Working Collaboratively on Computer Simulations in a ...
Working Collaboratively on Computer Simulations in a Physics Classroom Setting
Chad Gross
Department of Physics, State University of New York College at Buffalo, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222. E-mail: groscm23@buffalostate.edu
Acknowledgments
This manuscript was completed for PHY 690: Masters Project at Buffalo State College Department of Physics under the guidance of Dr. Dan MacIsaac. Thanks to Mr. Frank
Nappo of Lockport High School who also contributed to this manuscript.
Abstract
Mr. Nappo is a Regents physics teacher at Lockport High School. Every day in his class he uses computer simulations in order to teach his lessons. Based on observations done over the course of five days, this manuscript discusses how a Regents physics classroom is enhanced when computer simulations and collaborative learning are part of the everyday lesson plans. Three main observable factors were noted when Mr. Nappo’s computer simulations were the main driving force for instruction. These three observable factorsParticular comments were made upon are student responsibility and choices, classroom management, and questioning.
Introduction
Students often believe that physics is tremendously difficult (Knight, 2004). In most physics textbooks, students work through each question seemingly without creating a mental representation or making sense of the equations (Adams, 2010). Students must be actively engaged with the content and able to learn from that engagement (Paulson, Perkins & Adams, 2009). Because physics textbooks do not allow students to create a mental representation or make sense of the equations, many [students] do not think about the meaning of calculations they are expected to carry out, and they take refuge in memorizing patterns and procedures of calculations (Arons, 1997, p5).
Based on observations the author has done, tThis manuscript focuses on what it looks like inmy observations of a Regents physics classroom when in which computer simulations are the main focus every day. The author spent five days observing Mr. Nappo’s Regents physics class at Lockport High School. There were twenty-two students enrolled. Content covered during this period focused on projectile motion and vectors addition. Every day, Mr. Nappo would run these simulations on a Smart Board ™ (cite – and this is a trademark, right?) so that the whole class could seeparticipate. At this point, students become familiar with how to control the apparatus to run the simulation. During this time the author observed how students interacted with one another. The author also made note of the questions students asked during the day’s lesson when the computer simulations was were being used.
These simulations are created by Mr. Nappo and are not available online nor can anyone obtain them through any other source (personal communication, Oct. 2010). The simulations Mr. Nappo creates are a work in progress and are done throughwritten in the Java computer program. What Mr. Nappo has created is similar in nature to the simulations found in the Physics Education Technology (PhET) project at the University of Colorado cite the website here –first reference to theses).
PhET Simulations
Interactive simulations are a new way to convey scientific ideas and engage students in educational activities (Perkins, Adams, Dubson, Finkelstein, Reid, Wieman & LeMaster, 2006). Computer simulations are freely available for classroom use from the Physics Education Technology (PhET) project at the University of Colorado (Finkelstein, Perkins, Adams, Kohl & Podolefsky, 2004). These simulations are highly interactive, engaging, and create an open learning environment with animated visual feedback to the user (Ibid). The PhET Interactive Simulations Project is a substantial and growing suite of professional quality simulations (currently ~90) for teaching and learning science and the majority of PhET simulations are for teaching physics (Adams, Alhadlaq, Malley, Perkins, Olson, Alshaya, Alabdulkareem & Wieman , 2010). Examples of such simulations the PhET project website provides include introductory material in mechanics and electricity and magnetism (E&M) (Wieman, Perkins & Adams, 2008a), and these simulations can be found at the website .
Simulations provided by the PhET project encourage students to explore and “play” with sets of apparatus with its animations and its real life scenarios. Each apparatus provides an animated, interactive, and game-like environment that is appealing to students (Wieman, Perkins & Adams, 2008a). This invites students to even explore some of the animated simulations that display visual representations to show the invisible (Wieman, Adams & Perkins, 2008b). A couple of examples are the [Circuit Construction Kit] CCK simulation [Circuit Construction Kit] showing the visual flow of electrons in a circuit (Keller, et al., 2005) and the Wave Interference simulation showing motion of air molecules in a sound wave (Wieman, et al., 2008b). Other simulation examples such as the “Moving Man” and “Projectile Motion, ” students commented that it was easier to see what was happening and that they were more fun than real equipment (Ibid).
Through studies and research based on these computer simulations, some of these simulations have been shown to be as or more effective than their non-computer-based real world apparatus counterparts (Finkelstein, Adams, Keller, Kohl, Perkins, Podolefsky & Reid, 2005).
Application
Computer simulations can be applied in high school physics classrooms through the use of collaborative learning to provide a more interactive engaging environment that may help enrich and strengthen conceptual learning among students. Three factors were noted when computer simulations were used in Mr. Nappo’s Regents physics classroom. Those factors were: classroom management, student choices and responsibility, and questions asked by students.
Collaborative Learning
Cooperative learning is studying for the same goal in small groups by helping each other (Gok & Silay, 2008). The focus in In cooperative learning, the focus in is more of a student-student interaction rather than teacher-student interaction. Conversely, a collaborative classroom is one where the instructor serves more as a facilitator of learning and students are active learners (Henry, 2001, as cited in Gosling, 2004). Collaborative learning shifts more towards an interactive environment and away from traditional lecture. In this case the computer simulation is the interactive tool used during collaborative learning. ASIDE FOR A BETTER PAPER: DID YOU SEE STUDENT TO STUDENT INTERACTIONS< OR WAS ALL INTERACTION MEDIATED THROUGH NAPPO?
PAST TENSE PLEASE
At Lockport High School, Mr. Nappo is a Regents physics teacher. In his who used class collaborative learning in his class everydaying takes place. The students were required to “do most of the work” of prediction, analysis, explanation and hypothesis testing and while Mr. Nappo runs ran the simulation on a Smart Board. The simulation allows allowed him to pose questions to students where they have had to work together towards a common answer before the simulation can was be run. Once the simulation has run, any clarifications are were done through more questioning by the teacher. FOR A STRONGER PAPER: CITE & DISCUSS ILD OR INTERACTIVE LECTURE DEMO LITERATURE
Classroom Management
Teachers can adjust and limit how much exploration they want their students to engage in by use of tutorials. Mr. Nappo has worked on Project Claw, a similar program to that of the PhET project focused on waves and optics, through the University of Buffalo and has designed many of the simulations for their website at (personal communication, May 2009). Mr. Nappo has also created simulations of his own and made tutorials to support them. One such tutorial was vVector aAddition. The instructions on the tutorial already assigned displacement vectors A, B, and C with a specific magnitude and direction.
TO IMPROVE THE PAPER: HIGHEST QUALITY SCREENSHOTS POSSIBLE AS FIGURES
Students first started out with a simple problem where they had to draw two displacement vector arrows on a polar coordinate graph. The two arrows had to touch each other, but had to be oriented in the way the instructions called for. Students then had to add the two displacement vectors to find the resultant displacement vector and then draw that arrow on the graph. Once students were done with the problem, Mr. Nappo would run the same simulation on Smart Board for the class so they could see how it all played out. On the simulation, Mr. Nappo could drag the arrows where needed. He could use an apparatus that would lengthen or shorten the arrows which represented magnitude and even rotate the arrow in a specified direction. Once both arrows were oriented correctly, Mr. Nappo hit the “calculate” button. The resultant displacement arrow appeared on the screen with the correct magnitude and direction. Students then compared their answers to the simulation’s answer and then proceeded on to a more complex problem.
The tutorials gave specific instructions as to what the magnitude and direction of the displacement vectors should be. The tutorials also told the student how many displacement vectors were going to be used in each problem. These instructions put limited use of apparatus on the simulation that Mr. Nappo ran. UNCLEAR RESTATE Mr. Nappo took only the amount of arrows out of the simulation’s bucket and adjusted the arrow’s lengths to what the directions called for. The features that students choose to interact with is directly dependent on and limited by the content of the guidance (Paulson, Perkins, & Adams, 2009). The tutorials in this case were the guidance, and it was Mr. Nappo that ran the simulation. RESTATE
What if it was the students running the simulation? Would the directions on the tutorial limit them from using the apparatus to the fullest extent? Considering that Mr. Nappo never used the apparatus beyond what the directions called for, the author believes that the students would have been limited as well. ILD?
Other computer simulation applications such as Physlets have been used in the physics classrooms (Belloni, & Christian, 2001, as cited by Sears, 2009). Research conducted suggests that students using these simulations gain a better understanding of physics, particularly if the “cognitive load” was not set unrealistically high (Lee, Nicoll, & Brooks, 2004).
Student Responsibility and Choices
In Mr. Nappo’s class, students can make choices. The computer simulations that he has created give students the opportunity to make choices on what variables they want to manipulate. “Students are allowed to manipulate variables and are not afraid to manipulate them because they know they are not going to break anything. This in turn will allow the student to feel more comfortable with the simulations and open up to further experimenting” (personal communication, May 2009).
For example, Mr. Nappo started off with a projectile motion simulation on the Smart Board. The simulation animated a person dropping a bowling ball out of a rising hot air balloon. Mr. Nappo was the only one that ran the simulation, so he asked the class what variables to change. Students chose to change how high the hot air balloon should rise, and what the vertical velocity of the hot air balloon should be set at when the person drops the bowling ball. Mr. Nappo used the apparatus given and changed the variables and ran the simulation.
Based on observations, it is the author’s conclusion that students were engaged in the simulation. Students were quick to respond with values for how high the hot air balloon should go before the bowling ball was released, and how fast the hot air balloon should be traveling vertically. Some students even asked to see the simulation run again.
The author briefly interviewed two students about what they thought of their teacher using computer simulations every day in class. Student responses were as follows:
Student 1: “I think it’s great. It’s interactive. You can change things like how
high you want the balloon to go and the speed. Sometimes you can’t
see the projectile motion so you can make the simulation bigger to see
the motion better.”
Student 2: “You can visualize the simulation. A textbook doesn’t show you the
projectile motion of the bowling ball in real-time like the simulation
does.”
FIX THE HARD END OF SENTENCE PARA MARKS / returns
Students also have responsibilities. Students are responsible for conversing with each other which is an important part of collaborative learning. Student talk is far more important than teacher talk in this case (MacIsaac, & Falconer, 2002). TO IMPROVE PAPER: IS THERE ANY STUDENT TO STUDENT TALK?
Students in Mr. Nappo’s class have to communicate their ideas and thoughts on the simulation presented. For example, he would ask students to describe and dissect the entire motion of the bowling ball from its release point until it hit the ground. Students then discussed and described every part of that motion to the teacher. WITH EACH OTHER EVER? Once students dissected the motion of the bowling ball, Mr. Nappo asked what equations are needed to figure out the time it took for the bowling ball to hit the ground. This process is very much guided, but it is necessary for the students to communicate their thoughts to the teacher in order to move forward. PAST TENSE
Questioning PAST TENSE THROUGHOUT TO END PLEASE
Visual representations such as the Vector Addition simulation in Mr. Nappo’s class can lead to new discoveries. These new discoveries can also promote, when supported in the classroom, conversation and questioning among students furthering the positive effects that collaborative learning can provide. When something unexpected happens, the student questions her understanding and changes parameters in the simulation to explore and improve her understanding (Wieman, et al., 2008b). These questions that these simulations intend to manifest are open-ended questions (Thornton, 2004). Open-ended questions or statements cannot be answered by a single word or phrase and does invite exploration (Ibid). Open-ended questions are more intuitive and there is a need to know more of “what and why” an event is happening. An important design feature of a good simulation provides an environment where students can ask open questions such as “Why does that happen?”, “Will it depend on this parameter?” and, “Did it respond as I predicted when I changed this parameter?” (Wieman, et al., 2008). These types of questions help students use their line of reasoning to begin creating a mental framework on concepts as they acquire new knowledge (Paulson, et al., 2009). Open-ended questions are asked more often by students who do learn (Thornton, 2004).
Mr. Nappo showed a simulation of five random vector arrows that could have represented anything to the class. Each arrow was assigned a specific magnitude and direction, and all were connected together in a head-to-tail fashion. He asked the students to point out where the resultant vector goes. Once discussion ceased on where to place the resultant vector, the instructor hit the “calculate” button and the resultant arrow appeared for confirmation. He then switched the order of the five vector arrows to demonstrate that the resultant vector arrow would always have the same magnitude and direction.
After Mr. Nappo switched the order of the five vector arrows around, one student had a question as to why the resultant vector arrow stays the same. This student asked a “why” question which took the teacher more than a single word or phrase to answer. The rest of the class was also exposed to the question and the explanation, and as a result, the class as a whole learned an important concept from the simulation presented.
Conclusion
What theThis author observed from his experience in Mr. Nappo’s Regents Physics course, where he used computer simulations as one of his teaching tools, is an enthusiastic class ready to learn new material. The overall look of the classroom is one where students are provided with lots of opportunities to participate, discuss and ask open-ended questions. All of these behaviors emanated from the computer simulations’ teaching strategy. RESA+TATE VERY STILTED LANGUAGE
Since the simulations have had a cartoon or game-like appearance more students wanted to participate in manipulating variables such as the height and velocity of the hot air balloon. Evidence of participation includeds the quickness of students raising their hands and/or blurting out proposed numeric values for the height and velocity of the hot air balloon.
More open-ended questions arise arose when students can actually see what the simulation is doing. Visually seeing events unfold, like they did in the simulation showing the resultant vector arrow always remaining the same, alloweds for a better quality question followed by a better quality explanation.
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Clean up English for a B; add a figure or screenshot (start as big as possible and reduce it) for the A-.
Dan M
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