[00:00:01.25] (W) In act two three and four, the car is giving the ground energy, thermal energy, it's very minimal, so it actually is a receiver of energy but is it still a mechanism?
(B) yea, that's what I was wondering
(G) the .. is why we're having it go down the road is the mechanism
(B) it's a mechanism to make it move or it's a way to make it move but it's not, i don't think it's, it's not necessary for a tran transfer of energy, where here it was necessary for a transfer of energy here, and energy is still going to be changed back to, or into movement without the ground
(G) right because when we did it upside down the wheels still move
(B) or changing it to ice or whatever it is, the wheels are still going to move, so that makes me wonder is is now the rubber band, it is stored energy i agree with that, but is it also is that what is also the mechanism that changes it into some other type of energy? (addressing this to W)
[00:01:13.15]
(G) gotcha
(W) like the act of it unwinding is that the mechanism (B nodds) i would agree more with the act of it unwinding vs. just the rubber band itself (B 'yea, yea') but can the mechanism be an object and then in the next instance be, something like a movement? i don't know
(G) i don't know
(P) (? says something brief in agreement?)
(G) we didn't ever define mechanism
(W) no (pause) i still don't know the first thing about...
(B) neither do i, i mean i like how we kind of came up with it in this one, it makes a lot of sense to me here
(G) then applying that to another thing
(B) i guess i was trying to take this to that one
(W) is there another term we can use instead of mechanism? (she interrupts B here) that i just i can't seem to grasp hold on to a good definition of that mechanism
(B) do you like, how about uh, the way to transfer energy?
(W) that would help, i mean that would make a lot more sense to me (she says something else B talks over)
(B) i mean that's how i've been thinking of it here but i don't know if you guys agree with that or
(G) no, it does, we use another word in science, mechanism, when we're more familiar with the ways to transfer energy
The whole conversation I clipped is 7 minutes long - it is very interesting. They end up going online to consult a definition which confuses them more about whether it is a 'thing' or a 'process'. There are some terrific quotes in here:
they are clearly sharing their confusion with each other:
(W) i just hate that term (looks over at B) the way energy is transferred?
(B) is it also transformed? i mean is it
(W) i think so because i mean like...
(G) yea (looks online)
a bit later the same issues are still on the table:
(B) to me that's the problem in this one there's two mechanisms, there's two ways to make the wheels turn? (looks at W)
(B) but i i'm still confused about what the mechanism is behind the uh or the way it's transferred in the rubber band, i don't know if it's the rubber band itself or the winding of it
(P) yea
(W) it has something to do with that though... I hate not having answers
(G) well it's the process like you brought it into biology because mechanism is different in what you're talking about
they're negotiating the term:
(W) so the process of of energy movement, right?
(B) uh yea
[00:05:25.20]
(W) let's just use the word process, i like that better
(B) process
(W) process of energy
they start to find resolution that satisfies themselves:
(W) I'm starting to understand this lab
(P) the definitions help (they laugh)
(G) isn't this we're back to revisit the terminology we're back to ..
and during this segment what is on their whiteboard is being edited and checked by the group members (they're really functional together in terms of cooperating)
then an off-topic but still very relevant statement:
[00:07:03.11] (W) i think this is one of the reasons i enjoyed biology better, because i like to have answers
(G laughs)
(W) and definite concrete facts, and this
(G) this isn't... trying to trace energy?
they go on to talk about how doing this really helped them make sense of the situation and discuss whether or not it would be practical in their own classroom.
What I really liked about this episode, besides the really clear group negotiation and shared meaning making, and the emphasis on having a common clear definition in order to have a satisfying explanation, is that this idea of mechanism if really very complicated.
If I challenge myself to REALLY think 'what is the mechanism' it sends me down the rabbit hole - i start thinking QED and particle exchange - what is REALLY making this happen. Then I start thinking that to REALLY discuss mechanism then I need to have a local theory (no action-at-a-distance) for everything. But this isn't really productive. Leslie and I discussed this briefly walking to lunch - she said something about the usefulness of constructs - and talking about, for example, gravity as if it were a tangible - having 'thingness' makes it easier to have conversations about mechanism.
Anyway, all this had my head spinning this weekend - and I think the students heads were spinning friday (and i saw this come up monday too)
Benedikt said it came up more in E2 (or maybe leslie did?) - perhaps it would be interesting to contrast this transcript with one from E2??
And I think it is HIGHLY powerful for them to negotiate meaning - i think it's also worth intervening when they start going down rabbit holes. They need to come away with this thinking about the process and the problem solving (which this group did - kudos to them!), and understanding why that is valuable, but i feel like they need resolution, even if that resolution is only 'this is just a useful construct'... But perhaps those discussions must wait for E2?
An interesting thing to note is that although beautiful things were happening in this group they still held major confusions and didn't answer the questions deeply and realized they had inconsistent ideas and needed help from Stamatis to sort them out. So good team workers, struggling with complex ideas, but still struggling with more simple ones (confused specifically about how the car can move if the 3rd law pairs always cancel)...
Much meat in this transcript....
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