Dedra's thoughts and episodes from Friday

Ok - so this will be my last post for a while. I would have liked to have finished the transcripts for the episodes I found interesting, but as I clipped 6 today, including 20 mins of last night's instructor meeting, that's not going to happen.

I found the discussion that Rachel, Hunter, Sam, Benedikt and I had after lunch to be very fruitful. As we talked about this mechanism issue, Rachel and Hunter keyed in on an important point - this is an emotional issue - when a person is satisfied that they have found 'causation' that is really an issues of personal view. For example, do you think evaporation is a cause, or is that not a word you'd accept as a cause? I think that depends highly on whether or not you trust the person using it thoroughly understands the word (and implied agrees with your understanding). A second example: If a person says the reason this charge moved is because of that one over there, the implication of cause is coulomb's law - that may be fine unless A) you don't think the person understands electric interactions, or B) you're needing an explanation that goes deeper, like QED. But in either case - there is no 'correct' - back to the nature of science. A mechanism, cause, explanation... is only as good as it is to make the person FEEL satisfied with it...

Please add to comments on this one...

So my feelings that there is something interesting going on here with negotiation of meaning about cause and mechanism is quite tied to the fact that they feel compelled to throw out the word force in order to discuss energy. So I see a few angles here: what is mechanism, how does their meaning negotiation relate to the depth of their need for understanding/comfort/emotional state..., and what constraints is ET putting on the idea space if it is limiting them from drawing on force resources? (And it really isn't - they use force all the time... but seem to think their final 'answer' can't have force in it)

So I will mull over these things. Here's a brief synopsis of the episodes I captured today since I won't transcribe them or give them their own posts:

E1 100819 1502 Instructor meet mechanism modeling consensus.mov

This is a 24 minute clip of the instructor meeting where SV talks about being unclear with the use of the word mechanism, but I expanded it to also include the topic of consensus building. I would have to look at this fresh - but it seems very related, and at minimum starts to give the instructor side of this story. There's discussion in here about whether or not the broader physics community even has consensus about the word mechanism - an idea Hunter echoed this afternoon in an even stronger way - that it may not even be a 'scientific' term (my wording, not his).

E1 100820 0931 Tim_value_of_social_learning.mov

This was one of the first discussions of Friday morning. This is only a 3 min clip. There is a discussion going on briefly about whether to discuss things in forces vs. energy, and also the benefit of ah-ha moments, and how that solidifies ideas. (the mic quality isn't good) social learning is explicitly mentioned - but not taken up by the group as being off topic, but they discuss there being value in having the participants figure things out. they mention early frustration about the class - and whether everyone gets it now - they seem to think it's been a huge benefit. there's discussion about the instructors being aware of where things were going. I'm not sure how useful this clip is... comments of interest are brief and sound quality isn't great.

E1 100820 0931 Tim_workshop_purpose.mov

a bit later they again start talking about purpose. This clip is 8 mins long. Here they were explicitly prompted to discuss what's useful. "the instructor avoids defining any damn thing" you can't do that - need to put structure to it.. but need to give kids genuine opportunities to put ideas together on their own and be the guide on the side, and (compare formulations around the room). they're talking explicitly about the content and activities in the workshop really helped promote the kind of conversations they needed - brought out their ideas - gained fundamental insights about how energy works... consensus making process is great - they talk here about the need for MORE consensus... they also talk about tricking the students into thinking some meta-discussion is a 'fun side discussion' (my words) so the students are engaged thinking they're stealing time away from boring stuff, but it's actually the discussion the teacher wants them to have. I find this really ironic because IT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING in the moment for them! they're no longer answering the given prompts in their group, but they're having the meta-discussion about teaching that the workshop is 'really' about... This is a nice clip for thinking overall about the purpose of the workshop and their buy-in....

E1 100820 0931 Tim_reflecting_on_teaching.mov

Here again they're asked explicitly to reflect on the teaching in the workshop. This is a 7 min clip. They say they had to 'invent the objective' - Two participants say something explicit about knowing SV and trusting his teaching methods, and wondering if he did these things on purpose. They like the tools but found their use a bit vague at times "that huge highway could have been made a bit narrower" They express some frustration about concrete things they came to consensus on but never got back to. ('a disconnect') They also say they would have rather known the objective up front. They also think that the participants are homogeneous - want similar goals, but in their own classrooms they have to deal with different interest levels. 6 mins or so in, there is brief mention of why energy is a good topic for the course - that there are several different formats for discussing it. I wish this point had gone further. An interesting point they make is how without a standard for representations (on whiteboards) they were able to interpret other people's work. I'm not sure how directly useful this clip is to me, but probably useful to thinking about ET goals.

The last two clips interest me most (each about 3-4 mins long)

E1 100820 1031 Tim_force_energy_causation.mov

In this one the F=ma is explicitly stated - and ironically Tim who says they should keep it in context of energy (he's the one that used the word force and bruce argued he shouldn't the day before!!) Arny goes back to this energy/force confusion - he asks pointedly what role the force plays - doesn't the rubber band just stand for elastic potential energy? Arny uses the word 'cause' in a way that seems really provocative (is that REALLY what causes it?) - Tim seems to agree but one group member answers with the same force argument they just made. Then someone says that the removal of the string creates an unbalanced force that then allows the energy to be released. Arny wants more clarification... and he gets a simple physics answer - i don't think that's what he wanted...

E1 100820 1031 Tim_cause_mechanism_discussion.mov

Here they have an analogy of the rubber band in space. Tim uses the word push a lot, it's the mechanism for transferring that energy. Very briefly someone says 'do we have to have an object?' - unfortunately this line is dropped... There seem to be two levels of discourse (at least) within the group, and a lot of interesting statements are dropped for re-stated force explanations. Arny says the rubber band in outer space is like the car upside-down, which is really nice. Then they go back to 'what is the cause' - they seem to find that point difficult - but settle on it being the push "F=ma".

These last two clips are from about 15 mins of discussion they had about the rubber band launch. They were asked: 'what is the funder, what object is exerting the force, what causes the launch" There seems to be Tim and Arny trying to have a deeper discussion about cause and mechanism, where Tim and Janel keep repeating F=ma based reasoning. I'm not sure where Mary's ideas are here...

Anyway - food for later thought - time to return to Oregon!!