Take-up Mediated by Instructional Scripts (or Moments Mediated by History)

Preface–Why I became interested in this episode?

So I want to preface this post by saying a little about what drew me further and further into a particular episode, because at first I wasn't very interested in the episode, and now I'm super curious.

So, the first thing that drew my attention to this episode was that while I was observing the episode, I felt like I knew what was going to happen before it actually happened, in part because I think I was able to anticipate where the instructor was wanting to go. In my field notes, I wrote things like the following:

"SV is going after the squishyness of the table. Bridging analogy thing?" and then later "SV is totaly doing this"

Initially, I thought the episode was kind of boring, exactly because I was predicting what was going to unfold with some degree of reliability. It's kind of like when you start watching a movie, and you can predict where it's going to go and how it will end. But now my thinking and curiosity about the episode has changed: part of what's so interesting to me now about a moment like this is that we often orient to video episodes in a way that we try to account for what's going on in terms of things we can observe in the video; but in the episode below, I want to claim that there are parts of what's going on that you can't understand unless you situate this moment in a broader context of the history and institution of Physics Education Research, and also how that history intersects with the lives of both Stamatis as participant and me as researcher. Because of this intersection, I feel like I can use this episode to do some interesting research work that couldn't be done otherwise.

The Episode–Why is there Normal Force?

On Thursday Morning, E2 had broken into small groups to discuss the deceptively simple situation of a marker on the table. They had been asked to consider carefully both the force story and the energy story in order to further refine their ideas about force/energy relationship. In this episode (with Dean, Nicole, Sarah, and Melanie with Stamatis seated watching), the group had already identified the downward gravitational force and the upward normal force, but Nicole was troubled about why there was a Normal force. 

Nicole: "What is making this [points to an arrow on their whiteboard indicating the force from table on marker] happen? I thought his point [point across the room] was really interesting. Where does this force come from, really? Is it… Is it something about the [holding up gesture]–particles. I’m wondering where that’s coming from... ... So it has to be from the stuff of the table that it’s made of, right? Because that’s the only thing that’s interacting with the marker."

After some side talk about the microphone, the group goes on to begin elaborating a possible mechanism based on electron repulsion.

N: OH! What about… the electrons on the outside of that [pointing] that’s pushing on the electrons on this? [pointing and then tapping]

D: So at the microscopic level. Would it be based on repulsion?

N: Yeah. I mean I actually say this to my kids and I can’t believe that I didn’t think about it before hand, but like that marker isn’t actually touching the board.

D: Right. [nodding]

N: The electrons in it are [gestures two surfaces with hands with a small gap between] repelling the electrons [bounces hands back and forth from each other] on the table.

D: Right.

Mel: Like an invisible cushion.

N: Yeah. So is that what's going on?

S: So there’s these forces on the electrons as well... Err? [tentative]

N: Haugh! [Mock stabs her forehead with marker]

M: This gets back to that we need to know what a Normal force is?

SV seems to "pick up" on the normal force vocabulary, and lectures a bit about the meaning of the word as perpendicular. He even extends into talking about normal & friction as perpendicular & parallel to the surface. At the end of this, Nicole brings up her concern again.

N: But, why is that there? [laughing]
S: So. Just going back to the basic idea that the cup isn’t falling through the table. So we know there’s a force on the cup. So it’s almost like this is made-up as, like, there has to be something countering it, so we’re gonna make it up.
N: Just like physics. [joking manner] We don’t understand mass; there must be a Higgs boson!

This Episode Above Launches an Instructional Script–Clement's Bridging Analogy

After this, SV takes them on a socratic journey for quite a while, and there are claims I'd like to make revolving around the idea that the conversation above is what launches SV into a "Normal Force Bridging Analogy" instructional script. My hope would be to articulate specific elements of this script in such a way the we can explain specific aspects of SV's interactions with the group, especially in regards to whether and how he takes up teachers' contributions. The intuitive idea I'm playing with is this: Stamatis is unlikely to take up ideas that he does not perceive as contributing to making progress along the script. Stamatis is likely to take up ideas that he does perceive as contributing to making progress along the script.

To do this, I need to articulate what the script is (and possibly why it was cued); identify teacher contributions during the conversation (and articulate the space of their possible relationships to the script), and also define what would be meant by Stamatis "taking up" or not "taking up" those contributions. For example, the Normal Force Bridging analogy is a sequence of pedagogical moves intended to support thinking about the Normal force as arising from a spring mechanism (i.e, atoms as tiny, stiff springs), but the script is not necessarily intended to support thinking of the Normal force arising from the electron repulsion mechanism the teachers brought up. The sorts of question I'm circling around would be like, "Why didn't SV take up their pursuit of the electronic repulsion mechanism?" One kind of explanation involves me theorizing that SV is running a script that supports thinking about a different mechanism (the spring mechanism). 

As an additional piece of this episode, I'd also like to argue that the teachers are interacting with SV in a way that suggests they *know* SV is in a "script" instructional mode. For example, I'd like to claim the the teachers are monitoring their own contributions as to whether they do or do not contribute to getting to where SV wants to go. I think there is some evidence to support this claim (e.g., teachers apologizing for making contributions that derail SV's train of thought or that SV disagrees with).

Moving Forward

All and all, I foresee a series of posts orienting around this episode (and hopefully other episodes) in order to understand an important part of responsive teaching which is "taking up learners ideas". In this particular case, I would hope to account for both the ideas SV does and does not take up, in terms of the instructional script he seems to be pursuing. Bringing this back full circle, I'm super excited to have Clement's bridging analogy paper as an artifact for this analysis, which will help me to situate this moment in terms of its relationship to PER history. Part of me is so intrigued by the idea that you can't fully understand an interaction happening with a group of five people sitting around a table in Seattle without relating that moment to other moments that happened with other students and teachers over two decades ago in Massachusetts.