Have you done this before?

The episode below comes from the second day of Energy Two in the afternoon. The groups have ‘mingled’ in order to exchange ‘energy stories.’ (Each ‘new’ group was made up of one person from the ‘original’ groups.) The group in the video has already discussed energy stories about a cold pack and a ball released from under water, and they have been discussing the Gaussian gun energy story for quite some time.

The scenario presented to them is shown in the photo below:

(The participants drew the starting and ending states. Focus on the starting state for the following description.) A steel ball is released (from the right), and there is a magnet-steel_ball-steel_ball trio at the base of the track. From the conversation that happens surrounding this scenario, it sounds like the teachers thought about a similar scenario last year. They recall watching the outermost steel ball on the left ‘shoot out’ really fast.

The group in the video (split into two videos below) has been trying to account for the ‘faster’ speed of the ball on the left for a while. Leslie has been listening in, and she encourages them to use the ‘block energy theater’ as a tool to “help them know” what will happen in the situation.

There is a ton of interesting stuff going on here, from the group’s switching back and forth from force to energy to momentum; to the way that Nina draws out and emphasizes certain words; to the dialogue about the scenario itself; to Derricks’ saying ‘eeeerrrrrrrwwww’ when he’s describing what the ball on the left will do. But what particularly stuck out to me was when Derrick asks Leslie (at 2:20), “Have you muddled around with this at this level?” She seems confused about what he’s asking, he clarifies, she pauses (or processes out loud), and he says, “You don’t have to tell me…I mean, you don’t have to tell me what you came up with, I was just wondering if you’ve fiddled with it yourself.” She answers, “No,” and he proceeds to say, “Cause I’m having a difficult time…”

I haven’t watched Derrick closely enough to see what his posture and behavior ‘normally’ looks like, but he seems discouraged, and his request for access to Leslie’s experience and expertise seemed like a call for help. (As a side note, I sat with Derrick on the first day of class when we were discussing rights and responsibilities, and he shared with me that he had participated in professional development experiences during which he felt that he was “supposed to guess what the instructor was thinking). His response, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me what you came up with…” felt defensive to me, and I wonder whether he misinterpreted Leslie’s clarifying questions as restricting his access to her experiences.

It seemed like there was a transition in Leslie’s participation in the group’s conversation following Derrick’s question. Although she didn’t ‘tell him the right answer,’ she acknowledged that she had not ‘worked the problem out before’ and began to ask more directed questions of the group about the scenario itself. Derrick seemed to re-engage as the conversation proceeded.