Who innovates?

When students are asked to represent a scenario in ET and then on a whiteboard, they have an opportunity for representational innovation -- showing something in a new way on the whiteboard.  A storyboard is one common representational innovation.  Let's look at some examples of whiteboard innovation and think about how they came about.

The setting is UE2, table 2, Thursday morning.  The energy theater was performed on the previous day.  The relevant files are:
a. energy theater: Movies > UE2 120627 1534 T2&ET
b. creation of whiteboard: Movies > UE2 120628 1038 T2
c. whiteboard: Photos > UE2 120628 WB T2 AM


In (b), the students create a whiteboard about heat energy diffusing out of a coffee cup.  Notice that the suggestion to storyboard comes from Wendy.  Wendy draws by herself in her notebook from 55:25 to 56:00, paying little attention to her groupmates' activities.  (Although the notebook is hidden, you can see that she draws a circle at one point, and moves her hand in a way that is inconsistent with writing sentences but might be consistent with drawing a diagram.)  Then she says:

Wendy: We need a (?) how we started.
Adria: You gotta help me out here, I'm just drawing.
Wendy: (I was thinking?) maybe a two-stage drawing.  How it, where it, how it started.
Adria: Okay.
Wendy: Like we just talked about snapshots.*
Adria: Okay.  (The suggestion is carried out.)

(* Possibly she is referring to the previous day, when Tim said the word "snapshot" during energy theater while recruiting her for a demonstration, at 27:25 on movie UE 2 120627 1534 T2&ET.  That's the most recent use of the word I can find.)

At a later point in the conversation, starting at 59:50, it is decided that thermal energy outside the cup will be marked with arrows, to indicate that it is moving outward.

Wendy: You want to show those T's, they kinda (moves hand)
Joan: Like give them an arrow?
Wendy: Show that they keep moving (moves hand) away from the cup.
Joan: Yeah.  Why don't you put it in there.
Adria: You know what you (?) in mind. (Offers the pen to Wendy)
Wendy: Like this. (Shows them her notebook.)

In both cases, Wendy seems to be working out the innovation for herself, using her notebook, before giving it to the group.  I like to view representational innovation as providing evidence of understanding, but in this case, do we have evidence of everyone understanding equally, or is Wendy likely to understand more because she is the innovator?  (My previous post about storyboarding is an example of the same issue; and I have a third example from Wednesday's UE 1 group 4, which I would like to post later.)

For scholars staying at the SPU dorms

This post is practical information for scholars who are staying at the dorms on the SPU conference. I discussed some of this in a previous post, but I'll try to include all of the critical information here.

What you need to know when packing

• The apartments have no soap, shampoo, hangers, hair dryers, irons, or garbage bags.
• The apartments have complete kitchens, but no cookware or utensils; the conference center blog suggests you can rent a cooking kit, but I was unable to talk to anyone who had actually heard of this.
• You should have Internet access and laundry facilities.
• You will receive towels, sheets, one pillow, and one blanket.

What you need to know when you arrive

• You can travel from the airport to SPU taking Central Link Light Rail to downtown, and then transfer at Pioneer Square to Bus line 17. The trip take a bit more than an hour.
• You can take a shuttle to SPU, which costs $34 one-way and takes about 35 minutes.
• You check in at conference services, but outside of normal business hours you'll need to check in at the security office. 

Where you can eat

• There is a cafeteria, but hours are variable depending on other conference schedules.
• The PCC Natural Market is a sort of small Whole Foods-type store, which has a large selection of prepared food that you can take out or eat there. They also have groceries and the hours are open 6am-midnight. Everyone ends up going there at some point.
• Across the Fremont bridge (where PCC is) there are many restaurants and coffee shops.
• You can get groceries at Safeway, which is only 1 mile away but the entire trip is steeply uphill.

UE1: How to Gesture Potential Energy

I am posting about a sequence of gestures that teachers spontaneously to represent potential energy during their first attempt at Energy Theatre. This episode is striking to me because of what the individual gestures suggest about these teachers' understanding of potential energy, but also how they blend with the substance model that is emphasized in UE1. This video is on the server (UE1 120627 1100 ET Potential Energy Gestures). It's only about half a minute long.

Although the issue of potential energy disabiguation came to a head Thursday afternoon and Friday Mornign while the teachers worked to negotiate a shared meaning of potential energy, threads of this confersation occured earlier in the week. The teachers in this video are practicing their first round of Energy Theatre. Their task is to represent the energy in a pushed cart. At this point, they decide that they should use potential enrergy.

This video begins with Lane (the instructor) suggesting that they need a gesture (he says "symbol") for potential energy. Almost immediately, Val rests her head in her hands in as sleeping motion. Peter then suggests that they could sit. Lane comments that those gestures are not very energetic (interesting synonym to use for "active") Eventually Vicky and Kelly decide upon the "ready-set-go" pose that runners take immediately prior to a race.

It is interesting that they choose symbols of inactivity (e.g. sleeping and sitting) to represent potential energy. This could be an artifact of a misreading of the unfortunate term "potential." When you're sleeping or sitting, for example, you have the potential to be active. These poses could also be taken to indicate the metaphor of stored energy waiting to be released, especially the "ready-set-go" pose.

 Interestingly, these teachers are continuing to enact the substance model of energy through their participation in Energy Theare. Even though they would take the "ready-set-go" pose, the teachers still moved between the rope objects (occurs after this clip). At this point in the course, the teachers still have a tentative model of what energy is and what its different forms represent. It is interesting that these poses seem to blend two models.

One other comment: What is that gesture that Visala makes? it looks like she is miming brushing her teeth, but I can't imagine any connection between that action and potential energy. Oppinions?

The source of student ideas

I have been thinking about the moves that teachers make to shape group discussions. In Modeling Instruction they call this Discourse Manangement, but I think it's a strategy that pretty much every instructor uses. Basically, once students have shared ideas, or conclusions, we often want to come to some kind of consensus using a discussion, and (most of the time) instructors have an idea of what consensus they'd like to arrive at (i.e. one that is closer to ideas accepted by the scientific community). We have a variety of tools available at our disposal, such as making connections between various students' ideas, pointing out implications of their ideas, or showing where they contradict previously established knowledge.

Some instructors are more adept at this than others - they can make it seem like the new ideas or connections they are presenting are really those of the student. We've all been in a class where this goes badly - a professor seems to want the students to think the idea came from them, but they are either confused by the idea, or reject it, which in either case would demonstrate to the students (and me) that the idea under discussion is clearly not their idea.

I think that we tend to value instructors who can do this well, in that they present new information that is seamlessly added on to student ideas. I also think that some people value instructors who can shape the conversation so that the new information is not added on, but actually seems to come from the class themselves. Note that I don't have evidence for this right now, because I think video data would more easily show when instructors don't finesse it well, and students are resistant, rather then when instructors pull this off.

My stance: it seems like a bad thing if instructors can pull this off, and and a bad thing if their desire to make their ideas appear to come from the students. In a traditional classroom, the students know the instructor is in charge and providing the ideas, but in an inquiry classroom, the message conveyed is that the students' ideas are at the forefront. If we represent to students that they are in charge, but they aren't, it is disingenuous. Right now my thinking about this has been from a moral standpoint (is it right or wrong) but another way to view it is empirically - we could figure out which way helps students learn more.

Rachel points out that people are very good at detecting when other people are disingenuous, which would mean that students are very good at detecting when their instructors are trying to pretend that instructor ideas are student ideas. If this is the case, then my concern is unnecessary.

What happens when you give teachers the right answer?

Something that struck me when writing this post about understanding models earlier today was this episode, embedded in the ninth bullet point.  (See the original post for context.)

Episode title is 'UE2 120627 1056 T2 if only we hadn't gotten the answer.'

Episode transcript below:
 [00:00:00.00] Sherry: I think that what happened to me was I...I said something that replicates the real thing because you can't see and use the real thing, the actual.  And after going through I marked very few and I...model includes diagrams and computer and...
Eleanor: So you were thinking physical model...

[00:00:32.12] Sherry: I was.
Eleanor: Like a paper airplane or a balloon or the cell thing.
Sherry: Right because when I teach my kids, I say, this is just the model of the...
Eleanor: ?

[00:00:41.16] Sherry: Right, because we can't get out in space and see it really, so it's a model.  And that's my narrow focus of a model, and so whether we checked it off to begin or we knew it all at the beginning, it doesn't matter, it's what we learned.

[00:00:54.06] Eleanor: Right, yeah.
Jeff: Right, no, I totally agree with that.  I was just frustrated with the semantics, and maybe that's part of the process.
Eleanor: I think...

[00:01:06.07] Jeff: I mean, what you're saying and the way you're, is exactly the way I think the probe should work.  But if we're interpreting it based on how we read the sentence, I don't know if it necessarily.
Eleanor: It depends on if we think the goal is to get the answers the Paige Keeley thinks we should get or if the goal is to have a conversation about what a model is.

[00:01:29.04] Jeff: I guess you get there either way, so.
Eleanor: Yeah, for the most part, I see these probes, and this is just an example because I wanted us to have a conversation about modeling but also to look at research (?), but I see them mostly as conversation starters.  So I don't see them as, I wouldn't use it as a post-test, because I don't see the way she phrases the questions as meant for that, and I think there is some ambiguity in the way it's phrased.  And so that can be fun to talk about, or if it's frustrating to talk about, let's talk about something else.

[00:01:57.14] Eleanor: But I don't want to see them as things where we have to really figure out what the question is asking so we can make sure we get it right.  I see them as, oh, you saw the question this way, I saw it this way.  Well, how does that change how I might answer it?  You know, and the goal is really to have a conversation about what a model is in a way that will help us think about energy, because that's what we're thinking about.

[00:02:25.13] Jeff: But we want to value the process.  However, the first thing we did at our table was move to the next page and see which ones were right.  (Laughter)
Eleanor: Yes, and that's because we didn't get to this till the very end of the day.  Usually we would have a conversation about it and then I would hand you the packet.  But we didn't have time.  I mean, you had like seven minutes.

[00:02:43.25] Eleanor: So yes, I do realize that that does short-circuit the process.  Sorry.
Jeff: No, that's fine, it's just.
Eleanor: Maybe I shouldn't have given it to you, I should have kept it for today.

[00:02:52.01] Wendy: I would have been curious to see what kind of conversation we would have had...
Eleanor: Yeah, without the packet.
Wendy:...otherwise, but knowing the answers, I kind of went, now wait a minute, this is what she said?
Eleanor: Where you could still argue with her even knowing what she said.

[00:02:59.00] Wendy: Right, cause I went through and marked them and went, now wait a minute, she says this?

Commentary
What struck me is that Wendy says "I would have been curious to see what kind of conversation we would have had [without the packet]."  I was surprised to hear this, because Wendy was a part of the group that continually referenced Eleanor's "responsibility" to provide them answers the day before, and here she was saying she wished (?) Eleanor wouldn't have given them answers so quickly.

It made me curious to go back and look at the way that teachers respond to and reflect on "getting answers."  I can think of at least three different ways that I've seen this unfold:

• Teachers get an answer and then have a multitude of new questions to ask.  And they acknowledge this out loud -- that getting the answer made them even more curious.  Rachel wrote about this last year in this post, and I referenced something Sherry said in a post I made yesterday.
  
• Teachers demand an answer and then seem to get bored when the instructor offers one.  I wrote a long post about a lecture that Hunter gave about elevators in UE2 on my blog (which few have access to, since it's private).  The short version is that the teachers called on him to give them his answer -- to offer them "closure" on the elevator scenario -- and then they got "full" by the end of it.  My hypothesis is that they expected a simple, one-sentence answer, whereas Hunter gave them a 30-minute answer. 
  
  I think this might also have happened at Wendy's table the day before the episode in this post (on 6/26), when Michelle, Barb, and Wendy worked for what felt like three minutes on the mousetrap car question and then were distracted by other, non-mousetrap-car matters (like what was going on later that afternoon).  When Eleanor shared her answer to the question, they said, "We worked hard for that!"  I was surprised, because it didn't seem like they had worked very hard to me, but maybe this was another case of their expectations being that the answer was simple, and they had constructed way more than one sentence about it.
  
• Teachers get an answer and then wish they had spent more time thinking beforehand.  This is what seemed to happen in the episode above, and my hypothesis is that they got someone else's answer before they had solidified their own, and this confused them.

I would love to make this a research project (among many).  I think it would be fascinating to clip even more episodes (to try to figure out if there are more ways that teachers respond), watch what happens when teachers get answers and what they say happened for them, and figure out why (in multiple senses of the word "why").

Forms, feelings, forms

I am posting about a sequence of events that happened for Table 7 in UE2 on Thursday in the late morning. Tim, Alia, Sherry, and Gayle were at Table 7.  The episode is striking to me because it contains several distinct chapters of inter-relating, including conflict, resolution, and return to normal work. The video is too long to post here (33:16) but will be on the server. (UE2 120628 forms.and.feelings T7.mov)

• Phase 1: Debating about elastic energy, whether we need to visualize the molecules in our model, and whether we really know what others in the group say we know. Alia and Sherry having conflict building up during this time. Various instances of stepping on each other's contributions and hurting feelings both ways, though I couldn't tell at the time.

1/2 Boundary event: Sherry gets up and leaves. (16:19)

• Phase 2: Alia wants to tell how she feels about Sherry (starts to say "You know, I find it..." at 16:32), but Tim and Gayle don't know this yet. They are still discussing energy, and Alia politely listens to them and waits for good moment to break the flow and tell them about how she feels about Sherry.

2/3A Boundary event: A long enough break comes in the conversation that allows Alia to break in. (17:40, beginning again with "You know, I find it interesting...")

• Phase 3A: Alia tells Tim and Gayle about how she feels about Sherry. Alia can't say or do anything right. Sherry was displeased with Alia whether she participated or not. Alia was trying but Sherry was huffing and puffing and rolling her eyes. Alia is frustrated.

3A/3B Boundary events: Gayle says "So what did you think about chemical energy" (18:18), and Tim mutes the mic.

• Phase 3B: The group continues to discuss with the mic off.

3B/3C Boundary event: Eleanor comes (20:08)

• Phase 3C: Group continues to speak with Eleanor with the mic off.

3C/3D Boundary event: Hunter comes to unmute the mic (20:38).

• Phase 3D: Group explains to Eleanor why the mic needed to be unmuted and negotiates with Eleanor about whether to tell her what they were really talking about. 

3D/3E Boundary events: The decide that they will tell her. Hunter hears this in the mic and decides to join (21:26).

• Phase 3E: Hunter joins the group and they speak about our acceptance of the fact that they were sharing their feelings, and what those feelings were.

3E/3F Boundary events: Tim affirms Alia (24:46), there is some laughter, and Hunter leaves (24:56).

• Phase 3F: Eleanor continues to speak with the group about taking time to discuss feelings.

3F/3G Boundary event: Eleanor leaves (25:50).

• Phase 3G: Group continues to discuss feelings.

3G/4 Boundary event: Feelings discussion ends with a joke about margaritas (26:56).

• Phase 4: Resume discussion of molecules (Gayle: I can't do the molecular thing).

The record (as I cut it) ends at 33:16, when Eleanor gets the everyone's attention for a large group discussion.

I think it is interesting to just note some numbers. Phase 1 lasts an indeterminate time, probably beginning before the record. We can go back to the file before this and find out when it starts. Phase 2 lasts about 1:20 - this is how long Alia waits before getting (or choosing) to say what she wanted to say. The "feelings" discussion lasts 9:15, from when Alia introduces it to when Alia makes the joke about margaritas. I also think it is worth noting that the "feelings" discussion kept going after I left, and after Eleanor left. As if maybe they couldn't end it at that same time - they needed to end it with perhaps a more intimate group, or the group with which it began. I think it is curious the way it ends, suddenly. the joke is predictable - it seems people usually end a group conversation with a joke so that everyone knows they can "leave." In this case, nobody is literally leaving, but they leave the topic. 

I-RISE Congress preparation

The I-RISE includes a Congress after the session of observation/reflection/research. The reason we have the Congress is that the Energy Project team wanted more opportunity to learn from the Scholars, and we thought the Scholars might find it valuable to synthesize the experience.

The Congress will run from 9-4 on both days (Thursday and Friday). Our plan is that each scholar will have approximately one hour of dedicated time - the "Ben hour," for example. During your time, your job is to respond to these two prompts:

1. What was significant for you this session? 
1a. Show video if possible.
1b. Make sure we know what we should know about you to understand why it was significant - your background, your expertise, your interests, your learning curve, etc.

2. Where do you want to go from here, if anywhere? 
This could be just a mindset, or perhaps there are specific actions you have in mind such as beginning new research or collaborating with us.

We are really looking forward to it!

models of forms - flop or success?

Last year in UE1, one of the activities was filling out a table with different forms of energy, and the evidence that each form is there. Teachers found this useful because the standards often ask them to teach some set list of forms, and the table helped them contextualize this list and recognize that it is constructed, rather than given by authority. However, one aspect of this table seemed like it was not particularly productive: The focus on evidence as the main indicator of a form led to what I considered to be an overemphasis on what was or was not observable, with teachers questioning whether a form could even exist if you couldn't observe it (e.g. does sound energy exist if you can't hear it?). To me, the defining characteristic of a form of energy is not whether you happen to be able to observe it, but what your model is for what's happening in the physical system when that form is present. In some cases that model overlaps with the evidence (e.g. for kinetic energy, the model is that something is moving, and the evidence is generally that you observe something moving), but in other cases it's very different (e.g. for thermal energy my model is that molecules are bouncing around, but the evidence is that you have a reading on a thermometer or you feel warm). To address this, I suggested that we add an additional column to the table for "model". Lane and Lezlie offered an additional suggestion to split the evidence column into "evidence for the presence of this form" and "evidence for change in this form", since in some cases we tend to observe the presence of energy (e.g. kinetic energy), and in other cases we usually only observe a change (e.g. chemical energy).

Here is a link to Lane's table illustrating the kind of thing we had in mind, except that instead of having separate columns for changes and presence, he put stuff related to presence in black and stuff related to changes in red.

Eleanor took up our suggestions in UE2, and at the end of the first day, she introduced a Keeley probe on models and presented the new columns for the forms table. Then they spent the entire second day negotiating what a model is.We knew that the term "model" would take some getting used to and expected there to be negotiation. But I don't think anyone, including Eleanor, realized just how much negotiation it would require.

To me, and to other scholars, it seemed like they were getting bogged down with the idea of a pedagogical model, rather than a mental model, as Hunter blogged about here.  The reason I had introduced the model column to the table was that when there was only an evidence column, they were bogged down talking about the evidence for it, rather than talking about it. Introducing the model column, rather than getting them talking about it, appeared to be getting them bogged down in talking about how to teach it. "Model" was the best word I could come up with for what I meant by it, but after seeing what it led to, I was afraid it was still not the right word. After the second day, I was convinced that my idea had completely flopped, and I should go back to being a researcher on the side and not make any more instructional suggestions ever again.

But I forgot about Eleanor's ability to help learners pull together what looks like a giant mess into a coherent structure, and this is exactly what she did by the end of the third day. I think the process of putting the mess back together started in the afternoon of the second day, when she split the model column into "pedagogical model" and "mental model" (or something like that), so they had a place to put the stuff they were talking about and could see that there was also something else they needed to talk about. They also watched a video of Feynman talking about imagining jiggling atoms. They spent pretty much the whole third day making sense of the Feynman video via both thought experiments and real experiments, and constructing and refining a very hard-won mental model of thermal energy. By the end of the third day, it seemed like everybody had a clear mental model of thermal energy, as well as an understanding of what a mental model is, and they were really happy about it.

The thing I didn't know before this week is that these teachers did not already have a mental model for thermal energy coming into the class. Knowing this, it makes perfect sense to me why this whole process took so long (two days)! For me, thermal energy is the quintessential example of why I need a separate column for evidence and model: because for thermal energy, more than for any other form of energy, the evidence and the model are completely separate in my mind. My evidence for thermal energy is a reading on a thermometer or the feeling of warmth, and my model for thermal energy is microscopic particles bouncing around. When people are confused about what goes in the model column, I want to say, "Just think about thermal energy." But they didn't have a model of thermal energy, so it makes sense that they would be confused about the whole exercise. It was worth spending two days to develop this model, because, as Eleanor said at lunch, "If you don't have a microscopic model of thermal energy, it's hard to really believe in energy conservation because it looks like energy just goes away."

Representational flexibility as evidence of sense making

I think that representational flexibility can be evidence of physical understanding.  By "representational flexibility" I mean students' ability to use representations in ways that differ (in major or minor ways) from their instructors' usage, or from their own past usage.  This may involve incorporating facts that were not previously mentioned in connection with this representation or exploring variations and representational conventions that have not previously been discussed or emphasized.


On Wednesday, UE2 students participated in energy theater about the diffusion of thermal energy from a cup of hot coffee.  On Thursday, they were asked to produce a diagrammatic representation of that energy theater.  Two of the three groups produced diagrammatic representations that closely mimicked the energy theater.  A third group demonstrated flexibility (in my opinion) by producing a diagram that was unlike the theater.

Here are the first two groups.  Notice that they drew exactly 13 T's (because there were 13 students in the energy theater), and they drew a single circle to represent the coffee cup.  (Or in one case, they drew the single circle twice; but both circles represent the cup.)

Here is the third group, table 7, which produced a markedly different representation.  Table 7 drew three circles -- one for the cup and two for thermometers that they used in an experiment.  This representation had been suggested and attempted for ET on Wednesday, but had been quickly discarded by the class and never acted out.  Table 7 also drew nine T's instead of thirteen.  (And drew six rows of circles instead of one or two.)

I suspected that Table 7's representation was a clue that the third group had a deep understanding of the physical situation.  Although I cannot quantify the depth of their understanding, I can at least verify that the construction of the new representation was associated with a sense-making conversation.  Below is a video of Table 7 constructing their diagram and beginning to engage in a sense-making conversation.  One teacher had invented the representation, and before the group can use the picture, he has to explain it to others.  At the beginning of the conversation, this teacher (Tim) explains his diagram.

Sherry: Oh but we, this isn't visualizing the energy theater model.
Gayle: It isn't?
Sherry: I mean it's not easily seen.
Tim: It is for me.
Gayle: It is for me too, so what, um,
Tim: Here is ... maybe I could explain why I drew it this way.
Sherry: Did you go home and do it last night?
Tim: No, I did it in class yesterday.
Sherry: Oh is that why you came up with the zero (???) two, every five minutes?
Tim: No, this is just an increment of time that's not defined.  Um, so here's the cup of hot water.  (Sherry: right.)  All of the thermal energy is right there at time zero, the beginning of the experiment, all the thermal energy is right here.  Few minutes down the road, whatever that few minutes might be, some of the thermal energy (Sherry: right, I mean, I can) travel, uh leaves the cup and is transferred to the air.  (Sherry: right, I can see)  And more and more is transferred away from the cup

The representation continued to generate conversation; for instance, this exchange about the end result of thermal equilibrium:

Tim: Well in the end, in the end, the room is actually hotter from that cup of tea.

Sherry: I mean what end are you talking about?  It will go off into Seattle's air.

Written data versus video data: what questions are answered about the nature of science?

I had the idea this morning that I think it would be interesting to compare video records of what happened in UE2 on days 2 and 3 (lack of shared consensus about what a model is to shared model for thermal energy) to written records of the nature of science pre- and post-surveys we are collecting.  I think the latter might tell us if there are shifts in teachers' thinking, and the former might tell us how those shifts happened.  I'd bet our community would appreciate such a paper -- about the same thing, involving the same people, using different data and answering different questions.  I'll put it on my to-think-about list.

UE2: Understanding models

My impression is that a bird's-eye view of the UE2 course over the past several days would show the teachers negotiating and coming to consensus about what 'model' means.  This started on the first day of class, which ended with a Paige Keeley probe entitled "What is a model?"  The teachers answered the questions, received Paige's answers, then left for the afternoon.  The next morning they discussed as a group.  Throughout day 2, I felt discouraged by what felt like a lack of deep substance to their conversations -- it seemed like they were not differentiating "mental models" (a learning tool) from what Hunter has labeled "pedagogical props" (teaching tools).  But yesterday, it sounds like they ended the day with conviction and enthusiasm, having developed their own mental model for temperature.

I'd love to watch this unfold, to figure out what might have 'kept them from' understanding what kind of model Eleanor was encouraging them to develop and then to see what happened yesterday that precipitated a sequence of events that ended in understanding.  This morning, I did watch a group discussion from the morning of day 2, when the teachers were describing their responses to the Keeley probe. 

I'm not going to clip an episode because I'm still not sure this is something I want to formally pursue, but as a note to future readers, you can find the discussion I describe in minutes 49.42-1.05.54 in the video labeled UE2 120627 1056 T2.  Basically, I see (and infer) the following things to be happening:

• Wendy says that she carefully read and understood Paige's prompt to be asking about which of the choices addressed the use of models, not just models.  So even if she thought one of the choices was about models, if they weren't models-in-use, she didn't choose it.
  
• Hunter tells the story of making a cell cake and how constructing the cell cake didn't teach him anything.
  
• Tim wonders whether building a model is using it, in a way, since the act of representing something requires having a picture in your mind of the thing.
  
• Joan adds that in order for something to be a model, it needs to be a replica of the thing it represents.  So building a paper airplane is not a model, since it doesn't include an assembly line (which is an important part of the process of building an airplane).
  
• Jeff expresses his frustration that the conversation that's being had is way off-point of his understanding of what a model is.  He uses the word "semantics."  When Eleanor asks him what he thinks is the meaning of the probe, I think his answer suggests that he thinks the point of the probe is to help him (them) better understand what a model is, and I think he's frustrated because it didn't help him and actually left him feeling confused because he's trying to guess what Paige means.
  
• Tim reminds Jeff that he wrote a definition for 'model' that Tim liked, and Jeff says that he did it because he thought he needed to in order to answer the question.  He reiterates his frustration that he thinks that people in the room -- Wendy, for example -- understand what a model is but got caught up in the "semantics" when answering the question.  Wendy affirms that she was affected by the words and adds that her attention to words was augmented by her confusion about her experience with the mouse trap car question, when there were two different ways of interpreting the question.  (My sense is that she's still confused about what those two ways are -- that this has not been resolved for her -- so now she's being extra careful to answer the question that was asked, not trusting her interpretation.)
  
• Eleanor invites Jeff to share his working definition of a model, and he does: "models are used or useful in explaining-slash-predicting phenomena in real life in a simple or more accessible way, accessible meaning visual, whatever."  He says he used that definition when he answered the Keeley probe. 
  
• Adria and Jeff exchange some about which ones Jeff picked, and he explains that Wendy and he had a discussion in which they felt they were clear on what a model is and then they had trouble answering the Keeley probe.
  
• Sherry says that she thinks a model is "something that's built to replicate the real thing because you're not able to see and use the real thing."  She was thinking a physical model, but then this conversation/reading the probe made her think that maybe it includes conceptual things.  She thinks it's less about the answers and more about the learning.  Jeff agrees, but that's not how it worked for him.  Eleanor agrees with Sherry that it's not about the right answers; the probes are intended to be conversation starters.  Jeff says that although he agrees that we should value the process, the first thing that his table did was compare their answers to the 'right' ones.
  
• Barb (?) says her definition did allow her to answer the probe straightforwardly.
  
• Alicia says that she has a problem with just visualizing models, (I think) because there's no way for others to evaluate or assess it.  You need to be able to demonstrate it with a drawing or in words.  How can you prove you have a model, or that it's right, if it's just in your head?  Tim concurs, adding that the model can be in your head, but you have to be able to represent it for state tests.  Michelle (playfully?) disputes this, referring to the standards, saying they only say "create," not write it down.
  
• Eleanor summarizes the different kinds of models they've been discussing.

Originally, I thought this interchange was significant because I read a paper in graduate school about different ways in which students and teachers use the word "model," and I was thinking that maybe this was the source of Jeff's frustration -- the other teachers were using the word "model" in a different way than he was, and he thought it meant the task wasn't clear.  Now I'm not so sure that this is what happened.

In any case, I do get the sense that Jeff feels that this activity did not advance his understanding of what a model is, which is what he thought the purpose was.  And I wonder if this (paired with other things) might have been one of the hang-ups on day 2 in terms of understanding what 'model' means.

Let's just be vulnerable and learn

This short episode was from a conversation at the start of class, when the learners were sharing their thoughts about the previous day. The first part of the conversation was their frustration at how what they were doing would not easily transfer to their classrooms, which prompted Ana to say that they designed this class for adult learners. Several people said some positive things about the class, and then Dan talked about being an adult learner.

UE1 120628 1000 T5&ET Vulnerability 855

Dan: Listening to this discussion, that we as adult learners, the bad habits that we might pick up, or, like, for me as an adult learner I won’t participant in a discussion if I don’t have the right English word because I don’t want to sound like an idiot. So all those little stories that we begin to tell ourselves on the way, whereas with kids still, we can help them still be playful, to explore, to take risks, and to suspend that judgement. It’s like Ana said, I remember her saying, you know easier said than done, it’s what we do over the course of trying to  be intelligent, functioning people, um to appear knowledgeable about things. But to, to take that risk, I guess? Um, and for me, since I don’t know the subject it’s not ever pretending, it’s that fear, okay let’s just be vulnerable and learn, for learning’s sake.

This was a powerful statement, at least to us researchers. Dan is recognizing something that is common to all adult learners (and that applies to the undergraduates I usually interact with, as well). By the time we get to be adults, we're supposed to appear knowledgeable about topics, and, perhaps more importantly, about situations. Thus, when we we're in a situation, we're supposed to know how we're supposed to act in that situation. Being an adult learner is uncomfortable for at least two reasons: (1) We don't know the content we're talking about (as Dan pointed out), and we might say something foolish. (2) We're adults, but the teacher is the authority, so we don't get to decide what kind of activities we'll engage in, and what the rules of those activities will be. We know that many students are uncomfortable when they are first involved in learning activities that aren't what they're used to (i.e. traditional lecture). They probably don't want to say something wrong, but I would suspect that it's also uncomfortable because they're not sure what's going to happen next, nor how they should talk or behave.

Direct Evidence vs. Prior Knowledge: A Nature of Science Question

What directly preceded this conversation: This episode is preceded by Lane posing a thought experiment. The class had considered the situation of placing an ice pack in a water bath. Now Lane asked them to considered what it would be like if the ice pack was placed in the canal outside. If they had a thermometer in the canal and recorded no change in temperature, would they have evidence that heat energy had been transferred to it?

UE1 120628 1202 T5 NOS 1045

Valerie: On one hand, you are arguing that we should base what we’re doing on knowledge that we’re constructing. And to argue that there was a transfer of thermal energy, which we all know there was, even if there’s no evidence for it, to use our prior knowledge, to affect, to interpret what we’re seeing. So, we have to think about that. I mean, which one are we trying to do?

Lane: Do we, in that case, do have evidence?

Valerie: We don’t have any evidence.

[Several learners jump in.]

Valerie: But we could come up with a completely other scenario for it, for why the ice melts. There’s like no evidence that there’s thermal energy coming from it. Only prior knowledge that there’s thermal energy coming from it.

Kristy: Well, I think the ice pack melting is evidence that  [Several people overlap speech.]           

Jeannie: Canal water isn’t room-

Sean?: [inaudible] controlled experiment, because here you have a limited amount of stuff and there you have a huge amount of stuff. So you can’t say that one thing affected the other, without using a smaller scale. The bath water actually got colder so you could see the energy changing. [Inaudible].

Lane: But I think Kristy’s saying, what I hear Kristy saying is that there’s evidence of a transfer of energy into the ice pack, even out there, because its temperature changed in a [inaudible] way. That is evidence of transfer into the ice pack, but it’s not evidence of where it came from.

Valerie: Yeah, but there’s a lot of inferring there and basing it on prior knowledge. Because just imagine someone who know nothing about thermal energy, what would they think of the ice pack melting? I mean, if you say there’s a transfer of energy because [inaudible]. You’re just using what you know to answer a question.

I have two unrelated thoughts about this episode. First, Valerie seems to be struggling with what kind of information you can use what making a scientific argument. It's relatively straightforward to tell learners we need to base our claims on evidence, but here it looks like that is hard to put into practice. While we base our claims on things we can observe, we have to use deductions and reasoning to make the connection between evidence and claims. When you've also adding reasoning to the process, then it seems kind of silly (from Valerie's point of view) to ignore previous knowledge gained from the recent experiment: the temperature of the water in the bath goes down, so our model tells us it's losing heat energy to the ice pack. I sympathize with Valerie, because she's taking a conclusion based on evidence and extending it to the new thought experiment: if we conclude the ice pack is gaining thermal energy and it's in the canal, it seems like we're using reasoning to say the likely place the thermal energy comes from is the canal. 

My second, shorter, thought is about the researcher characterization of this conversation. Ben and I both heard this conversation and labeled it "about the nature of science." But it occurs to me that it's really about what rules they're following in this discussion and in this class. It would only be about the nature of science if the learners see what they're doing in this discussion and in this class as science. (And I'm sure many NOS researchers have already had that thought, but it's new to me.)

UE2: We leave with more questions than answers

Last year, I-RISE scholars observing UE2 were struck by the number of seemingly 'aha' moments related to the nature of science and the teachers' identities as participants in the scientific community.  One thing that was flagged -- described in this post -- was the sophistication of the idea that science learning often concludes with more questions than answers.

This year, my ears perk up every time I hear something like that, and it's come up twice with not much additional attention.  Two instances come to mind in particular:

1. During the "Rights and Responsibilities" discussion, there was a lot of talk about teachers having a "right" to leave with correct answers.  Tim responded with something like, "My sense is that these kinds of classes leave us with more questions than answers."  And I got the feeling that this is okay -- even welcome -- to him, as though he wouldn't want to interfere with that by making a rule that they have to leave with all of the answers.
   
2. Yesterday (06/27) afternoon, the teachers were discussing an experiment that Eleanor did using three temperature probes: one that was placed in a cup of hot water and two that were placed in the air outside, one three inches away and the other six inches away.  She graphed the temperature over time, and there were lots of bumps in the graphs if you zoomed in close enough.  The teachers were asking lots of questions about what might have made the bumps happen, and one teacher suggested that maybe the bumps were because of air currents.  Sherry piped up to say that the bumps in the graph for the temperature probe in the water could not have been because of air currents, because the probe was in the water.  They are wondering about this, and Sherry points out that one question always leads to many more.  Eleanor agrees that "that's the way it always is."

These are sort of isolated moments in time -- no sustained discussion around them -- but I wanted to make note.

UE1 Seating Chart.

This is a seating chart for UE1 this year. We tried to put the names in the place at the table where they've sat most of the time.

Misconceptions talk

Episode title (on server): UE2 120626 1542 T2 Misconceptions talk

(Loose) transcript:
[00:00:00.00] Michelle: Wendy?
Wendy: Mmhmm?
Michelle: Um, that My Private Universe, is that the video they made where I think it was these kids graduating from like Harvard?

[00:00:12.22] Wendy: MIT.
Michelle: Oh, was it MIT?
Wendy: Mmhm.

[00:00:13.15] Michelle: And they have these WILD misconceptions?
Wendy: Mmhm.
Michelle: Okay, I have seen that.

[00:00:18.04] Wendy: And I can't remember where it was, it might have been here, that the word.  It was probably here.  The word misconception.
Michelle: Mmhm.

[00:00:31.00] Wendy: It tends to be a negative term.  Saying that what you believe is wrong.  And you shouldn't use that, in a sense, because what you believe is what you believe based on your experiences and your knowledge and your understanding.  So it's not necessarily wrong, it...
Michelle: It's yours.

[00:00:48.19] Wendy: Yeah, we need to mature it, we need to build upon it, we need to tweak it.  And so I always, now when I hear the word or think of the word or use the word, I'm really careful about how.  Because that really hit home with me, as far as, you know, what I believe is what I believe...

[00:01:06.03] Wendy:...because of who I am and what I've experienced.  You know what I mean?  So when we were answering those questions on that survey, um, and we were answering one on do scientific theories change or are they build on cultural, I think it was the one on are they built on social and cultural things...

[00:01:24.20] Wendy:...you know, my husband was saying one thing, and I was saying, you know, well, what about those people in Nambia who can only understand why the earth, why the sun comes up and goes down based on their experiences.

[00:01:37.14] Wendy: They don't have the technology.  Their experience is that the sun rises and the sun sets, and there's probably a cultural reason as to why.

Commentary: Eleanor has just given Michelle (closest to camera), Barb (in the middle), and Wendy (closest to the window) the 'forms' table from last year to revisit.  A few minutes earlier, Eleanor gave the class her 'answer' to the mousetrap car question that the participants completed on their own and then discussed, and they all expressed their relief that Eleanor was "giving them answers."  Michelle, et al., said they had "worked hard" for it, and Sherry (at a different table) said how much more she learned by thinking about the question first; because of this, Eleanor's answer made a lot more sense.  Wendy brought up the Private Universe videos -- particularly the piece where a young girl is interviewed before and after a lesson on planetary orbits, and she "holds on" to her ideas, even though the teacher explicitly addressed them.  Then the episode starts.

This moment stuck out to me because I care a lot about teachers valuing student ideas, and I tend to think that instruction whose primary goal is to 'fix' the stuff that's 'wrong' with student ideas often devalues the ideas that students bring with them.  (Disclaimer: I don't think this is always true, I think it's often or maybe even only sometimes true.)  So I appreciated Wendy's picking up on Michelle's use of the word misconceptions and sharing her attention to her own use of it.

I'm still trying to figure out if she's really valuing student ideas or just changing her language.  She's still very concerned about changing their ideas, or at least moving them forward.  But she's also acknowledging that those ideas come from somewhere, that they're based on real experiences.  Still processing.

Diagramming Energy Theater

Yesterday UE1 did Energy Theater for the first time, and after that, they were invited to diagram what their group had done. I wasn't there at the time so I don't know exactly how the exercise was introduced; Lindsay said it was pretty open-ended. I think the diagrams that they produced were fantastic. Because I am interpreting their diagrams in light of my own diagramming conventions and convictions, I am going to talk about my own way of diagramming Energy Theater first.

I have become attached to a form of diagram that I call an Energy Tracking Diagram. (UE1 calls any kind of diagram that records an Energy Theater performance an Energy Tracking Diagram, but I'm going to stick to my special label.)

• Individual units of energy are represented as individual letters, with the specific letter representing the form of energy.
• Energy transfers and transformations are represented with arrows. All arrows have a letter at the head and the tail. Arrows that have different letters at the head and the tails indicate transformations. Arrows that cross the boundaries of object-areas indicate transfers.
• The process by which a transfer or transformation occurs (e.g., mechanical work, conduction) is indicated by the color or pattern of the arrow.
• Time order of energy processes is represented by sequences of arrows. (The time order of processes that occur along separate tracks is not represented.)
• Relative amounts of energy may be represented by duplicating letters or tracks, or by adding coefficients to the letters representing energy.

Here is an Energy Tracking Diagram (ETD) that I drew for a basketball being pushed down underwater at constant speed. (If you are concerned about my having put the G's inside the objects, feel free to ask me about that.)

Abby has other examples on her blog; here is a PowerPoint version of an ETD for a compressing spring.

Now to the teachers' diagrams! In this post I am going to focus more on the representational features and less on the substance of the physics ideas that is represented. To examine a diagram more closely, click on it, and you'll see it full size.

(Bummer about the glare on this one.) At first, looking at those converging arrows on the left side, I thought they were not conserving energy (four units of energy going into one). But then I saw that the four units of energy are all there in the cart - just not at the end of that particular arrow. Instead of prioritizing that each energy unit follows a "track," this diagram prioritizes the physical location at which the transfer occurred: the contact point between the finger and the cart. Renee Michelle says that in their ET, they all pointedly (ha) walked through the finger. Thus it makes perfect sense that they drew the objects instead of drawing schematic areas the way I usually do. Another thing I notice about this diagram is the use of color in the arrows. For them, color indicates form. In the letters, this is redundant (because which letter it is already tells you the form), but in the arrows, the color shows that the energy starts out as one form and transforms at a certain spot (the black "transformation point") into the other form. So the arrows, for them, represent the energy, whereas for me, the arrows represent the kind of process by which energy transfers or transforms.

This one doesn't show the path each energy unit takes; instead, each energy unit gets an identifying number, which has a corresponding number in other objects. So there is a C1 in the hand, a K1 in the car, and a T1 in the air. It seems that K1 goes to S1 and K6 goes to T6, so the energy units are treated as though they were traceable individually. The big block arrows seem to represent forces (one is marked R, maybe for resistance?), and the thin black arrows seem to show energy transfer. As in the first diagram, letter-color is used redundantly with the letter itself to indicate the form of energy. (It's less apparent in this diagram because two of the forms are black, and one is dark blue.)

This one uses schematic areas instead of pictures of objects, and shows energy tracks. I find it hard to follow visually - the criscrossing lines and the fact that they are dotted makes them look like a maze of snail trails to me. But I believe they are used consistently. What interests me about this diagram is the fact that the car appears twice. What's with that?

This diagram helps me make sense of the other one, because the air and the car are shown twice, so now I understand that I am being shown a kind of a time sequence. First there is the hand; then there is the car moving on the floor through the air; then there is the stopped car sitting on the floor in the air. This suggests to me that in this diagram the swirly arrows are time arrows; the energy in the car goes to the future car. 

This diagram seems to have a similar form: a sort of time sequence, but with not all of the objects present at each time - only the "spotlighted" object. This representation reminds me of energy discussions I've seen in the context of Rube Goldberg machines, in which people think of the energy as almost being passed like a baton from one "active" object to the next.

This one is a more explicit time sequence. This group uses coefficients to indicate quantity, rather than repeating the letters as the other groups do. They use a delta symbol to indicate a transformation (maybe  because it means "change"?) and an arrow to indicate a transfer. Again, both letter and color indicate form; coefficients are written in a distinctive color.

Every single diagram shows the energy being conserved, supporting my conviction that once you start using the substance metaphor you pretty much can't help conserving energy. I'm curious what's going on with thinking in terms of partial time sequences, since it seems to be popular this year.

"Inquiry-based teaching and Discovery learning"

Inquiry-based teaching methods are student-centered instead of the teacher force feeding information that the students haven’t processed, digested or not yet proved to themselves if the information fits into their framework of knowledge. In my opinion, the key to inquiry-based is allowing the pupils to design the instructor’s guided lesson. Teachers do not like this aforementioned because of time constraints and the pupil’s natural curiosity may not align to standards. Additionally, many teachers are not supported by the schools’ administrative system, by their colleagues or by resources.

So in Eleanor’s class, the question was raised, “What is a model?” The class seemed very confused as to what a model is exactly and like “energy”, there is a barrage of definitions, from Christie Brinkley to a paper airplane. Should this be a teachable moment about models?  Should the instructor continue with the objectives of the course and maintain the time schedule and great well-designed lessons?

I have not taught my content as of yet and do not know the pressures that teachers feel from students, staff and administration. Conveying information is already a challenging feat and could be more challenging when other questions are raised that the teacher may or may not be equipped to answer.

The National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) has been pushing teachers towards inquiry-based teaching using demonstrations, hands-on activities like Energy Theater and using the whiteboards and allows the pupils to walk away from the lesson with conceptual knowledge instead of superficial truths.

Sherry said today, “A conceptual model helps make meaning”.  Another teacher participant, Tim   said that he will use Energy Theater in his classroom as much as possible next year.

This seems as though they both learned a tool that will be inherently used to have their students to discover the objective of the lesson instead of an information transfer. This is a goal of mine as an educator and I feel great that Eleanor’s lesson as lasting effects on her current students and their students. 

Field Note FLAG Requests UE 2012

Watch for These (FLAG AND PUT TIME STAMP): 

• Identity in relation to science/science teaching -  Amy
• FLAG: IDENT
• Criteria for Creating and Distinguishing forms of energy; also is energy distinguishable? - Sam
• FLAG: Forms
• Energy Degradation/Entropy/Energy Spreading/Dissipate/Thermal Energy is Useless/a dead end - Abby and Ben
• FLAG: Abby (or a descriptive word of the above - like Dissipate)
• Changing the meaning of space/multiply-occupied space/nesting esp. in gesture - Hunter
• FLAG: Space/Gesture
• Proximity of students' representations to previously seen/instructor's - Josh
• FLAG: Repres
• Meaning of the word "Potential" - Brandon
• FLAG: Potential
• Disambiguating Energy and Objects/Matter - Lindsay and Rachel
• FLAG: Distinguish or Disambiguate
• Energy transfers in a simple circuit (battery, bulb, wires)
• FLAG: Circuits
• Lindsay
• Inquiry (teachers talking about it)
• FLAG: Inquiry
• Michele

Objects vs. Energy

On Tuesday afternoon in the UE1 class, there was an interesting thread in the class discussion that centered on how physical objects should be involved in talking about energy processes.  I was struck by how their dramatically their language shifted throughout the day.  Right after lunch when they were discussing the energy processes they'd observed outside, Table 2 was having a hard time distinguishing between the movement of energy from one place to another and the movement of physical objects from one place to another. Energy cycles were being conflated with the water cycle, and the cycling of gasses in the atmosphere.

Note in this clip when Roxanne points out that the "cycle" that Jon is describing isn't about energy.  Below is the diagram they created, which has labels of energy, but is clearly representing the physical objects / processes involved in their scenario.   

Later, when negotiating features, Table 2 came up with the category of "Physical Manifestation" and had a discussion about the difference between things that can be observed in the physical world and the "causes" of these things (which I think was their idea of energy at that point?).  Miranda especially did not want to stop talking about this feature, which for her included both "matter" and "evidence".  At the end, Heather suggested that heat and sound and light are physical manifestations and Miranda said, "Yes!"

During the whole-class discussion, Miranda proposed Physical Manifestation as a feature and defined it as "anything physical you can observe" such as a light bulb lighting up, a change in temperature, and sound.  Heather also interjects that it could be heat, which suggests that they're still a little unsure about the matter / energy distinction.  (See clip below.)

After this, the class got sidetracked by a conversation about potential energy, but circled back to the distinction between physical objects, observable phenomena, and forms of energy.  Someone else proposed "Pathway" as a feature and gave examples of the objects that the energy travels through.  At that point, Miranda, Heather, and Roxanne had a side conversation where they discussed the idea that energy is "not a thing," although it does travel through matter (see next clip).

 At the end of the day, the class came to a consensus (led by Lane) that several of the proposed features involved physical objects, and should therefore be in the same category, separate from energy transformations that have their own "starting" and "ending" points.  

Despite this clarification, on day 2, the theme came back again.  In the afternoon, Lane pointed out (starting around 1:55) that most of the energy tracking diagrams show both physical objects and forms of energy very prominently.  Only one group (Table 1) had decided to minimize the salience of physical objects (by representing them with boxes) and emphasize the energy transfers.  He noted that there isn't a "right or wrong" way to do this, but that there may be some use in separating representations of physical processes from a "force story" or an "energy story".  As the day progressed, the distinction between forms of energy (and what energy is doing) and physical evidence of energy's presence seemed to become clearer for the teachers. The Energy Tracking diagrams that Table 2 drew throughout the week are good evidence of this, but I won't include them here b/c this post is already too long! 

Pedagogical considerations for classifying energy

At the end of the first UE2 session, the class discussed a list of different kinds of energy.  Several teachers said that their practices for understanding energy would be dependent on pedagogical concerns, including students' needs and state standards.  In this passage, the teachers are discussing Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) -- knowledge about how to teach physics to a particular student demographic -- as opposed to simply content knowledge.  My suggestion is that in this context, content knowledge cannot be separated from PCK, since in-service elementary school teachers are always thinking about their teaching.  Thus, the teachers will filter everything they learn by asking "how am I going to teach this?"  (This is just a hypothesis at this point.)

One pedagogical issue centered on what I would call "provisional" instruction (targeted at the needs of a particular audience) vs. "definitive" instruction (scientifically correct.)  In the quote below, Joan contrasts the terms "food energy" and "chemical energy":

Joan: "I can see it both ways, I think kids can handle a change in definitions, it's just like in math, first they learn, you know, what, "flip", and as they get older, it's a "reflection" or something.  [...] So you feel like if you start with food energy, you could -- if they get a little older you could say  - another, more fancier word for that is -- I can see both ways."

In other words, students first learn a concept using ordinary language and examples ("flip" or "food energy".)  This instruction is only provisional; the definitive terms would be "reflection" or "chemical energy."  According to Joan, the instructor's terminology should be guided by what the students "can handle."  Joan is saying that students can handle a change from the provisional to the definitive terminology, in contrast with Alia's opinion:

Alia:  I think if it's chemical energy, we should refer to it as such, so even when they get older there's no misconceptions, and when they're like "what about food energy"?  Well, food energy, that's chemical energy -- well I thought it's food energy -- and then there's -- might be some confusion.

Alia feels that students need consistency, and that changing terminology would cause confusion.  A common property of provisional instruction is its simplicity; Tim points out that food energy is not on the class's list, but perhaps it should be:

Tim: It's a very big list.  In Seattle anyway, we talk a lot about food energy, because it's simple.  For kids to understand.

Another pedagogical consideration would be state standards.  Tim argues that the term "food energy" is desirable because it is required by the standards:

Tim: But the science standards specifically require them to be able to, kids to be able to draw a food chain showing the transfer of energy.  (Eleanor: Okay.)  And it's called the food chain -- so, you see where (Eleanor: And do they (have to?) label that) for them to meet standards they have to understand that food has energy (Eleanor: Right), and it's being, and it goes from organism to organism (EC: Right.)  So that's, that's the standard.  So that's why I wonder -- ha ha ha.  About that language.

"Model" as pedagogical prop

After all this discussion this morning in UE2 about what is a model, when it came time for the teachers to write in the "model" column of the forms table, both observed tables (2 and 3) were using "model" in a way that I thought was different from what had been worked out in discussion. This time, "model" meant a pedagogical prop. Something you would use to show... what, exactly? Show something having that form of energy? Or just something to point to while you talked about a form of energy, whether it was perceptually apparent that it had that form of energy or not. The systematicity of the things they chose were strange to me - I mean, I don't see the pattern or logic to it. For example, the model for thermal energy could be rubbing hands together, rubbing sticks together, bending a paperclip back and forth, etc. The emphasis seemed to be on ways of producing thermal energy where there was previously "none." While the model for elastic energy was snapping a rubber band. Why snap it? If you wanted to keep the elastic energy, then you would stretch the rubber band and hold it stretched. In any case, this new usage of "model," which the teachers seemed to settle in on fairly quickly and without any explicit negotiation that I noticed, did not seem to fit with or stem from the previous usage of model in the context of the probe. During that discussion, I thought that the focus had been on whether a constructed thing was used for thinking, and whether the thing actually had to be constructed.

UE1 built my confidence.

Episode label (on server): UE2 120626 1021 T7 UE1 builds confidence

(Loose-ish) Transcript:
[00:00:00.00] Tim: Oh well.
Jeff: But did you find that the course helped in your teaching?
Gayle: Yes.  It actually helped mostly in my confidence when I go.  Because when I come to a classroom, I don't know what that lesson plan is going to look like, and it [Energy Theater] wasn't specific to a lesson.  So if they're struggling, it's like, well, try this.  And you know, that whole acting out thing doesn't have to be just science.

[00:00:26.09] Gayle: As a methodology, it was great to employ just to get the wiggles out and to get kids engaged.  Yeah, it was really helpful.  For science, it was really a confidence builder.  For me, my background is in art.  So, well, art and math.  So the middle school science I've been doing this year a lot, and it's pretty entertaining just for me, because I learn along with them.  But also I can do this.  If I can do that, I can do this.

[00:01:01.24] Jeff: Did you find that there's a lot of very good quality science being taught?
Gayle: I think it varies a lot.
Jeff: Does it vary a lot? 
Gayle: Yeah.  It varies a lot.

[00:01:08.08] Jeff: How so?
Gayle: Well, you know, I don't want to be disparaging in a way.  Before the highly-qualified standards were put in place, a lot of people were put in science classrooms in the (?) level that don't have science backgrounds.  And so they're teaching the curriculum and not science.  But I experience both sides in classrooms.  You know, science majors, who are like (gesture).

Commentary: I can't actually find the prompt for the writing activity that the teachers are discussing in the clip, but I think it was something like, "Talk about what you learned last summer and what you hope to learn this summer."  The teachers on camera are Jeff (back left), Gayle (front left), and Tim (front right).  Tim is trying to find a video of a Rube Goldberg machine on his iPad, and Jeff and Gayle are discussing what was helpful to her about UE1.  Gayle is a substitute teacher for Seattle Public Schools; she does not have her own classroom.

What I found significant about this clip is that:

1. Gayle indicates that the most significant contribution of the UE1 course was helping her confidence, and the reason she gives for this is that it's content-independent, and she can pair it with whatever lesson she's given.  I think this (the confidence thing) is significant because one of our goals in the summer courses is to empower teachers.
2. Gayle identifies the wiggles-ness and the engaged-ness of Energy Theater.  This feels relevant to thinking about the affordances of ELAs -- she identifies some, but not all (and maybe not the most important ones).
3. Gayle identifies herself as an art or math teacher AND as a science learner along with her students.  I love this, because it speaks to the kind of generative teaching that we want to see in responsive classrooms.
4. Gayle differentiates science and the curriculum, and associates the former with quality and the latter with lack of quality.  (AND associates the former with science majors and the latter with teachers who have little or no science background.)

Is Potential Energy the Potential to Rise?

I want to talk about a question that was brought up a few times at Table 6, largely by Visala, namely: does something sitting still have potential energy if it has the potential to be lifted (or moved, risen, etc.)? I think that this question has its roots both in how we define particular forms of energy and in how we, as scientists, label those forms. Let me first rewind back to an interaction I had with some in-service middle school teachers last summer.

I've mentioned that part of my interest in the Energy Project emerged while I developed and taught a physics workshop for in-service teachers (Mary Bridget Kustusch was a con-conspirator with me on that). During our discussions on the different forms of energy, I realized that the teachers were using the same words to talk about different things from the other instructors and I. specifically the word "potential." When discussing a bouncing ball, we realized that the teachers considered the ball to have potential energy even when it was sitting stationary on the floor, simply because it had the potential to be kicked. This was the same issue that Visala brought up today concerning waster on the ground. It is also the same issue that that came up in the Scherr et al. 2012 article when the students were discussing leaves blowing in the wind.

I suspect that this is related to the (awful) nomenclature that we use for that particular form of energy. indeed it makes perfect sense to say that a soccer ball has the potential to be kicked. I am reminded of a particular metaphor that Rachel used in a talk she gave at the 2010 PERC in which she described "potential energy" as the maximum capacity that an object could be filled with the energy substance. An object has the potential to be filled with energy.

It is too bad that we impose this word on students. Dan, today, asked if potential was real energy. It is curious, though, that while the teachers discussed many types of energy (sound, chemical, motion, light, thermal), I don't recall once hearing a teacher come up with "configurational energy," (I haven't seen the pictures of the whiteboards, so I could be wrong...). It seems that an object's position is a far less salient attribute with which to associate energy than motion or temperature, say. it will be interesting to follow this thread through the week.

All energy is dinosaur energy

A thread running through the morning and afternoon UE1 sessions today is the question of how to temporally bound energy transfer processes.  In describing a series of energetic phenomena (as in the Wallace and Grommit video),  several teachers have wondered aloud about how far back in time one ought to go in order to satisfactorily describe the origin of the process that they are observing.  Wallace obtains energy from the cheese he eats, which in turn sets off a cascade of energetic transfer events that results in sound energy, light energy, and the energy that Grommit himself expends.  But the teachers are quick to ask where that cheese energy itself comes from.  The potential for an infinite regress emerges (turtles all the way down), until one teacher ends puts an end to the regress with the comment that "all energy traces back to the dinosours, from fossil fuels". 

In the afternoon, Sean's group is discussing where the energy to melt ice comes from, and there is a suggestion that the energy originates in the sun.  But this seems to be unsatisfying to Sean, who notes that "most of the energy we have ultimately comes from the sun. But there are other suns. Where did that energy come from? The big bang?"  In Roxanne's group discussing the water cycle, she asks: "If we think of it as a cycle, what is our starting point?  What's the bottom?"

This issue of how to temporally bound an energetic process story seems to me to be analogous to (although not exactly the same as) the issue of how to spatially bound an energetic process, i.e., how to define a system.  The question of how to use the concept of energy in a useful way is intricately tied to the definition of a system, since it is only by knowing where the system boundaries exist that one can talk about energy conservation or energy degradation (where is it conserved?  from where is it degrading?).  Likewise, defining a temporal system involves making an arbitrary decision about what will be relevant or significant for the purpose at hand.  If one does not make that decision, any energetic process is virtually unlimited in scope.  There is nothing absolute about either decision - the temporal bounding decision or the spatial bounding decision - and I suspect that discomfort in making either decision is only overcome with a lot of practice (and perhaps substantial exposure to physics).  Recognizing that the temporal and spatial assignments are arbitrary and chosen based on the particular problem being explored seems like a pretty important step toward developing a working facility with the energy toolbox.

A means by which things happen

One of the activities this morning in UE1 was a pre-course assessment, in which they were asked to describe what is happening with the energy while a bowling ball is being lowered at constant speed. Lane didn't want to have the class try to work out the answer to this question (he said, "We're not quite ready for that" and I couldn't agree more). He did invite the teachers to share what questions the task raised for them. My question about this scenario is: Where does the gravitational energy of the ball go as you lower it? (I know the answer to that question, but I still consider that "the question.") The questions they asked were nowhere near that. Some of their questions were, approximately:

• "Is gravity energy?"
• "Does the joint act as mechanical energy?"
• "What is meant by the term potential energy?"
• "Is resistance of motion an energy?"
• "When we talk about transfers and transformations I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know what my questions are."

These questions suggest to me that the teachers are not using a substance metaphor for energy. These questions don't have a background premise that energy is a kind of a thing, a thing whose essential act is to go from one place to another. I'm not saying they should (yet); I'm observing that they aren't. It seems like the gravity, joint, and resistance questions pose energy as possibly being a means by which things happen, or are prevented from happening. This seems totally reasonable. 

Here is what Lane wrote of their questions: