Embodied Cognition

In a recent post on the PHYSLRNR list, Doug Holton provided this link to a presentation he gave last year to the American Education Research Association's (AERA) Constructivism Special Interest Group. Here's a link to the accompanying paper.

Based on the presentation, I checked out Embodiment and Cognitive Science by Gibbs and have been slowly going over it. The Amazon reviews seem spot on - it's very dense and not for casual reading. But it makes a strong case for the importance of embodied cognition as part of the overall framework of cognitive science.

My (admittedly surface) exposure leads me to think that there's enough overlap but enough difference between Embodied Learning Activities and Embodied Cognition for this to be a productive framework for both analyzing Energy Theater and also for thinking about possible modifications to it.

Energy Posters

I recently ran across these cool posters, which can be ordered from PhysicsCentral for what looks to be free in the US, and can be freely downloaded and printed. The posters themselves are neat, but when you click on them, you get further information. Two in particular deal with energy questions that I heard come up in UE2 and I bet came up in UE1.

This one addresses "How many cheeseburgers do you need to eat to row across the Atlantic Ocean?"

This one addresses "How long you would have to yell to heat a cup of coffee?". I was particularly struck by this one, given all the interest in UE2 about the nature of sound energy. I wonder how the participants in the room would have responded if this poster and its associated discussion had been given to them after their own deep discussion of sound.

I also like the posters: striking visuals and engaging questions. I think I'm going to order the set!

Response to Brookes & Etkina

I just read a paper that I should have read before submitting my recent PERC paper on ontologies for energy.  I hope I get the opportunity to address this paper during the review process:

Brookes, D. T., & Etkina, E. (2007). Using conceptual metaphor and functional grammar to explore how language used in physics affects student learning. Physical Review - Special Topics:  Physics Education Research, 3(010105), 1-16.  Link

The authors use conceptual metaphor to account for student difficulties in quantum mechanics.  They especially address metaphors for energy, including the conceptualization of heat as a fluid and of energy as a vertical location.  The hypothesis of the paper is that "students overextend and misapply conceptual metaphors in physicists' speech and writing."

Some things that I see as being the same about our work:  We are both applying theories of conceptual metaphor.  We are both especially interested in metaphors for energy.  We are both identifying metaphors using linguistic analysis of (1) expert physics discourse and (2) physics learner discourse.  Using similar techniques, we identify two of the same metaphors for energy: as a substance, and as a vertical location.  (I have a third one too.)  We are also in agreement that expert physicists have multiple coherent metaphors and use them all, ideally knowing the applicability and limitations of each.

Here are three things that I see as contrasting about our work, mostly in the category of theoretical premises.  (I'm attributing them to myself only not because I am solely responsible for them but because I didn't consult my coauthors before writing this post!)

Brookes & Etkina:  Many metaphors are wrong (they use "defunct" and "historical").  Certain metaphors are correct ("modern," "conventional").
Scherr:  All metaphors contribute to a valid understanding - all are good for something.  Certain metaphors are better for certain purposes (e.g., substance is good for conservation).

Brookes & Etkina:  Students acquire metaphors/language from teachers.  (This is consistent with their grounding in Chi & Slotta.)
Scherr:  Metaphors are natural to human thought.  Language is learned by Vygotskian internalization, which is not a straightforward acquisition from experts.

Brookes & Etkina:  If we experts are not careful, we may make ontologically mixed statements, and may cause novices to suffer from ontological misclassification (a cognitively serious condition; again, this is Chi.).  For example, students think particles get tired, because expert speech led them to ontologically misclassify particles.
Scherr:  People (experts and novices) have easy cognitive access to a variety of ontologies.  (See Gupta et al.)  Expertise with discipline-specific metaphors includes knowing which features to map; novices may export different features than experts, but their understanding is potentially flexible.

2011 PERC Proceedings papers submitted

Energy Project team members have submitted five papers to the 2011 PERC Proceedings:

H. G. Close and R. E. Scherr, "Differentiation of Energy Concepts Through Speech and Gesture in Interaction," C. Singh, M. Sabella, and P. Englehardt (Eds.), AIP Conf. Proc. (2011 Physics Education Research Conference) (Submitted)

B. W. Harrer, R. E. Scherr, M. C. Wittmann, H. G. Close, and B. W. Frank, "Elements of Formative Assessment in Learners' Discourse about Energy,"  C. Singh, M. Sabella, and P. Englehardt (Eds.), AIP Conf. Proc. (2011 Physics Education Research Conference) (Submitted)

S. B. McKagan, R. E. Scherr, E. W. Close, and H. G. Close, "Criteria for Creating and Categorizing Forms of Energy," C. Singh, M. Sabella, and P. Englehardt (Eds.), AIP Conf. Proc. (2011 Physics Education Research Conference) (Submitted)

R. E. Scherr, H. G. Close, and S. B. McKagan, "Intuitive Ontologies for Energy in Physics," C. Singh, M. Sabella, and P. Englehardt (Eds.), AIP Conf. Proc. (2011 Physics Education Research Conference) (Submitted)

R. E. Scherr, H. G. Close, and S. B. McKagan, "Promoting Proximal Formative Assessment with Relational Discourse," C. Singh, M. Sabella, and P. Englehardt (Eds.), AIP Conf. Proc. (2011 Physics Education Research Conference) (Submitted)

Documenting 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.  The other critical documentation for every class session is field notes (addressed in a separate post).

Videography

1.  Arrive at 8am so that you have time to get things in order before class starts at 8:30.  Our technical assistant will have charged the cameras and put fresh batteries in them and in the microphones.  The first order of business is to decide where to place your microphone for your session (and thus where to point your camera, since the camera should record the same people that the microphone is recording).  There are two normal options:

• Have an individual person wear the microphone.  The important advantage of this option is that if and when the participants get out of their seats, which happens regularly in this class, the microphone goes with them.  Here are instructions for recruiting a microphone wearer.
• Set the microphone in an unobtrusive spot on the table (for example, poking out from under the computer monitor).  The important advantage of this option is that the participants tend to be more comfortable with it.

Check with the instructors and fellow scholars to decide what's the best plan for your session.

2.  Position your camera so as to see the mic wearer well.  Often a shelf of windowsill works best.  Always plug in the camera when you can, to preserve the battery for when you need to be mobile. 

3.  Once you are set up, do a sound check, start recording, and find a place to settle in and take field notes.  It's tempting to have a "scholars' table" in the back of the room.  However, this can look a little intimidating (a wall of laptops staffed by people with big headphones on).  Consider integrating yourself into the classroom differently.

4.  This is the kind of class where participants are likely 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.  Leave the tripod connected, but disconnect the camera's power cord as well as the wireless headphones (the "base station" for those is big and clunky).  Have other headphones handy (keep earbuds in your pocket?) so that you can still listen.  

If your group is stable in the new location, you may be able to set the camera down.  Frequently, though, when you are going handheld, you can't take field notes.  If the action is a whole-class activity, it may be effective for one scholar to hold the camera while the other takes field notes.  If not, just do your best to summarize what you saw when you get back to your laptop.

Still photography

1.  Photograph every white board the teachers produce, if possible - all the groups, not only the group you are observing.  There is often a "gallery walk" or a break during which you can take photos.  To photograph a white board, hold it upright (to avoid glare from the ceiling lights) and include the table number in the frame of the photo.  The date and time are recorded automatically by the camera.  

2.  Photograph the front board when something significant is on it.  Breaks are usually the time to do this.

3.  If you think of it, take "promotional photos" as well as data photos - pictures that show the course and/or the EPSRI in action.  We use these on brochures and posters describing the programs.

Recruiting a microphone wearer

Every class session, the microphone has to go somewhere.  This is a big decision because it determines what data you get for the session.  If you want someone to wear the microphone (instead of placing it on the table), it can also feel like a big deal socially, because you have to interact with the teachers about something that may be a little uncomfortable for them.  The more we succeed in integrating EPSRI scholars into the classroom learning community (see this and this) and sharing our research with the teachers, the less awkward this is.  Here is advice for recruiting a microphone wearer.

Choose a person who interacts a lot and who seems to be part of a good group.  Ideally, your chosen person sits in the middle of the group, for best pickup; but other considerations might outweigh this one.  For example, maybe you want to mic the same person every day (or maybe you want to mic a different person every day).  You will decide this with the other scholars for your course.

Approach your chosen person, introduce yourself if necessary, 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." **
Teacher: "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 on your pocket or in 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.  Thanks again, we really appreciate everyone's willingness to take a turn."

Participants will then make predictable nervous jokes about being recorded.  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.

The research half of your day

As an EPSRI scholar, you spend half of each day observing and documenting your class, and the other half of the day developing insights, questions, themes, and so on inspired by what you observed. Here are basic instructions for what to do with that time.

Preparation

• Set up your laptop to access the Energy Project server, where the video files are stored. To access the server, connect to smb://physicsdata.spu.edu/classes. The login is "scherr" and the password is "EnergyProject." Be sure to plug your computer into an ethernet cable, since the wired connection is much faster than wireless and these are big files. Navigate to 2011 Summer; you should be able to figure out where your data is within that. Dates are YYMMDD (July 7, 2011 is 110722).
• If you have trouble downloading files from the server, you can also get them from the hard drive where backups are stored. (Previous EPSRI scholars have recommended bringing your own hard drive so you can take home files if you want to continue research collaborations with us.)
  
• Obtain QuickTime Pro from us if you don't have it already.
• Obtain InqScribe if you don't have it already.

Episode selection
The EPSRI accumulates data at a startling rate. Each week of data collection produces approximately 120 hours of video and 200 pages of field notes. Episodes are the gold coin of the EPSRI realm, because they are entry points into an otherwise intimidating library of data. Try to produce an episode every day.

• Think of an interesting event that occurred in your last observation session. If it's something you found yourself telling someone else about at lunchtime, or it's been kicking around in your mind overnight, it's almost certainly a worthwhile episode. Your field notes will guide you, especially if you flagged moments for later investigation. Use the field notes to identify the time of the event.
• Find the long movie containing your event on the project server. Locate your event within the longer movie. Find a reasonable beginning and end for your episode. Try to keep a single episode down to five minutes or less, so that it's easy for another viewer to get a sense of things quickly. (If you find yourself wanting to produce a longer episode, consider identifying a short episode within the long one and keeping both).
• Use QuickTime Pro to create a new movie file consisting of only your episode: 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 110808 CatchyName.mov
• Store the episode you created on the server in the relevant "Episodes" folder.
• Add to your field notes where you created an episode, by writing "** episode: E1 110808 CatchyName" (or something similarly searchable).
• If you can, transcribe and caption your episode using InqScribe. Transcription is analysis, and transcribing short episodes is often quite interesting and satisfying. Use the expensive headphones. InqScribe makes captioning as painless as it could possibly be (instructions here).

Reflection and sharing of insights

• Make a blog entry. Every episode you create should get a blog entry; otherwise it is likely to go unappreciated. All kinds of blog entries are welcome, as you can see from how others have used this space.
• Read someone else's blog post and comment on it.
• Talk to your fellow scholars about what you have seen. Yes, this fun task is one of your important responsibilities!

Science Talk: Teacher empowerment in the context of the Energy Project

So, it’s been well over a week since I gave this presentation for the EPSRI Congress, and I’m realizing just how tricky it is to capture the essence of an informal presentation in blog form. My plan at this point is to wing it and see how it goes.

My experience as an EPSRI scholar has really gotten me all fired up about issues of teacher empowerment and how exactly professional development experiences (such as workshops and institutes) can foster this teacher empowerment. In many ways, this makes a whole lot of sense, as I have been deeply involved in K-12 teacher professional development efforts for many years at UW and I will soon be spending much of my time on similar efforts at the University of Maine. Informal discussions with Rachel and Hunter have also made me think more carefully about the role of the worksheet in such efforts.

Most of my interest, however, in teacher empowerment may be attributed to a “magical” video clip (“We’ll Make Something Up!”) that was collected on the first day of Understanding Energy 2. This clip, which is included in the post and which has also been posted earlier, raised important questions for me about (a) how teachers perceive themselves in relation to scientists and scientific thought and (b) who, according to the teachers, has the power to construct scientific knowledge. I must also thank Enrique Suarez for introducing me to the wonderful book Talking Their Way into Science: Hearing Children’s Questions and Theories, Responding with Curricula by Karen Gallas[1], which provides considerable insight into issues of learner empowerment and what it means to “do science.”

After briefly exploring some of the literature on teacher empowerment, it became clear that efforts to foster empowerment are tightly tied to the establishment of an environment in which (a) knowledge is co-constructed and its creation is guided by the learners’ questions [1,2] and (b) professional collaboration is fostered [3]. Given that teacher empowerment is an explicit goal of the Energy Project, it is not surprising that these characteristics also describe the learning environment in the Understanding Energy courses.

Clip 1: We’ll make something up (June 27). I know that I have already blogged about this clip, but I have embedded the improved video as part of this blog entry. The discussion stemmed from a series of slides that Hunter showed the class in UE2, in which he went through how high school teachers came up with a new type of energy when trying to account for the behavior of the refrigerator.

The transcript is included here.

Margaret: So [unclear], I have to say I'm a little confused.

Hunter: Yeah.

Margaret: Phase energy. I know, we don't have any, we don't have understanding or, we'll make something up. We'll call it phase energy.

Hunter: Mmhmm. Is that okay? Is that what you're asking?

Margaret: Yeah. I mean is it okay? Well, yeah, it.. you know, it accomplished I guess what they set out to accomplish, but is it real?

Akbar: That's a [unclear], yeah

Cyndi: But when water changes state, it's isn't it also said that it changes its I dunno its phase? Is that correct or?

Hunter: Yes, state and phase would be sort of interchangeable.

Cyndi: Ok, synonymous.

Hunter: Yeah

Cyndi: Okay, so, in that context, [unclear] if if because we we are causing that water...

Margaret: What's that what's that energy transfer is called?

Cyndi: Shifts.

Margaret: Shifts of state of matter, I mean what do we call it in the real word outside of the classroom?

Joe: Isn't it all arbitrary anyway?

Margaret: I don't know.

Joe: I mean, you know, thermal energy -- that's an idea. Like you could have called it pancake energy if you wanted to.

Akbar: So, in essence, it's kind of like what the experts which basically are the people that first like kinda first decided to think about it and create the benchmark or create the idea. It'd be the same thing if we called it bluebland. Once everybody agrees to that it's bluebland, as long as it conveys the understanding of what's happening to the best of our understanding, then basically it was okay. Is that kind of the... the thing?

Many issues are raised in this short clip. Do teachers perceive concepts/ideas generated by their peers (i.e., teachers participating in professional development programs) to be “real”/legitimate or simply “made up” (or somewhere in between)? Also, do teachers feel that they have the authority to generate scientific knowledge, models or does that authority only belong to experts/scientists? One of Margaret’s comments also raises an apparent disconnect between what is taught in the classroom and the language used in the “real world” (or perhaps the “world of scientists”).

Some of these issues regarding the nature of scientific thinking may stem, in part, from outsider perceptions of science, as reflected in the following quote from Latour and Woolgar (which I came across in Gallas’ text [1]): “Our discussion is widely informed by the conviction that a body of practice widely regarded by outsiders as well-organized, logical and coherent, in fact consists of a disordered array of observations with which scientists struggle to produce order. Despite participants’ well-ordered reconstructions and rationalizations, actual scientific practice entails the confrontations and negotiation of utter confusion. (Latour & Woolgar, 1979)”

Indeed, when viewed through this lens, one can see how the teachers may feel that the apparent chaos and uncertainty they experience must be something very different from proper scientific practice.

In this first video clip, I was also struck by the extent to which the teachers were turning to the authority figure in the room (Hunter) for affirmation. It happens multiple times in the clip. Margaret starts by asking Hunter if the creation of phase energy is okay. When Cindy tries to explain to Margaret why the name makes sense, she seems a bit unsure of her response and asks Hunter, “Is that correct?” Moreover, even Akbar, who reveals a very sophisticated understanding of concept creation and naming, ends his contribution to the discussion with, “Is that kind of the… the thing?”

Both Akbar and Joe (also known as Brian, at least for the blog writer) seem fine with the arbitrary nature of naming a concept or idea. Joe’s comment that thermal energy could have easily been named pancake energy really jumps out in the clip. As mentioned above, Akbar makes some great points as well, although he interestingly refers to “the experts.”

All of the interactions discussed above provide considerable insight into different aspects of teacher empowerment. I was most struck by the fact that many of the teachers (returning Energy Project participants) differ considerably in terms of the extent to which they perceive themselves as generators of scientific knowledge.

Clip 2: We made up energy (June 29). While this clip would certainly be more useful if it started a bit earlier (but I didn’t have access to the earlier portion while preparing my presentation), I mainly included the clip in order to juxtapose it with Clip 1 (and because I will probably never forget Krishna’s excitement, as reflected in the iEtherPad chat window, when it happened). In order to construct their energy storyboard for an elevator Margaret (“Is that okay?”) and Lisa came up with a new form of energy: rotational potential energy.

Here is the (very short) transcript:

Margaret: We made up energy.

Lisa: Potential rotational energy.

Margaret: Potential rotational energy.

Lisa: Potential rotational energy, yes.

Joe: [unclear]

Lisa: Ummmm.

To be honest, it’s hard to interpret exactly what is going on without carefully viewing earlier video. Are Margaret and Lisa demonstrating genuine enthusiasm because they came up with a new form of energy? Are they being flip? Did they find it particularly funny that they had to come up with this new form given Margaret’s comment on the first day? Or is this all for the purposes of entertainment? (As was discussed during my presentation, Lisa is a stand-up comic.) In any case, it raises the possibility of trying to track shifts in attitudes throughout the professional development experience.

Clip 3: Blind faith (June 30). This clip, which is a bit hard to follow at first due to the fact that multiple discussions are going on at Table 7, features a very in-depth and nuanced discussion between Anne and Cindy about the nature of science. (It is worth noting, before reading the transcript, that Lisa indicated on June 30 that all physicists possess the same large bucket of knowledge. The resulting whole-class discussion, in which we tried to indicate that this is not really the case, included contributions from Hunter, Rachel, and me.)

Here is the transcript:

Anne: Well, I guess I'm but what I'm saying is that I think that there's blind faith. I I - there's blind faith to it where maybe there isn't full understanding but just an acceptance that we call it this and that matter contains energy.

Anne: But that full understanding that you're describing I don't think physicists have it either. I think that...

Cindy: And they will be the first to tell you that they live with a great deal of...

Anne: Well if you go to the physics blogs, you can see them wondering the same thing though. And and one of these articles, it said blind faith umm in something that that we can't fully test, or....

Cindy: But, but what I tend to do as a learner, is if I see a phenomenon and I test a phenomenon and I construct a model in my mind of physics that makes sense to me in each and build in my own understanding then I feel that I've learned something. And...

Anne: Well, that's what Einstein said. He said if I can picture it I understand it... making pictures. But the act of actually imposing. Or even with Feynman, Feynman saying, well it's these you know water molecules that have to stick together close.

Anne: That's what makes me wonder. We're we're using our stories and we're putting them on the world.

Cindy: Well, and we are...

Anne: How do we, how do we know that that is really how the world is?

This discussion highlights a much more realistic view of scientists/physicists, in which they may not have a “full understanding.” In addition, there is explicit discussion of scientific modeling: “We’re using our stories and putting them on the world.” Concern about the use of models is articulated by Anne in her final comment, but the exact nature of the concern remains unclear. Is she worried about the distinction between "made up" models and "reality" (as in the first video clip)? Or is she expressing a more sophisticated concern about the limitations of models in general?

While both Anne and Cindy articulate some rather expert-like ideas about the nature of science and the development of scientific understanding, there are some interesting differences that emerge from the discussion. While Anne routinely refers to other (often famous) scientists (e.g., Einstein, Feynman, physics bloggers) throughout the discussion, Cindy seamlessly shifts the discussion from these other scientists back to herself and her own process (thereby implicitly identifying herself as a scientist/scientific thinker). While I haven’t had the opportunity to observe video of all the UE2 participants, my sense is that Cindy might be one of the most sophisticated as far as teacher empowerment and metacognition are concerned. It would be very interesting to see where she was with some of these ideas when she participated in UE1.

Clip 4: Noodle (June 30). Due to time constraints, this clip wasn’t shown. However, it was discussed in passing. Several of us felt that the presentation by the earthquake group (Scott and Anne) on the final day of class was both uncomfortable and unproductive. This made me revisit the video clip from the previous day. In the clip, Cindy (who is participating in discussions with the earthquake group) expresses her concern about the energy story (or stories) associated with earthquakes. Scott introduces a noodle analogy to support the plausibility of thermal energy ultimately transforming into elastic energy.

The transcript is below.

Cindy: Well, I think that there's parts of the lithosphere which is is constantly in a state of change due to its contact with the mantle. But, how that affects the entire lithosphere, because by the time we get to the subsurface we're at a constant, what is it, 62 degrees or something like that I mean there in temperate climates and then in frozen climates it's another temperature.

Cindy: But, umm, it it the heat somehow does disperse. But there are so many energy stories here. But it's it's I I don't know where you would begin, honestly.

Anne: Well, I guess we were beginning...

Scott: It's like a spaghetti noodle.

Anne: Yeah we were beginning with that [looks at whiteboard].

Scott: A spaghetti noodle is matter. Think of this as a spaghetti noodle. Then you put it in hot water or steam it and it becomes elastic. It starts bending when thermal energy is applied to it.

Cindy: Okay.

Anne: That's good, that's that's a good graphic for for the mantle.

Scott: Take a lasagna noodle

Anne: Yeah that's a good one.

Scott: And and that that's exactly, and that if you apply steam to it, it's gonna it's gonna start...

Anne: And if you let it cool it gets hard again.

Scott: And then when it cools down and it's at rest again and the and the thermal energy leaves, it dissipates.

Cindy: So, so I would say that you are starting with thermal energy.

Scott: That's what we started with the thing.

Anne: No, we we were, but to do it in an energy theater we don't have enough of the ropes.

Scott: Well, you don't don't...

Anne: We need more than three, right?

Scott: Yeah, don't let don't let the ropes don't let the ropes throw you.

Anne: So do you think we should redraw it?

Many (most?) features of Scott’s analogy are incorrect, but it does seem to move Cindy away from some of her concerns (which is likely not a good thing). What seems to be most interesting, particularly in light of the presentation the next day, is the fact that Cindy is trying to make connections and engage in sensemaking whereas Scott seems to be comfortable articulating isolated facts (e.g., thermal energy in the core and flexing of the plates). Indeed, Scott's noodle analogy serves to link these facts superficially and in essence circumvents the relevant mechanisms involved in the earthquake scenario. This clip made me think about classifying individuals as generators of scientific knowledge and collectors of scientific knowledge (likely inspired by Gallas as noted below). Cindy generally seems to be in the former category and Scott tends to fall into the latter category. While Scott knows a whole lot about earthquakes, he and Anne couldn’t foster a sensemaking discussion during the presentation of their energy storyboard (in contrast to many of the other presentations).

Two quotes from Gallas [1] seem particularly relevant to this discussion of Scott’s role in this interaction and the presentation:

“This is a very raucous discussion. I notice that all the children are participating except for Donald, our most knowledgeable science buff.”

“Perhaps the talks violate their sense of what science is. In other words, they have been prepared before entering school to feel ‘scientific.’ For them, science is like saving money in a bank: Acquire an extraordinary amount of information, and that makes you scientific.”

In this episode and in the presentation, however, something slightly different seems to be happening. The rapid sharing by Scott (and Anne) of collected information appears to be shutting down the sensemaking and productive “science talk” of the other teachers (e.g., Cindy). Several teachers (and videographers and the instructor, for that matter) were noticeably frustrated during the presentation. This clip and the earthquake presentation raise an interesting question about the extent to which one’s perception of what it means to do science can impact instruction (and therefore student empowerment).

What’s next? It seems that a systematic longitudinal (case study) examination of teachers’ (1) statements about science in multiple contexts, (2) behavior/roles in groups, and (3) instruction in their classrooms is needed. Such work will contribute to the development of a better understanding of the role of professional development experiences (such as the Energy Project) on teacher empowerment and student empowerment. (A final open question: How does one examine the role of the presence or absence of a worksheet on teacher empowerment?)

References

1. Gallas, Talking Their Way into Science: Hearing Children’s Questions and Theories, Responding with Curricula (New York: Teachers College Press, 1995).

2. Bellous & Pearson, “Empowerment and Teacher Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 14, 49-62 (1995).

3. Sprague, “Critical Perspectives on Teacher Empowerment,” Communication Education 41,181-203 (1992).

Emma's Energy Pathway

During my presentation at the EPSRI Congress I shared my own personal "energy pathway" that I developed over the course of the week. I'm not sure what the best title is for this concept (pathway, journey, itinerary, etc.), but I found that creating it really helped me understand why I think about energy the way I do and how I got to this understanding.

Over the course of the week my ideas about energy changed dramatically. In order to make sense of all that was going on in my mind I tried to track my thoughts each day and also the specific experiences that influenced my understanding of energy. This tracking can either be done day-to-day or as a reflection at the very end. I did a bit of a mixture of these two, jotting down thoughts as the week went by and then collecting them all into a full list at the end of the week.

After reflecting for a couple of days on the concept of an energy pathway, I think a distinction needs to be made between the two types of items that belong on the path. The first type of item is any change in my understanding of energy. The second is any experiences that shaped my understanding. I think it would be valuable to list both of these types of items. Of course, these two types of items don't necessarily have to be cause-and-effect. There are many instances where an experience directly changes my understanding of energy, but there are also times when my ideas change without a specific outside influence or when I have a related experience that doesn't necessarily change my understanding.

With these new thoughts on my energy pathway, here is what I have come up with (*specific experiences rather than ideas):



Initial understanding: many forms of energy
Isn't all energy just kinetic and potential?
*Discussion with Rachel who introduces the concept of field energy
Three types of energy: kinetic, potential and field?
Kinetic and potential seem like two sides of the same coin, how can field energy fit?
*Sam’s blog post about energy as a methodology for discussing cause and effect
Energy isn't stuff at all, but just an idea we use to talk about things that happen
*Discussion with Hunter about field energy
If energy can have a certain location (in fields) and certain routes (ex: traveling to lightbulb from battery) then it must be real stuff rather than just an idea
Current thoughts: energy is real stuff that is either active or perched and ready to go (kinetic/potential) and it can exist in fields

New Questions from my pathway:
What is a field?
What is a force?
If humans had evolved differently to have different senses would we be able to sense energy?



Note about formatting: I'm not very familiar with html and blogging so I couldn't make my pathway very fancy. I think it might be interesting either to list ideas and experiences in different columns or different colors. These methods would help differentiate between the two types of items.

My Week at EPSRI

First of all I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone at EPSRI this past week. Sorry I had to run out so quickly on Wednesday. I enjoyed working with all of you and really appreciated all your support and help with my energy pathway!

Here is a summary of my presentation:

I came into the week having finished my first year at Columbia where I took the year long introductory physics course (a course about how to solve problems). My other significant experiences were my internship at SPU last spring with the Energy Project and also my various teaching gigs (religious school, math tutoring, swim lessons). My internship last spring was pretty different from EPSRI because I was watching video after the fact and could spend a lot of time on just one episode. At EPSRI everything ran at a much faster pace, which created an intense immersion experience that really engaged me both learning-wise and research-wise.

Over the course of the week my ideas developed along two different trajectories: my ideas about energy and my ideas about teaching and learning. To track my ideas about energy I created an "energy pathway" (not sure what the best name for this is yet: pathway, journey, map, etc.). I'll make another blog post specifically about my pathway, but in summary I tracked how my personal concept of energy changed throughout the week and what the different experiences were that caused it to change. I think it is an interesting idea to have the teachers in the classes do the same thing both to give themselves perspective on how far they've come during the week and to inform the scholars and instructors as to what the teachers have been thinking.

My other line of thinking concerned my ideas about teaching and learning and the relationship between teacher and student. For most of my life, at least in a physics context, I've been in the role of student rather than teacher, but observing the UE1 class really allowed me to start thinking about the role of a teacher. Through watching the interactions between the instructors and the teachers I got a much better sense of the importance of student-driven learning. Half way through the week in the evening I spent an hour tutoring math and for the first time I was super-aware of everything I was saying and how the student was reacting. Not that I directly told her the answers before, but I was now much more conscious of trying to ask questions that would promote her own thinking and help her come to the answer herself.

Over the three day weekend break from EPSRI I gained a sense of the importance and uniqueness of the environments of the UE1 and UE2 classes. After having been completely immersed in open discussion of energy for five days in a row, I suddenly found myself cut off from interactions about energy over the weekend. My progress on thinking about energy that I had made throughout the week slowed way down, if it didn't come completely to a stop. Without the constant input of new ideas and without other people there to engage with my questions and ideas I had no one but myself to keep motivating my sense-making. (Note: I did try to bring the topic of energy up at the dinner table, but I got nothing but blank stares from the rest of my family). The weekend break made me realize the importance of the group learning environment where everyone is there to support each other and stimulate each other's ideas. This environment that is sustained for 7 hours each day is not one that I have encountered in any class I have ever taken, so not only do I realize its importance but also its uniqueness.

In the rest of my presentation I focused on specific episodes that were interesting to me. The first one I chose to share was when Heather brings up the question of the necessity of forms of energy. After discussing what is or isn't chemical energy, she admits to the class that she is debating if forms of energy exist at all and if there is not just one "pure substance" that IS energy. I blogged about this moment in more detail here.

The next episode I shared was the one in which Dorothy and Lezlie work with Brian to figure out why heat moves from hot to cold and not cold to hot. I find this episode very interesting because Dorothy discovers that Brian's resistance to the hot to cold reasoning is due to his using a different framework. Once she realizes this discrepancy she is able to explain the arbitrary decision physicists have made to use the reference frame of absolute zero for measuring temperature. I blogged about this episode here.

Finally I shared a comparison between an episode of Brian on day one and an episode of Brian on day five. Both episodes concern his thoughts on entropy. On the first day he directly asks Bill, a teacher who seems to know a fair bit about energy, what entropy is. All this thinking about energy has gotten Brian thinking about what happens "at the end" of the energy story. He comments that he finds depressing the idea that all the energy in the universe eventually spreads out and gets colder and colder. Then on the last day of the class he brings up the idea of entropy again and it is clear that he hasn't really changed his mind about it very much. He talks about the poet (Frost) describing how the world will end. In fire? In ice? And reiterates that he is very disturbed by the idea that energy will eventually dissipate. I found it interesting that his thoughts don't seem to change very much and that the issue was really emphasized for him as he learned about energy throughout the week.


At the end of my presentation I discussed what may come next for me. I will return to Columbia in the fall for my sophomore year and continue taking physics and astrophysics classes. I'm sure that my energy pathway is not finished and that it will continue to develop and reshape as I am exposed to new ideas; however I don't think it will ever progress as quickly as it did during the intense week of EPSRI. I also hope to take my new perspectives on teaching and learning and the student-teacher relationship and apply these new ideas to my various teaching ventures. Also, I'm confident that this experience working closely with a group of researchers has prepared me for whatever research I take part in next. Whether it's research about astrophysics, volcanoes, or physics education, I'm sure that my experience working with the rest of the scholars will inform the next research project I'm involved in.

I.D.E.A.: "Interest-Driven Education Always"

This post is a summary of my EPSRI Congress presentation.

That I.D.E.A. acronym was Margaret's last word in Understanding Energy 2, and it's too good.  In reflecting on the week, I thought about two kinds of interest-driven education -- mine, and theirs.

My own interest-driven education this past week was primarily about my direct relationship with the teachers and the development of my personal definitions of energy, forms, and force.

My direct relationship with the teachers:  I originally posted about this on the first day of class.  Here is a photo that is moving for me, because I am on the other side of the camera.  I am having a really enjoyable and informative conversation with Lisa and Margaret, and I feel really grateful to be included seamlessly in what they are doing.  They called me over to the table because they wanted someone to talk to about elevators.

This is the first year that I have engaged in such a direct relationship with the teachers.  In earlier years, we all (teachers and videographers) pretended that the videographers were invisible:  even though we were right there in the same room, we really never spoke to each other, not even at breaks.  This was really awkward.  This year, teachers were talking to scholars through the mic in what felt like a very charming and natural way: "Who's listening to us now - Enrique?  Is that you?  Could we ask you something?" It was Krishna, and he went over to the table to talk to them.  I felt like the openness helped them perceive our presence as benevolent.

My personal definitions of energy, forms, and force: see this earlier post.

My observation of the teachers' interest-driven education has me thinking about their proliferation of questions and their sense of self-efficacy to pursue those questions.

Teachers' proliferation of questions
Teachers' sense of self-efficacy

What's next for me?  A primary goal for me in 2011-2012 is to support the Energy Project in producing full papers on our work.  So far we've given a lot of presentations and written (or are writing, this week!) a bunch of proceedings papers.  That's great, and appropriate for a new-ish project in which many of the participants are just coming on to the research scene.  I think that now our work is mature enough that we are ready to (and ought to) be submitting full papers.  I am hoping to first-author one on embodied learning activities; I hope Sam will first-author one on energy forms (you can see she's been thinking about it a lot), and I hope Hunter will first-author one on gesture/concept differentiation (or however he sees it).

Also on my mind are the August EPSRI, the changes on the Energy Project team as the Closes move to Texas and new colleagues arrive here, and the potential for elementary classroom observations in 2011-2012 with some of the teachers who we now know well.  For the first time ever, they approached me to invite me to observe.  The Energy Project has no elementary classroom data yet.

In writing this up I realized that I had asked everyone else to say who they were, in order for us all to better understand the significance of the EPSRI week to each scholar... but I didn't do that myself.  I am Project Director and Senior Researcher for the Energy Project, and am the EPSRI Director along with Sam.  My primary research interest is in analyzing richly detailed (video) records of successful learning activities in order to better understand what is happening in them.  The teacher professional development that takes place at SPU provides a teaching and learning experience (and a data set!) that is richer, more inspiring, and more complex than any other I have seen; I spend all year analyzing what we record in the summer and I feel like I'm not even scratching the surface.  The EPSRI provides the Energy Project (and me) not only with mission-critical data collection and management, but also with valuable insights, research questions, themes, intellectual resources, and professional community.  It might be my favorite thing that we do.

Crazy smart

Lisa and Margaret (UE2) were supposed to be discussing the Duckworth reading (the introduction to The Having of Wonderful Ideas).  Margaret had not done the reading, but was happy to talk to Lisa about students they both know who have amazing ideas.  Lisa then offers her theory that some people are "crazy smart," like Feynman and Einstein, and quite possibly some of their own students.  Elementary teachers, however, are not likely to be crazy smart, because to be a good elementary teacher means relating to people who have a hard time understanding something.  Ouch.

EPSRI products (Understanding Energy)

• 120 hours of video.  At about 2G/half-hour, this works out to approximately 1T of data.
• ~30 video episodes.  Each episode gives us a useful entry point into the data corpus.
• 170 pages of field notes, documenting the minute-by-minute action of the class in a searchable format.
• 40+ blog posts, each representing a bit of insight into the data, technical expertise, research question, reflection on the methodology, etc.
• New technical expertise regarding HD cameras, iEtherpad, and wireless headphones in particular.
• New relationships:  scholar-scholar, scholar-instructor, and scholar-teacher, significantly expanding our professional learning community.

Reflections on learning path

In her presentation for the EPSRI Congress today, Emma talked about the path of her own understanding about energy over the course of the week, and we all enjoyed what a rich and complex path it was. Afterwards, Rachel and I discussed how great it is that the Energy Project instructional paradigm actually allows for someone to create their own path, and that everyone's path can be unique such that the instructors can be surprised and learn from each student's path. In Physics by Inquiry, teachers are asked at the end of the course to write a reflection essay about their learning path, but of course everybody's learning path is the same (if they did it right) because it is premeditated and carefully laid out by the curriculum. You are not allowed to deviate because who knows where you might end up if you did that.

Wouldn't it be cool to ask the teachers in our course to write this kind of reflection essay about their path of learning? Not only because it would be neat for us to learn what they've made of it all, but also because it would be useful for us to demonstrate to the rest of the world what they've made of it all. Some people in the PER Community have expressed concern over whether what's happening in our courses really adds up to all that much, and this might be just the kind of thing to help not just alleviate those fears, but demonstrate the cool stuff our teachers are doing.

What we learned about technology last week

General Camera Stuff - Whenever you get a new camera, you have to change the settings from AV to headphones. Otherwise you'll hear lots of static.

Camera brands - We needed two new cameras for the EPSRI this year. The model of video cameras we have used in the past, Canon FS200, have been discontinued, and the new model, Canon FS400, does not have a microphone jack. As an alternative, we ordered a couple of the Canon Vixia HF R200, which was nearly the same price, but records in HD, which seemed like an unnecessary but possibly nice feature. These cameras turned out to be a huge headache. They record in a weird file format (.mts), which can be watched but not edited, and it takes forever to convert them to an editable format. In addition, if there is any high speed motion (which there often is in our data), the picture becomes blurry. So much for HD being higher quality! This never happened with our old cameras. We're sending these cameras back and ordering refurbished FS200 cameras.

Wireless headphone brands - Last year we started using Sennheiser wireless headphones so we don't have to be near the camera to take field notes. This year we decided it was critical to have four sets of these so all the scholars taking field notes could listen without being tied to the camera. However, the headphones only have three channels (926 MHz, 927 MHz, 928 MHz), so we couldn't use four sets without them interfering. I did some research into different brands and found that Sony makes wireless headphones which have three channels that are different (915.5 MHz, 916.0 MHz, 916.5 MHz), so we ordered a couple sets of these.

After trying out both brands, I think the Sony headphones are definitely superior. They have less static, are easier to tune, and the headphones fit more comfortably on your head. Also, they have a nifty feature where they turn on automatically when you put them on your head and turn off when you take them off. We had to read the user's manual to figure out how to turn them on, but now that we know, it's pretty cool. They do need to be charged for 16 hours before you can use them, which is important to know. We ordered one refurbished set that just wouldn't charge at all, but I think that set was just defective and we sent them back.

Open vs. Closed Circuits and Inventing a Metaphor

On Tuesday (June 28) afternoon in UE2, the Toaster group (Charlene, Meg, and Michelle) presented their Energy Theater Storyboard. In the clip below, Alia describes a confusion she is having with the use of the terms "open" and "closed" as related to a circuit. Michelle invites Hunter to correct if she is wrong, and then goes on to explain what the terms mean in the context of a circuit. Akbar indicates that this explanation has helped him to better understand what is going on, and makes some hand motions that seem to be for open, for closed, and for a complete circuit. Hunter then engages Alia's original idea at the level of language, indicated that if open/close are being used with a gate metaphor, that is incompatible with the use of the same words for a circuit. At that point, Lisa asks "What about a bridge?", which I identify as inventing a new metaphor to be substituted for the gate metaphor, and there are some associated hand gestures. In this metaphor, when a bridge is "open", nothing can go through. There is general appreciation for this new metaphor, and Hunter snaps his fingers. You can see the 1 minute clip below, which comes at 2:31 minutes into UE2 110629 1315 T7:



Is this bridge metaphor, and specifically the way it invokes open and closed, useful to someone who doesn't have some physical model for how a circuit works? The open bridge image invoked by the metaphor and the hand gestures reminds me of a knife switch or actually completing a circuit with wires. If you've never manipulated a circuit or otherwise developed that mental model, does this metaphor make clear what open and closed mean? As I observed this episode, I was initially very taken with it.

Then, I thought to myself that if you didn't know about drawbridges, open and closed is the same for a bridge as it is for a gate. So I made up a story that this metaphor might be more compelling for people from the region because of the number of drawbridges in Seattle (plus Enrique and I had just watched a drawbridge go up the evening before, which is pretty wicked awesome).

But then Siri pointed out that (I'm paraphrasing here) that while it might be conceivable that an "open" drawbridge might be ok as a synonym for an "up" bridge, she wouldn't use "closed" to mean the bridge was "down". And neither would I, actually.

So I still wonder if this bridge metaphor works for someone who doesn't have a mental model of a circuit. Or of even more interest to me, would someone be able to _construct_ a mental model of a circuit consistent with a drawbridge metaphor? As Lakoff & Johnson argue, metaphors highlight the similarities between the target domains, and hide the differences. And our physics models do the same thing: highlighting where the model successfully predicts/explains the phenomenon, and hiding where it does not.

Also, I was struck by how Hunter validated Alia's idea about open vs. closed in circuits, using language and metaphor to offer an explanation for why Alia might have had that idea, in what I saw as respect for her sense-making and prior understanding and an effort to help her transform her initial understanding.

ET as an insight into global warming

This morning the teachers in UE1 were asked to discuss in small groups what they thought were the specific purposes of the rules of energy theatre now that they had a deeper understanding of energy than they had on the first day when they read the rules. Table 4 (Wendy, Kathy, and Adria) were discussing the importance of having one person represent one chunk of energy and having the same person transform through the different forms of energy.

Kathy mentioned that ET demonstrates the fact that you only have a finite amount of energy and with each different scenario that we represent we see that thermal energy is always emitted. At this point Wendy claims that ET basically explains global warming. Kathy thought that ET stressed the idea that it's important that we find alternative ways to use kinetic and other forms of energy that give off the least amount of thermal energy. They all agreed that these ideas are really important to expose kids to because their generation is going to be faced with difficult decisions about how to best deal with global warming.

I thought this was an interesting purpose/benefit of ET that may not have been thought of before!

Freedom of not having a "scientific" definition

Over the course of the week of watching the UE1 class it's become pretty clear to me that many of the teachers, especially Heather want to get at what pure energy really is beyond all this business about the different forms in can be in. This morning Eleanor finally brought up the question "what is energy?" with the intention of starting to answer it. First of all, as soon as she said she would give them that answer, all the teachers said "YAY!," a very understandable exclamation since they have been struggling with the concept all week and have always been joking that they just want to be told the answer already.

The first thing Eleanor said about the answer was that there is no scientific consensus on how to answer that question. In response to that remark Heather alone said "YAY" again. It seemed to me that she was very excited (any maybe even relieved) to hear that even scientists (whoever those people are out there who package up this information ready for consumption) don't have a full answer. I think this response makes sense because she had been working the whole week to try and come up with an idea about energy that felt good to her as a learner, but that also wasn't "wrong" based on what scientists said. By hearing that scientists actually didn't know what to say completely she was suddenly free to in fact go off on her own road and make ideas that make sense to her. I think she began to express some of this feeling of freedom today during the discussion with the videographers. I'm not sure if the video from this morning or this afternoon will be ready in time for me to look at, but it might be interesting for someone else to track her progression.



On a slightly different note about videographer-teacher interactions:
I'm still very impressed with the number of ideas that Heather and I have shared this week in our thinking processes about energy. I'm a little jealous of the UE2 class where it sounds like the videographers had more interaction with the teachers. There were so many times where I felt like I was right with them and I really wanted to participate in the conversation or at least let them know that I was right there on the same page with them. Also, the teachers in the UE2 class seemed to like having the interaction as well.

open letter from the videographers to the participants

Today at lunch the videographers will be gathering with the participants to talk about what we do with the data we collect and what we learn from them. I have been trying to articulate my ideas about this in an open letter. It's still a bit rough, but I'm going to post it here now in case others want to think about it in the next 15 minutes before lunch:

A lot of you have been asking what we do with the video we collect and what we are learning by watching you.

We have been learning an enormous amount from you this week, not just about how elementary teachers think about energy, but about energy itself. You may ask, how can physics PhD’s learn about energy from elementary teachers?

In our training in physics, we have learned a lot about how to do calculations with energy and how to predict the results of experiments using energy. We have not learned about what energy really is, or what it means. Our schooling has not been at all like the course you are now engaged in, in which participants grapple with philosophical issues to which no one, not even the instructors, knows the answers.

What you are doing now is more like the experience of physics research, where physicists collectively grapple with new ideas and come to consensus. We have had that experience in the context of our specialties, but it is only through you that we have been able to have that experience in the context of energy, a seemingly basic, yet very deep, concept that is central to physics.

Physicists have defined some forms of energy and not others based on what problems they were trying to solve at the time. These forms have been canonized into rigid structures like SCREAM, but there is no reason why it couldn’t have been otherwise, and no reason we couldn’t come up with different structures. By watching participants in last years’ program invent phase energy to explain how a refrigerator works, we were able to gain new insights into how a refrigerator works ourselves. Phase energy turned out to be useful, even for us PhD’s, to understand something in a new way. By watching you grapple with forms of energy in a germinating seed, we are learning what forms of energy are for, and why we subdivide them in certain ways.

People, even scientists, imagine that after scientists make a discovery, it is ready for consumption by learners. In fact, educators do a huge amount of additional work to package scientific knowledge for learners, and in doing so, they change the way we all think about that scientific knowledge, which feeds back into the thinking and discoveries of the next generation of scientists. In this course, you, the learners, are also contributing to that packaging and to the way we, as educators and education research, think about scientific knowledge.

Your questions and your explorations challenge what we know about physics and how we think about what we know. By thinking about how to respond to your questions, we are forced to develop new tools for constructing physics ideas.

Motion Energy Outside the Ball

Here is a short video in which Alicia suggests that the motion energy in a falling basketball is outside the ball rather than inside the ball. Her group does a really beautiful job of helping her articulate this idea and then build consensus about how they will use motion energy.

CO2 Cartridge in a Vacuum

If you punch a hole in a CO2 cartridge in atmosphere it gets much colder as the gas goes out. Does the same cooling effect happen in a vacuum?

Lane's model say yes. Krishna's says no.

Do Students Need Teachers?

On Tuesday afternoon in UE2, the Guitar group (Elyse and Joe) directed the first Energy Theater using a storyboard. There was lots of engagement and sense-making, and when I have access to the editable video, I'll point out what I see as instances of individual sense-making attempts. Here's the thing I was struck by, which you can see for yourself in "UE2 110628 1356 Front":

At 18:03 minutes into the clip, Hunter leaves the room. I observe no change in the nature of the interaction of the Energy Theater "actors", who continue to talk with each other (a little) and with the "directors" a lot. This continues until 26:13 minutes into the clip (so a little over 8 minutes) before anyone even comments that Hunter isn't in the room, but aside from that very brief comment, the work continues with same intensity until Hunter rejoins the group at 26:56 minutes into the clip (and the work continues).

So this community of learners, engaged in work with form they are quite familiar with (Energy Theater) but content they are not (since most of the participants were actors and not directors), sustained the pace and complexity of their discourse and inquiry, even when the "authority figure" (Hunter) was not physically present. I'm not sure why I'm so struck by this episode, because I've seen many other groups working together for long periods of time without instructor intervention.

Story-Board Stories, part II

In Story-Board Stories, part I, I posted images of whiteboards in progress and for public presentation from the different groups in UE2. I couldn't get them all in that post, so here are the rest.

Elevator (Lisa, Margaret) note: their understanding progressed considerably as they continued to work, so what they presented to the class (which interestingly they did _not_ do as Energy Theater) is quite different than this. I don't know that we have a still image of their final presentation board, but we definitely have video, and maybe I can extract a still from that video to include here.

at lunch break:


at end of day:


Even though we don't have an intermediate board from them, I've included Alia and Akbar's final board here.

Falling Book (Alia, Akbar)
final presentation board (Alia used this for the Energy Theater):

Story-Board Stories, part I

(my first post!)

The white boards have lots of uses. Two of the frequent ones in UE2 are as a workspace and as a presentation space. Early in the week, Hunter introduced (or maybe reminded?) the participants about "Energy Storyboarding". The context here is very similar to the storyboards done for movie pre-production. One idea was this would help the teams "direct" the Energy Theater for their projects. Since the teams had a long time to work on their projects, they had a lot of time on the white-boards, and it's interesting to see the progressions (in thinking though that's hard for me to make much sense of from static images, in purpose from workspace to presentation space) and also the many different representations. On Tuesday, we were able to take pictures of whiteboards at the lunch break and then again at the end of the day. I've shown all the whiteboards here except for Alia & Akbar, for whom we only have the final storyboard (but I'll talk about their storyboard in a different post). Also, every group that has so far directed an Energy Theater has used their storyboard in some fashion. Here they are:

Toaster (Charlene, Meg, Michelle)
at lunch break:














at end of day/ for Energy Theater:


Pump/Air/Balloon (Cindy) <-- note that many people have commented favorably about Cindy's artistic abilities at various points through the week.
at lunch break:

at end of day (I think this is the same as what she uses for her Energy Theater):


Guitar String Sound (Joe, Elyse)
at lunch break:

at end of day/for Energy Theater:


Earthquake (Anne, Scott)
at lunch break:

at end of day:


(to be continued...)

We need closure (UE2)

There were a lot of interesting episodes in yesterday's (06/30) UE2 afternoon session, and I will try to blog as many of them as I can. The one I would like to start with, though, is an episode that started off with Joe and Lisa, and quickly spread to the whole classroom.

After Lisa and Margaret seemed to be done talking about the elevator situation, Joe turned around and said something the effects of: "So, I feel like there have been a lot of conversations about things that are being discovered, and I would like a review from the instructor on the subject." He then said: "I think that would bring some closure, and a direct explanation, and then move on. And that wouldn't disrupt too much the open-ended nature about things," to which Lisa agreed. (Disclaimer: I'm quoting from the field notes and paraphrasing; once the videos are available, I will post a clip).

They both agreed that they should talk to Hunter about it, and Joe raised the issue for the whole group. Joe explained that he appreciated what Hunter was doing, but he felt like a few bullet points on what, of all they came up with, is relevant and accurate, and what is not. Hunter said that he would be more than glad to do so, but he was convinced he had done it yesterday, towards the end of the conversation about Lisa and Margaret's elevator. And then Michelle said: "but we might be in a different place today. So even if you say exactly the same thing, we might be in a position to hear it."

I see two things happening in these exchanges:

1) Despite Joe and Lisa (and others) being very comfortable with posing new questions, trying to figure things out within a group or by themselves, and being comfortable with the open-ended-ness of the workshop, they still need a science 'authority' to confirm or dispel their ideas. But it seems to go even further than that, since what they seem to want is for the 'authority' to establish a minimum for the amount of knowledge, by summarizing the most relevant concepts and ideas of that topic. And to make things even more interesting, they are perfectly fine with questions left unanswered, as long as the 'authority' admits to it, i.e., "yes, these questions were unanswered on purpose." So, it seems to me like, as the teachers want their constructed knowledge to be validated, they also need to know that there is a meta-structure they may not be aware of, represented by the instructor confirming the intentionality of leaving questions unanswered. And I think these are two perfectly reasonable expectations. Firstly, as human beings (let alone learners) most of us constantly seek validation in what we do, especially when exploring uncharted territory. And, secondly, most of us have a need to feel like there is a 'master plan', an invisible structure that gives meaning to what we do, and are not left to the whims of an inattentive instructor who is not aware that students still have questions.

2) All this brings to the second phenomenon (if we can call it that) I observed. When presented with the request, Hunter says: but I did that yesterday! (which he did, when talking about the difference between having an elevator with cab and counterweight, or just the cables). What's curious about this is that the teachers didn't feel like they were being given a summary, but they saw it more as Hunter taking part of the conversation and trying to figure out what was happening. So, it seems to me like the difference between giving an explanation during a conversation and a summary, is Hunter's role in the learning community. If he becomes just another participant, then he loses some of his cred as a 'physics authority', and things that are he says 'casually' are taken 'casually'. However, if he would have stood in front of the classroom and prefaced his comments with "this is a summary," then the teachers would have thought "these are important things to remember, this is what the canon tells us about elevators."

Adding another layer of complication, we can also talk about this whole issue of: when is it a "good time" for learners to hear a summary, or definitive statement, about a certain topic? It could very well be that the teachers needed a day (figuratively, and perhaps literally) to digest all the new information they had generated and heard, reorganize their knowledge (or retrace connections between resources), and then be ready to recognize what is a summative statement.

At first I thought of both these points as issues of self-empowerment as learners, but now I'm thinking that maybe this is part of being a human learner. Of course there is a continuum for each of these points, i.e., relying on the authority and needing a summary may happen with a range of 'intensities.' And, hopefully, any expert can finally feel like neither of them are necessary. But, quite frankly, I do not feel like I am an 'expert' of anything, so I do sometimes feel like they did yesterday.

Field Energy - my own curiosity

Throughout this week not only I have I observed the teachers going through different thought processes about energy, but I've also been watching myself having very similar ideas as well. On Wednesday at lunch I was pretty much ready to give up the idea of forms of energy and just say there is one kind of "energy" (whatever that may mean) and it acts in different ways and is stored in different ways (the same thought that Heather came to, which I blogged about here). More or less, I was ready to just say there is potential energy and kinetic energy.

At lunch Rachel asked about light energy and where that would fit. She mentioned the idea of field energy as a third kind of energy. I was intrigued but also had no idea what field energy could possibly mean. In fact, over the course of the day and evening I decided that field energy sounded less and less like a good idea. Kinetic energy and potential energy seem very intertwined: energy is either active and going around doing stuff or it is perched and ready to strike at any moment. Where could there possibly be a third option between those two? Clearly, I needed to find out more about field energy.

I remembered reading about the energy stored in the theoretical inflaton field which would (theoretically) trigger the inflation that happened right after the big bang. So I went back to the book (Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality) and looked up field in the index. The magnetic field, for instance, is defined informally as "a 'mist' or 'essence' that fills space and does the magnet's bidding." Well that didn't seem to be a very revealing definition...

But I kept reading and came to the part about fields carrying energy. Could this be what is meant by "field energy" that Rachel talked about?

"Fields carry energy. Qualitatively, we know this because fields accomplish tasks that require energy, such as causing objects to move. Quantitatively, the equations of quantum field theory show us how, given the numerical value of a field at a particular location, to calculate the amount of energy it contains."

So if fields can carry energy then fields (whatever those are!) seem to just be some kind of medium in which energy can either be stored (potential) or active (kinetic). In that case it seems like it's really not a third kind of energy in the same way that kinetic and potential are. In fact MAYBE field are really the only medium for energy. Greene also talks about all the other kinds of fields that exist (strong, weak, electron, quark, neutrino, etc.) Maybe that's what a field IS: the medium for energy. And maybe that's what energy IS: the thing that lives in fields. At least that's the point I've come to after preliminary research. I still need to understand fields in a more involved way than I can with the informal definition above.