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.