Let's Keep It Simple

Context

Monday morning the E1 students went outside and were told to find some situation that had something to do with energy. They were then to come back in and draw a diagram of the situation they observed. Their directions were intentionally vague. This is the first step in the Algebra Project pedagogy. 

The Video

Table 3 struggled a bit to reach a consensus on what to chose for their scenario. Rob (man leaning on the railing) pushed several times for a simple situation. He especially wanted something that dealt with motion because he felt like he understood the energy related to motion. Here are the two times that he mentioned his desire to keep things simple

The rest of the group supported his decision to go with a simple scenario (with the possible exception of Margaret, the woman in the red shirt). 

Why is This Interesting?

I think this interaction is interesting because it suggests something about how this group is framing the task, the project, and physics in general. What I see them doing is activating a very common physics resource (I am apparently in the mood to channel the Maryland PER group today). In physics we usually try to stick to simple situations and to break things down, and make assumptions, and throw out irrelevant details. In physics, this is usually a good thing. But the issue is that most physics students don't do this. Our students tend to be interested in the fun, complicated, messy situations. This is what makes Energy Theater so great (okay, one of the things) - it allows us to talk about the messy, complicated situations of everyday life and analyze them from an energy perspective. So in some ways I think this group is doing a great job of doing physics, but it's actually not what we want them to be doing here.

The second interesting thing is the way this group is trying to position themselves. They appear to be attempting to position themselves as "knowers" or "physics experts" instead of as "learners". Rob admits that he doesn't feel comfortable with the basics of physics. Therefore he wants to chose a situation he feels comfortable with. I find it interesting that he wants to chose a situation that he knows rather than taking this opportunity to learn about something he finds interesting. For instance, he says he finds the waves fascinating but he is intimidated by hydro-physics.  Margaret (the woman in the red shirt, with her back to the camera) appears to be positioning herself very differently from the rest of the group (I'll probably talk more about this in a different post).