Brian F. and I had some great discussion today unpacking a lot of thoughts about rules in ET. I'll preview another instance of rules playing a role in the discussion of how to represent energy tracking diagrams. This occurred yesterday afternoon.
Background and Summary:
Jessica, Bruce, Melanie and Leanna have just drawn the force
diagram for ball A of the Gaussian gun. Leslie
asks them to diagram energy transfers for the ball and check this against their
claims. The group decides that A interacts with magnet and
environment. Jessica asks about the energy in the magnet
of the gun. The group agrees that there is nothing (they
change their mind on this later, which is super interesting but I won’t talk
about it here). Then they start talking
about the impact of the ball on the environment and decide that the interaction
is negligible, though they do understand that sound and heat are converted from
MPE. They try to resolve this knowledge
that there is some energy transferred without breaking the rules of ET but then
they ultimately decide not to include this in the diagram. Fun fact- Jessica is the one who brings up
the “rule-breaking” and she was the one who prompted the “rule-breaking”
discussion from before.
Transcript- starts at the discussion of the environment around 0:30
Melanie: We said before impact on environment is
negligible...
|Leanna: Mmhmm
|Bruce: Yeah
Melanie:...but that would be the only thing that maybe has
something because there's some small amount of sound and some small amount
of...
Bruce: You could right that in tiny letters... A fraction of
MPE's going over as- as thermal and sound.
Jessica: You broke the rules of energy theater
Bruce: Then screw it, (hands hit table) forget it, it's so insignificant then it's
not worth a full MPE
Jessica: Maybe nobody will notice if you make it small
enough
Bruce: (laughs) We
would write it if this weren't breaking the rules. Therefore we're only kind of
writing it..
Leanna: Can we agree this is in space or in a vacuum?
Jessica: Yeah, get rid of that, we're in space.
Leanna: In one case we can also get rid of this though.
Bruce: Yeah, I don't think we should just move to space but at the same time, we should just say, negligible- just forget it.
Bruce: Yeah, I don't think we should just move to space but at the same time, we should just say, negligible- just forget it.
Melanie: We haven't put it in anywhere else
Bruce: Yeah we haven't put it in anywhere else we decided... yeah
|Jessica: We should not move to space because life gets very
difficult down here when we move to space
|Bruce: Yeah...Oh god.
Discussion
It is interesting here how the rules mediate the discussion about the representation in several ways. "Maybe nobody will notice if you make it small enough." I found this super interesting- for what purpose would we want to write it so small then? Is it that the teachers want to still be accountable to their own knowledge that this small energy transfer exists but do not want to be called out by the audience? Here, they are recognizing how ET rules can be limiting.
Another fun instance is when they start playing with the idea that the gun is in a vacuum or in space. This would allow them to erase the "environment" bubble and frictional energy lost. This was an instance of the rules having a ton of influence- it led the teachers to go so far as to modify the situation to be consistent with the rules. I thought this was interesting because the situation comes from the real-life experiment, yet they were willing to follow the rules at the expense of the situation.
Finally they decide to drop the heat transfer completely. It is important that they are understanding and making explicit the assumptions and simplifications that go into the representation. They are aware that their representation is incomplete, but the incompleteness is sanctioned by the rules.
Brian and I discussed the authoritativeness of the rules and how the rules can be enforced through people and the audience. I plan on exploring further the power relationship between rules and the teachers. Specifically, how rules influence the discussion, as well as how rule-breaking can be an act of transgression.
This clip is really interesting! In the first part of the video everyone seems to be thinking of the representation as a tool for developing their own understanding. Once Jessica says that Bruce broke the rules Bruce seems to totally shift gears. After Jessica's comment Bruce seems to be viewing the representation as a presentation for others rather than a tool for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI feel like maybe "rules" mean something different to Bruce than they do to Jessica (or maybe the whole rest of the group). I might claim that to Jessica the "rules" are guides for developing a productive model of what's happening; while to Bruce the "rules" are things he is not allowed to do. For Jessica the rules are tools while for Bruce the rules are constraints.
This clip made me laugh out loud -- I like the sense of humor I sense in Bruce.
ReplyDeleteI think I need some help to understand the second piece about the environment (the second paragraph of your discussion). There are a lot of "it"s and "here"s in the transcript, and I am having a hard time keeping up.
And I love Alex's point about what "rules" mean to Bruce and Jessica!