When I first met my wife, and she learned that I was studying to be a physicist, she said, "Oh. I don't believe in physics." I replied, "That's fine. I don't really believe in physics either." We both laughed.
While I do value and enjoy physics as a set of cultural activities to take part in , it's not something I believe in. I'm not sure I know what would it mean to believe in it. For example: I'm fine saying I believe that objects fall toward the earth. And I really like learning about how ideas about falling objects have changed over centuries: from it being about the natural tendencies of objects, to it being about forces acting between massive objects at a distance, to it being gravitational fields propagating through space and time, to it being about how energy curves space-time manifolds, to it being about graviton exchanges, etc.
But do I believe in forces? Do I believe in fields? Do I believe in space-time manifolds? Do I believe gravitons? No, not really. Do I think there is value in humans learning, thinking about, and exploring those ideas? Absolutely. Do I think that playing such physics games requires taking on stances of realism from time to time? Probably. Do I think one has to believe in the ontologies we create to model the world? Not really.
Over the years, I have told lots of people that my wife doesn't believe in physics. That usually gets some laughs as well. Just before we left Maine, a friend of mine trapped my wife into a public display of participating in physics. My wife was explaining to my physics friend something about cooking–how some eggs float and some eggs sink, and how that has something to do with whether the eggs have gone bad. My physics friendly slyly asked the question, "Why does that happen?" And my wife went on explain why... and not long after she was trapped. She was doing physics, explaining sinking and floating in terms of densities. My physics friend called her on it, and she was shamed into believing in physics, at least for a moment. We all laughed.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Three Things about Physics
Thoughts about physics, mostly stolen or adapted from others:
(1) The ideas of physics are relatively simple; but they are also quite subtle, especially in how they make contact with the real world, which is (undoubtedly) messy and complex. Understanding how simple ideas interface with the complex real world lies at the heart of understanding physics.
(2) Physics is not quite the study of natural phenomena nor the study of philosophy; rather physics lives in and around the boundaries of the real and the ideal. Physics, thus, flirts with the notion that our most complex experiences are quite simple and that our simplest experiences are quite complex.
(3) Physics begs us to problematize that which is not intuitively or initially problematic, and then to wonder whether and if our approaches to the unproblematic will be useful somewhere entirely different. For this reason, the world is both the source and target of our ideas, but the distances those ideas must traverse can be staggering.
(1) The ideas of physics are relatively simple; but they are also quite subtle, especially in how they make contact with the real world, which is (undoubtedly) messy and complex. Understanding how simple ideas interface with the complex real world lies at the heart of understanding physics.
(2) Physics is not quite the study of natural phenomena nor the study of philosophy; rather physics lives in and around the boundaries of the real and the ideal. Physics, thus, flirts with the notion that our most complex experiences are quite simple and that our simplest experiences are quite complex.
(3) Physics begs us to problematize that which is not intuitively or initially problematic, and then to wonder whether and if our approaches to the unproblematic will be useful somewhere entirely different. For this reason, the world is both the source and target of our ideas, but the distances those ideas must traverse can be staggering.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Recapturing a Sense of Science Away from School
I have recently been thinking a lot about how school distorted my own sense of doing science–one that I am only now recapturing in my post-school life. In school, a part of my own "hidden curriculum," especially in undergraduate and graduate physics, was learning that science (especially physics) was something to be done at academic institutions with academic people–in classes, in laboratories, in dedicated office spaces, at conferences, through grants, etc. School supported a view of science that science was done by people who had scientific knowledge–knowledge that was sanctioned by scientific authorities. It tacitly taught that science was done by scientists and that scientists had the right to decide what was and what was not science, as well, as who and who was not doing science.
I think the biggest impact that this had on me was when and where I felt like I was doing science
and with whom I felt like I could do science. I felt like I was doing science when I was around other physics majors (or physics-major like people), or working on physics problems alone, or tinkering in the lab, or sitting in physics classes, or reading physics articles. Of course, I talked with "other" people about physics and science, but it was not so much to do some science with them, as it was to tell them about some physics or science that I knew (that most likely they didn't). In that sense, I was modelling my interactions with them much in the way I had been interacted with. The sense was something like this: "There are people who have scientific knowledge and there are people who don't. It is the responsibility of those who have this knowledge to impart some of that knowledge to people who don't." Without doing this deliberately, I turned my interactions regarding science with other people into miniature versions of school. Perhaps I knew something cool, fun, or perplexing about quantum mechanics or relativity, and I would proceed to dole of this puzzling and fun knowledge to anyone willing to listen.
Now, I am turning back to a sense of doing science that I had two decades ago. I don't see the world through the lens of opportunities to teach science knowledge. I see the world as opportunities to do science with others, anywhere, anytime. I love walking through the woods, just noticing, and inviting others to notice and tell me about their noticing. I love wondering about how things change, and inviting others to tell stories with me about change, I enjoy trying to coordinate stories of change with evidence we might collect. I love sharing my own ideas, much more so than the ideas from books and lectures. I love listening to the ideas that people have, and how they've come to know those ideas. I love the feeling of doing science with others, and I love the learning that happens when I do this.
Whereas before I interacted with the tacit assumption that people needed scientific knowledge from some scientific authority; I now interact with the assumption that everyone is doing science all the time, and that I can uncover and make visible the science that others are doing by interacting with them a sense of mutual wonder. I find that by making all of my science and their science more visible, we can together sustain our doing of science more deeply and for longer periods of time. The spark of "Huh, I wonder how that happens?" becomes a conversation, which becomes a scurry to collect evidence, which becomes more conversation, which becomes the building of a contraption, and so on. My view of who does science is much more expansive. I'd say that now I do a lot science with friends, children, and my wife than I do with academic scientists. I do a lot more science by myself, as well, and I share that doing of science not to teach people what I have learned; but to invite them into my science in the hopes that it will become our science.
I am excited to continue to recapture this sense of science away from school, away from sanctioned authority. I hope to get better at inviting others into the science I am doing and better at encouraging others to invite me into their science. I hope to continue to expand upon boundaries of the people and places where I see opportunities for science to occur.
I think the biggest impact that this had on me was when and where I felt like I was doing science
and with whom I felt like I could do science. I felt like I was doing science when I was around other physics majors (or physics-major like people), or working on physics problems alone, or tinkering in the lab, or sitting in physics classes, or reading physics articles. Of course, I talked with "other" people about physics and science, but it was not so much to do some science with them, as it was to tell them about some physics or science that I knew (that most likely they didn't). In that sense, I was modelling my interactions with them much in the way I had been interacted with. The sense was something like this: "There are people who have scientific knowledge and there are people who don't. It is the responsibility of those who have this knowledge to impart some of that knowledge to people who don't." Without doing this deliberately, I turned my interactions regarding science with other people into miniature versions of school. Perhaps I knew something cool, fun, or perplexing about quantum mechanics or relativity, and I would proceed to dole of this puzzling and fun knowledge to anyone willing to listen.
Now, I am turning back to a sense of doing science that I had two decades ago. I don't see the world through the lens of opportunities to teach science knowledge. I see the world as opportunities to do science with others, anywhere, anytime. I love walking through the woods, just noticing, and inviting others to notice and tell me about their noticing. I love wondering about how things change, and inviting others to tell stories with me about change, I enjoy trying to coordinate stories of change with evidence we might collect. I love sharing my own ideas, much more so than the ideas from books and lectures. I love listening to the ideas that people have, and how they've come to know those ideas. I love the feeling of doing science with others, and I love the learning that happens when I do this.
Whereas before I interacted with the tacit assumption that people needed scientific knowledge from some scientific authority; I now interact with the assumption that everyone is doing science all the time, and that I can uncover and make visible the science that others are doing by interacting with them a sense of mutual wonder. I find that by making all of my science and their science more visible, we can together sustain our doing of science more deeply and for longer periods of time. The spark of "Huh, I wonder how that happens?" becomes a conversation, which becomes a scurry to collect evidence, which becomes more conversation, which becomes the building of a contraption, and so on. My view of who does science is much more expansive. I'd say that now I do a lot science with friends, children, and my wife than I do with academic scientists. I do a lot more science by myself, as well, and I share that doing of science not to teach people what I have learned; but to invite them into my science in the hopes that it will become our science.
I am excited to continue to recapture this sense of science away from school, away from sanctioned authority. I hope to get better at inviting others into the science I am doing and better at encouraging others to invite me into their science. I hope to continue to expand upon boundaries of the people and places where I see opportunities for science to occur.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Worrying about Misconceptions II
I was at a conference yesterday, where there was lots of talk and questions about misconceptions, mostly from the audience and less-so by the speakers. This isn't an exact quote but it's close:
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they will develop misconceptions. I mean, where do misconceptions come from? They come from students. I'm worried that those misconceptions will crystallize and form stronger if we let them talk too long away from the guidance of an instructor."
OK. Yes, I cringed a little when I heard this. So, I want to to try to rephrase what this person said in a way that won't make me cringe, and may help me to empathize with this statement.
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they won't always make adequate progress through their ideas. Where does ideas come from? They come from students. I'm worried that much of the progress they could make by working through their ideas will peter out or fall short if we let them loose too long without any guiding structures."
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they will develop misconceptions. I mean, where do misconceptions come from? They come from students. I'm worried that those misconceptions will crystallize and form stronger if we let them talk too long away from the guidance of an instructor."
OK. Yes, I cringed a little when I heard this. So, I want to to try to rephrase what this person said in a way that won't make me cringe, and may help me to empathize with this statement.
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they won't always make adequate progress through their ideas. Where does ideas come from? They come from students. I'm worried that much of the progress they could make by working through their ideas will peter out or fall short if we let them loose too long without any guiding structures."
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Kinetic Energy and Temperature
A long-standing discussion among colleagues has concerned the understanding of temperature. Central to our discussions has been the heuristic, which is often taught, that temperature is a measure of kinetic energy or average kinetic energy (per something).
There are many touchstone examples we have discussed that have drawn our attention to critical features of not only the concepts and their connections, but what it means to understand them.
Included in these touchstone examples are
Ralph Baierlein in "Thermal Physics" writes the following in a section called "Temperature recapitulated" in a subsection called, "Temperature is deeper than average kinetic energy":
"The misconception that introduces this subsection is propagated with the best of intentions: to make temperature easier to understand. The root of the conceptual error lies in this: a belief that the purpose of absolute temperature is to tell us about a physical system's amount of energy. That is not the purpose of the temperature notion. Rather, temperature is intended to tell us about a system's hotness, its tendency to transfer energy (by heating). All physical systems are capable of heating or cooling others. The purpose of temperature is to rank the systems with respect to their ability to heat one another."
There are many touchstone examples we have discussed that have drawn our attention to critical features of not only the concepts and their connections, but what it means to understand them.
Included in these touchstone examples are
- An ideal gas in an external gravitational field. How do we think about the kinetic energy and temperature varying with height? Theoretically, intuitively, and empirically.
- The free expansion of a non-ideal gas. How do kinetic and inter-molecular potential energies change? How does temperature change? Why? How are these changes related?
- A gaseous systems composed of boson and fermions in near classical regime. How do kinetic energies compare?
Ralph Baierlein in "Thermal Physics" writes the following in a section called "Temperature recapitulated" in a subsection called, "Temperature is deeper than average kinetic energy":
"The misconception that introduces this subsection is propagated with the best of intentions: to make temperature easier to understand. The root of the conceptual error lies in this: a belief that the purpose of absolute temperature is to tell us about a physical system's amount of energy. That is not the purpose of the temperature notion. Rather, temperature is intended to tell us about a system's hotness, its tendency to transfer energy (by heating). All physical systems are capable of heating or cooling others. The purpose of temperature is to rank the systems with respect to their ability to heat one another."
Monday, June 20, 2011
I would never let my students within ten feet of...
At the Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research, I can be quoted as saying something like the following: "I would never let my students within ten feet of those worksheet."
I didn't say this in a public talk, but I did say this in public during lunch to a handful of people. I believe the entire quote was something more like, "I love Tutorials as a resource for myself for thinking about activities, questions, and bits of sequencing in instruction, but I would never let my students within ten feet of those worksheets". As it happened, and by means of conference nearest-neighbor interactions, my comment was propagated through space and time and eventually found its way to some of individuals who created those very worksheets and whom were likely positioned to take offense at my suggestion that those worksheets should be kept in careful isolation from students.
I want to make it clear that I do stand by my statement. But that statement requires a bit of elaboration on my part to be full stood by.
First, the statement is truly meant to be about my students (with the emphasis on ME). I don't mind so much that others would use such worksheets as an orienting artifact for discourse management. In fact, I actively support instructors who choose to use tutorials and similar well-structured, research-based curriculum materials, and am committed to helping those instructors to implement chosen curricular materials in ways that maximize their productivity for students and instructors. For me, however, the set of things I want my students to experience and learn, I have personally found difficult to achieve with worksheets. I want to emphasize that it is not impossible to achieve them, but it is difficult. I must confess that have never felt extremely competent as a tutorial instructor, partially because of the feeling that, in such an environment, I am forced to co-teach with someone (i.e. a worksheet) that often undermines much of the productive patterns of listening, discourse, and engagement that I actively work to promote. Co-teaching can be an amazing experience, but it need not be, and I don't find that a worksheet is the kind of co-worker I want around, at least not very much.
Second, I learned a lot about student thinking and learning by being an instructor in tutorial environments where a highly-regimented, worksheet-driven discourse mediates much the classroom talk. By not having to mediate all of the discourse all the time, I was given the opportunity to listen without worrying about where we were going next. I didn't have to worry, because the worksheet remembered where we were going and what we would do next to get there. As a novice instructor, with all of this to worry about, I could allocate more of my resources to trying to make sense of what students were doing, what they were thinking. I believe that structured environments in which artifacts do much of the remembering can be fertile grounds for novice instructors to develop skills they might not develop without such structures. I have benefited from being a tutorial TA, and I expect that others can benefit from them as well. Do I think they are the most optimal place for novice instructors to be? Probably not, but they are certainly not the worst. On a side note, I think the Modelling Curriculum does much of this for teachers as well. It remembers what models you are supposed to help students make contact with, and some ideas for experiments and activities that will get them there.
Third, I have two concerns with highly-guided worksheet-based curriculum. First, students are intended to learn by engaging with worksheets; but they have been habituated to treat worksheets as opportunities to drill and practice what is already known. Because of this, we are always fighting the tendency to 'put down answers' and/or 'get through as quickly as possible'. There are certainly ways to mitigate this: Being explicit about your expectations for tutorial activity, providing common writing spaces like whiteboard, only giving students one page at a time, engaging with students in kinds of discourse the undermines the worksheet-driven discourse (instead of allowing it to undermine you). But that's a fight I don't want to fight, if I don't have to. Second, I find the word 'guided' curriculum problematic for me and my students. My experience is that students can quickly learn the boundaries of that curriculum–the one set forth by worksheet and the instructors who teach around it. When students sense that their ideas do not comprise a significant part of the curriculum, I believe they start to shut down. They start to think within the boundaries of the curriculum instead of the boundaries where their thinking and their inquiries lie. Sure, a good curriculum should have boundaries that overlap with students boundaries, but the reality is that they rarely do because individuals and classrooms are idiosyncratic and variable. Students don't make contact with ideas exactly when they are supposed to.
Other have said this better than I can, so I cede the remaining space here to another. The following excerpts are from David Hammer's "Discovery Learning and Discovery Teaching" published in Cognition and Instruction in 1997.
“Students do sometimes see and invent what they are intended to see and invent, and well-designed materials can improve the chances of that happening...On a traditional view of teaching and curriculum, one might expect these worksheets to succeed in guiding the flow of student learning through the predetermined sequence of ideas and observations. Thereby, one would see shortcomings in [them] for not anticipating the various aspects of students' knowledge and reasoning. The teacher's role in that view is peripheral, to help keep the students on the planned path, and the most successful materials should obviate teacher intervention."
"On the view of teaching and curriculum that I am promoting, a curriculum succeeds, not by guiding the flow of learning and instruction, but by helping to establish an arena of activity rich with opportunities for student and teacher discovery. Within that arena, the substance of the course, the curriculum, emerges. This is a view of teaching that is more flexible with respect to pace and substance, but it is also more dependent on teacher awareness and judgment. Presuming uncertainty, the teacher does not expect students to arrive at given insights at given moments; rather, it is the teacher's responsibility to recognize when and if they arrive at those insights or others, to discover their progress, and diagnose their difficulties. The teacher's role is not simply to keep students on the right path; it is to find out what paths there are, to scout
ahead to see where they may lead, and to make judgments about which ones to follow."
I didn't say this in a public talk, but I did say this in public during lunch to a handful of people. I believe the entire quote was something more like, "I love Tutorials as a resource for myself for thinking about activities, questions, and bits of sequencing in instruction, but I would never let my students within ten feet of those worksheets". As it happened, and by means of conference nearest-neighbor interactions, my comment was propagated through space and time and eventually found its way to some of individuals who created those very worksheets and whom were likely positioned to take offense at my suggestion that those worksheets should be kept in careful isolation from students.
I want to make it clear that I do stand by my statement. But that statement requires a bit of elaboration on my part to be full stood by.
First, the statement is truly meant to be about my students (with the emphasis on ME). I don't mind so much that others would use such worksheets as an orienting artifact for discourse management. In fact, I actively support instructors who choose to use tutorials and similar well-structured, research-based curriculum materials, and am committed to helping those instructors to implement chosen curricular materials in ways that maximize their productivity for students and instructors. For me, however, the set of things I want my students to experience and learn, I have personally found difficult to achieve with worksheets. I want to emphasize that it is not impossible to achieve them, but it is difficult. I must confess that have never felt extremely competent as a tutorial instructor, partially because of the feeling that, in such an environment, I am forced to co-teach with someone (i.e. a worksheet) that often undermines much of the productive patterns of listening, discourse, and engagement that I actively work to promote. Co-teaching can be an amazing experience, but it need not be, and I don't find that a worksheet is the kind of co-worker I want around, at least not very much.
Second, I learned a lot about student thinking and learning by being an instructor in tutorial environments where a highly-regimented, worksheet-driven discourse mediates much the classroom talk. By not having to mediate all of the discourse all the time, I was given the opportunity to listen without worrying about where we were going next. I didn't have to worry, because the worksheet remembered where we were going and what we would do next to get there. As a novice instructor, with all of this to worry about, I could allocate more of my resources to trying to make sense of what students were doing, what they were thinking. I believe that structured environments in which artifacts do much of the remembering can be fertile grounds for novice instructors to develop skills they might not develop without such structures. I have benefited from being a tutorial TA, and I expect that others can benefit from them as well. Do I think they are the most optimal place for novice instructors to be? Probably not, but they are certainly not the worst. On a side note, I think the Modelling Curriculum does much of this for teachers as well. It remembers what models you are supposed to help students make contact with, and some ideas for experiments and activities that will get them there.
Third, I have two concerns with highly-guided worksheet-based curriculum. First, students are intended to learn by engaging with worksheets; but they have been habituated to treat worksheets as opportunities to drill and practice what is already known. Because of this, we are always fighting the tendency to 'put down answers' and/or 'get through as quickly as possible'. There are certainly ways to mitigate this: Being explicit about your expectations for tutorial activity, providing common writing spaces like whiteboard, only giving students one page at a time, engaging with students in kinds of discourse the undermines the worksheet-driven discourse (instead of allowing it to undermine you). But that's a fight I don't want to fight, if I don't have to. Second, I find the word 'guided' curriculum problematic for me and my students. My experience is that students can quickly learn the boundaries of that curriculum–the one set forth by worksheet and the instructors who teach around it. When students sense that their ideas do not comprise a significant part of the curriculum, I believe they start to shut down. They start to think within the boundaries of the curriculum instead of the boundaries where their thinking and their inquiries lie. Sure, a good curriculum should have boundaries that overlap with students boundaries, but the reality is that they rarely do because individuals and classrooms are idiosyncratic and variable. Students don't make contact with ideas exactly when they are supposed to.
Other have said this better than I can, so I cede the remaining space here to another. The following excerpts are from David Hammer's "Discovery Learning and Discovery Teaching" published in Cognition and Instruction in 1997.
“Students do sometimes see and invent what they are intended to see and invent, and well-designed materials can improve the chances of that happening...On a traditional view of teaching and curriculum, one might expect these worksheets to succeed in guiding the flow of student learning through the predetermined sequence of ideas and observations. Thereby, one would see shortcomings in [them] for not anticipating the various aspects of students' knowledge and reasoning. The teacher's role in that view is peripheral, to help keep the students on the planned path, and the most successful materials should obviate teacher intervention."
"On the view of teaching and curriculum that I am promoting, a curriculum succeeds, not by guiding the flow of learning and instruction, but by helping to establish an arena of activity rich with opportunities for student and teacher discovery. Within that arena, the substance of the course, the curriculum, emerges. This is a view of teaching that is more flexible with respect to pace and substance, but it is also more dependent on teacher awareness and judgment. Presuming uncertainty, the teacher does not expect students to arrive at given insights at given moments; rather, it is the teacher's responsibility to recognize when and if they arrive at those insights or others, to discover their progress, and diagnose their difficulties. The teacher's role is not simply to keep students on the right path; it is to find out what paths there are, to scout
ahead to see where they may lead, and to make judgments about which ones to follow."
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
PER Summer School
At FFPER, I am in a working group that is supposed to make plans for a Physics Education Research summer school. Three overall models have been proposed and are being discussed.
The first would be somewhat like a peer-review workshop, where researchers would be invited to bring their work to be presented, examined, and critiqued.
The second would be more like a formal PER school setting, where classes would be held to learn a particular research methodology (e.g., video analysis, item response theory).
The third is a research institute, where a different institution of education research would invite a dozen or so persons to come each summer for an intensive immersion in research on the local educational context.
Curious to see where this goes. Our goals are to make some decisions and make progress of funding plan.
The first would be somewhat like a peer-review workshop, where researchers would be invited to bring their work to be presented, examined, and critiqued.
The second would be more like a formal PER school setting, where classes would be held to learn a particular research methodology (e.g., video analysis, item response theory).
The third is a research institute, where a different institution of education research would invite a dozen or so persons to come each summer for an intensive immersion in research on the local educational context.
Curious to see where this goes. Our goals are to make some decisions and make progress of funding plan.
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