorizing or even agreeing with these; we're just sharing what we think we've seen so far. Please do not cite or distribute these statements... they're not at that stage yet.
1. There seems to be a strong dividing line in many people’s minds between what we call “energy we care about” and “energy we learn about.” That is, people seem to think about energy very differently depending on whether it is a science-class context or colloquial conversation, news, politics, etc. If learners see themselves as being in a science-class context, their thinking tends to be more limited and their confidence tends to be lower. In a real-world/non-school context, on the other hand, learners contribute creatively, prolifically, and confidently. For example, in the summer class for elementary teachers last June, ideas like “solar energy” and “energy efficiency” were exciting and engaging to most of the participants, but when the conversation began to be about more textbook-like physics problems, some participants seemed intimidated or turned off by it – as if it reminded them that they don’t actually know very much. We have also observed that YouTube videos that raise energy issues can inspire passionate discussions among commenters.
2. There seem to be at least two intuitive metaphors for energy: as a “substance” and as an “activation.” In the substance metaphor, objects are containers, and energy can fill the containers. This metaphor supports ideas of conservation, flow, transfer, storage, etc, which are among our primary learning goals. In the “activation” metaphor, objects can be energized – “turned on” by energy. This metaphor does not support ideas of conservation but does support ideas of causation – that energy makes things happen. It also supports the idea of energy having observable effects (motion, light, heat, etc.).
3. Learners sometimes think of energy as a characteristic property of an object or material. In particular, what form(s) of energy is appropriate to that object is a characteristic property. For example, elastic energy is confused with elasticity: a rubber band is seen as having elastic energy even when unstretched because elastic energy is the same as elasticity, which is a property of the material. In this way of thinking, a rubber band would not have (say) kinetic energy, because a rubber band is not that type of thing. Kinetic energy would be a property of wheels or similar things.
4. Learners seem to think of “potential energy” as an absence or latency of energy (rather than a kind of energy, as we do). In the substance metaphor, the potential energy (or just “potential,” or “energy potential”) is the unfilled space in the object-container, which can “potentially” be filled by energy. In the activation metaphor, the potential energy is the ability of an object to have a certain type of energy – for example, a light bulb might have “light energy” when it is on and “light potential” when it is off. Both of these uses are consistent with everyday meanings of the term “potentially” (“possibly” or “maybe”), and with the idea that people can “reach their potential” (“fulfill their capacity”).
5. Student thinking about energy is in some cases “accomplishment-oriented.” That is, energy is used to do things, or make things. Learners are often not sure when energy is coming into a system, or going out, or appearing after being stored within. They tend to be most comfortable with the idea that it is passed on from one object to the next (as it might appear to be in a Rube Goldberg machine), more than the idea that energy is stored within or comes in or goes out. In this sense, energy seems to be a linear propagation of causal power until it achieves its goal and is extinguished, perhaps like fire in a line of gunpowder.
6. In a symbolic system such as Energy Theater in which energy is associated with specific objects, students can have a hard time keeping the energy and the object straight. In Energy Theater, they often (accidentally?) assign themselves to be objects instead of chunks of energy. We think this may be because it’s more natural to think of an object as a thing than it is to think of energy as a thing. It may also be partly due to learners thinking of energy as a characteristic property of an object or material (see above). The problem with not thinking of energy as a thing is that learners lose track of the energy, and don’t conserve it.
Swackhamer paper
The following article has been an important source of organizing insights for us in thinking about how people think and learn about energy - please try and read it before you come. Fair warning - much as we love it, there are things in it that we disagree with. We can talk about that after you're here.
Gregg Swackhamer, "Cognitive resources for understanding energy," draft (2005).
Gregg Swackhamer, "Cognitive resources for understanding energy," draft (2005).
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Welcome
This is the site for the researcher-videographers participating with Seattle Pacific University's Energy Project to record their insights and developing ideas on a daily basis.
All of the participating researcher-videographers are authors of the blog. The exciting thoughts and cool observations you will be having/making are one of the very important outcomes of your participation, and documenting them will be part of your daily activity while you're here. I also encourage you all to read each other's posts, both while you're here and before/after your visit, to get a sense of what is going on.
This is a private blog. The people who are invited to read it are the members of the SPU Energy Project and the researcher-videographers' advisors. If there's anyone else you think should have access, pipe right up; I'm not trying to be exclusive, just to keep the community of readers well-defined so that we can all speak as freely as possible.
All of the participating researcher-videographers are authors of the blog. The exciting thoughts and cool observations you will be having/making are one of the very important outcomes of your participation, and documenting them will be part of your daily activity while you're here. I also encourage you all to read each other's posts, both while you're here and before/after your visit, to get a sense of what is going on.
This is a private blog. The people who are invited to read it are the members of the SPU Energy Project and the researcher-videographers' advisors. If there's anyone else you think should have access, pipe right up; I'm not trying to be exclusive, just to keep the community of readers well-defined so that we can all speak as freely as possible.
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