I have seen consistent efforts by participants that I have been observing to be very creative with ET. Examples of this include:
- wiggling the ropes at different speeds to show that water in transferring heat or cooling off (Debra)
- carrying a rope loop across the room to show wind energy and possibly seed dispersal (Christine)
- changing the speed of a fanning oneself as a sign for thermal energy to show that the thermal energy is decreasing (Megan and others)
- keeping a rope fixed in place to show that room temperature is not changing (Christine)
- shooting hand outward without participant moving to show sun energy leaving the sun and pulling hands inward to show sun energy arriving at a seed (Megan)
I think that many of the participant view ET as a canvas on which to express different aspects of what the energy is doing. Christine illustrated this attitude very well yesterday afternoon when she went through a long list of all of the ways in which energy was involved in seed germination and plant growth. Next she wanted to brainstorm creative ways in which they could show all of these energy processes. She specifically expressed the idea that by using a moving rope to show the kinetic energy of the wind their group could outperform the other group. For her the rules of ET were constraints on creativity that she was completely unconcerned about.
Christine's attitude is at least partially shared by many other participants. I think that this is a result of the fact that they have been told the rules of ET but don't yet recognize the rationale behind the rules. Yesterday afternoon, Lezlie decided to challenge the groups sending sun energy with hand motions. Several participants asked why they couldn't show it that way and Lezlie responded emphatically that they had to follow the rules. They started using participants to show motion of sun energy but did not raise the question of why it was so important to follow the rules.
It think that there is a subtle, yet profound difference between using a representation to express what you understand about something and using a representation as a reasoning tool. In the former case there is very little need to be rigorous as long as you can, for example, "just tell the other group that we are using our hands to show the motion of sunlight." If you are using a representation as a rigorous tool for working out energy conservation in a physical scenario then it is essential that you follow the ET rules.
While the ET rules certainly does mandate energy conservation this is not necessarily a widely shared perspective among participants. When Eleanor articulated this affordance of ET yesterday afternoon some participant nodded agreement and some seemed to be considering this as a new idea.
Hi Lane,
ReplyDeleteI see what's happening very differently. I have seen a lot of examples of people doing things that don't follow the rules of energy theater early in the process while they are still working out the physics, and then gradually becoming more "rigorous" as they work through what's happening. Sometimes this increasing rigor comes with external prodding from an instructor, and sometimes not.
My sense is that this initial "creativity" with the rules is not because they don't care about the rules or don't see their value, but because they don't yet understand the rules or the physics, and they're still working it out. It actually seems to me to be an important part of the learning process, to play with the rules and stretch them, in order to learn what the rules are for.
I have been wondering about this, too, particularly with respect to the use of dynamic gestures as labels for forms of energy. I have noticed several instances of the kind of thing Lane describes Megan doing (third bullet above): manipulating the manner in which the gesture is performed in order to make a distinction that, according to the rules of energy theater, should be made in some other way, e.g., including more or less energy units (bodies) in the designated space. It seems as though this is an affordance of gesture that almost cries out to be used in some way, while the rule precluding it is just that -- a seemingly arbitrary proscription that has to be remembered and applied in order for energy theater to work the way it is supposed to.
ReplyDeleteThis made me think of a science museum exhibit I saw recently in a research presentation -- it was an apparatus with which two people work together to draw shapes on a graph by independently controlling the x and y axes. It's like an etch-a-sketch, except the knobs are controlled by different people. They have to be, because one person can't reach both levers. This built-in constraint highlights the independence (that may not be the correct word--maybe separateness) of the x and y axes and forces the process of coordinating them into the public realm of discourse. It makes me wonder how it would be different if that were just a rule (one person per lever) vs. a built-in limitation of the device. Would it be a richer learning experience, because the participants would be free to mess around with the rules initially and work through to an understanding? Is that going to happen without the structure, guidance, and extended timeframe of a workshop?
Would it be possible to design a version of energy theater with the rules built in as constraints? Would that make it a more effective learning tool or would it rob the participants of an important part of the learning process? What if you wanted to make energy theater into a science museum exhibit?
The rule-constrained version of energy theater might well be the PhET sim that we hope will someday get made: http://phet.colorado.edu/ I'm SO curious how that will get used.
ReplyDeleteIn the past they've done a version of energy theater with blocks instead of people, with each side a different color for different forms. There are still ways to break the rules here, but not as many as when you do it with people.
ReplyDeleteIn UE2, I am seeing a lot of written representation (and no ET!), and while there is diversity in the representations I don't see it as creativity. I think the participants are still negotiating which features of the scenario they want foregrounded in their representation. For example, some of them want to reproduce the physical layout of the objects in their arrangement of diagrammed object-areas. To me this is just confusing and unnecessary, but they feel like they need it to relate their representation to the real world. I think there is a similar thing that happens with circuit diagrams - at first people reproduce the physical layout of the circuit (even the appearance of the circuit elements!), and gradually as they gain experience with the representation they stop needing (or even wanting) to do that.
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteI am trying to understand how you are seeing things differently. I also see increasing rigor through external intervention and internal mediation. What I don't understand is how participants can see the value of the rules from the beginning before they wrestle with the physics. I think that the value of the rules is closely tied to the physics and should be negotiated within the community. Perhaps you mean value of rules in general in contrast to the rationale behind specific rules in ET.
Have you considered designing an energy theater game for kinect?
ReplyDelete