Interactive, Collaborative, Electronic Learning Logs in the Physics Classroom

1. Interactive, Collaborative, Electronic Learning Logs in the Physics Classroom Chris Gosling Physics Teacher Saranac Lake High School Sponsored by the National Science Foundation DUE0302097, SUNY-Buffalo State Physics, The Adirondack Teacher Center, and Saranac Lake Central School District

2. Presentation Structure • Why journal? • Types of journals • Implementation • Interactive Journaling Activity • Selected excerpts • Questions

3. Why journal? • Students who journal outperform their peers MacDonald and Cooper as cited by Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Chavkin, Fouquette, & Garufis (2005). • Written record of ideas • Form group identity • Gauge student understanding

4. My Use of Journals • Traditional paper journals • College level students • Checked at midterm  Disaster! • Interactive Collaborative Electronic (ICE) Learning Logs (Hickman, 2000) • 2.5 semesters of use at college level • 1 semester of use at high school level

5. Interactive Collaborative Electronic Learning Logs • Interactive  Group-based dialogue journal • Collaborative  Group discussion to write entry • Electronic  Chronological word- processing documents (Hickman, 2000)

6. Implementation • Virtually identical to Hickman’s • Instructor uses bold font (white) • Students use regular font (colored) • Randomly assigned groups • Different from class activity groups • Varied experiences produce discussion

7. Implementation Cont. • Rotating typist • Graded on a scale from 1-10 • Frequency • 3 entries/week college vs. 1/week H.S.

8. Sample ICE Learning Log

9. Your turn! • Find 2 other people close to you • Get a piece of paper and a pen • Come up with a short name or phrase to represent your group • Answer the questions on the following slide

10. Sample Questions • What is projectile motion? Give me an example of projectile motion that you have observed outside of school. • Take a few minutes and draw me a picture of the path that the projectile you described above might follow. Use Paint to draw a quick sketch of this situation- be creative! (just sketch – no paint)

11. Today’s answers • Projectile motion is when object is launched into the air and gravity works on it to form a parabola shaped path. An example is when kids go egging on Halloween and toss eggs.

12. Today’s sketches

13. College (calculus) College (algebra) H.S. (algebra) Building Identity • Killer Time Traveling Train Team • Rats in a Box • Kinematic Cockatoos • Wyld stallions • Nameless • Friction Fighters • The Rubber Duckies • Interactive Collaborative Electronic Learning Loggers The most common group names were those formed using students’ initials

14. C-c C-a HS-a Conceptual Understanding • What is the difference between average and instantaneous velocity? • Instantaneous velocity is the slope of the tangent line at a specific point. Average velocity is the average slope of the entire curve on the p vs. t graph.

15. Broad Open-Ended C-c C-a HS-a • Provide an example of a situation where an object accelerates. • When an object accelerates, it is gaining velocity. An example of this would be a small child rolling down a hill in a garbage can. • When you spit off a bridge the spit accelerates from your mouth as at falls to the icy depths of the water.

16. C-c C-a HS-a Specific – Open Ended • A runner goes back toward the starting line because he dropped the baton then stops to pick it up, and after a few seconds sprints forward make up the time lost and stops at the finish. And finally, please tell me a story that could have resulted in the motion shown on the graph below. Be creative!

17. C-c C-a HS-a Specific – Open Ended • So, there was this guy. His name was Phil. …he left the remote on the coffee table, 6 ft away from the T.V. He went and got the remote, and tripped and fell. So, now he’s lying on the floor, for some seconds. So then, his show came on, but he forgot his iced tea in the kitchen. So, he SPRINTED to the kitchen and got his iced tea. So, then he sat and drank his iced tea, when someone called. It was his mom. And then she made him talk indefinitely. The End. And finally, please tell me a story that could have resulted in the motion shown on the graph below. Be creative!

18. C-c C-a HS-a Ah-ha moments • Did any of your group members have an “Ah-ha” moment when the light bulb turned on and everything made sense? • The analogy with the car and the gas tank made a lot of sense for us. [reference to constructing motion maps] • Our light bulbs are flickering, but are not turn on completely. We understand most of the material but the subtleties in understanding the different graphs. All we need is just to review the material to gain a complete understanding.

19. C-c C-a HS-a Cries for help • No one in our group has an epiphany, but most of our group is confused with the slope of velocity. We also have trouble with acceleration vectors. • Soooo, the homework, was NOT as easy as we were thought to believe. In fact, the diver question and skier question were near impossible! It is partially our fault for not starting the homework earlier and asking questions on it, but we thought it would be easy and quick, and the fact that blackboard was down this weekend did not help

20. C-c C-a HS-a Humor • Tell me a story about a situation where net force might be applicable. • If you have two Rare Mountain Shoats playing tug of war on top of St. Regis Mountain. The two shoats are of equal strength but not stamina. So for a while the net force on the rope applied by the shoats is ZERO. After 3 minutes shoat 1 gets tired and is applying less force than Shoat 2. Shoat 2 pulls him down the mountain and into Lower St. Regis Lake. He won.

21. Humor

22. C-c C-a HS-a Humor • Invent a motion map and then provide a plausible explanation for how it could have been created.

23. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions • Which do you prefer: individual journaling or the group journals • Well the groups journal was preferred as we can work together to find our way and in addition we get some satisfaction in the more immediate reply from you the teacher as to our rightness or wrongness • We believe that the journals in class were definitely the way to go. They allowed us more constructive journal entries, instead of writing them all at the end and forgetting some stuff. It’s actually incentive to do them, since it’s done in class.

24. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions Do you think that writing the Learning Logs helps you learn physics? • Learning logs help- they kind of bring everything together. • We think they help us and they are a better way to figure out things we have problems with. • It didn’t necessarily help to learn physics but they definitely gave us a good summary of the material and good practice!

25. References Bazerman, C., Little, J., Bethel, L., Chavkin, T., Fouquette, D., & Garufis, J. (2005). Reference guide to writing across the curriculum.West Lafayette, Indiana: Parlor Press. http://wac.colostate.edu/books/bazerman_wac/ Hickman, P. (2000). Assessing student understanding with interactive-electronic-collaborative learning logs. ENC Focus, 7(2), 24-27. Abstract and presentation available at:http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/pubs/AAPTmtgs/AAPTJan07/

26. Questions?

27. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions If I require you to keep a journal of some sort, what would you prefer? • 92.5% ICE Learning Logs • 7.5% Individual electronic journals • 0% Individual paper journals (n=40)

28. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions How much did each of the following aspects of the class help your learning? Learning Logs / Journals (n=76)

29. C-c C-a HS-a Connection to real world • …what’s another example of a real-life object that can function as a Faraday cage? • We talked about cars, trucks, or other petroleum spewing vehicles acting as a faraday cage in a lightning storm. With a metallic shell, electrical charge is distributed on the outside. This is the reason that people do not get barbequed when their car is struck with lightning while sitting on the side of the highway during a tornado

30. C-c C-a HS-a Connection to real world • Give an example of a situation where the velocity of an object is changing but its speed is not. • An example of the velocity of an object changes but not the speed is if an airplane was changing course but maintaining a constant speed. • A car can be traveling north on I87 at 60 mph and then go South on I87 at 60 mph. The speed of the car remains the same and the direction changes.

31. C-c C-a HS-a Connection to real world • Come up with a real-life situation where you could use the kinematic equations to solve a problem. Be creative! • You are flying a helicopter at an elevation of 500m…You are trying to drop a ball out and land it in your friend’s pool. How long would it take for the ball to land in the water?

32. C-c C-a HS-a Connection to real world • Tell me a story about a situation where net force might be applicable. • An example of this is if Student B’s car stalls out and he needs two of his friends, Willie and Bob, to help him push while he steers the wheel. The net force is equivalent to the force applied on the car by Willie (F_w) plus the force applied on the car by Bob (F_b). Therefore, F_xnet = F_w + F_b.

33. C-c C-a HS-a Connection to real world • Please tell me a story where an object or a person has a positive position and velocity, but negative acceleration. • If you are moving in a positive direction but slow down so you don’t you get hit by a truck you will have negative acceleration. • A runner is running away from the starting line (the origin), steps into a pothole, stumbles for a bit, and then continues running. His velocity would have decreased, but would stay positive, while acceleration would be negative.Yes! This is a good story. Did Scott (who’s on the cross-country team) help dream it up? I’m glad you liked it, It was Scott.

34. C-c C-a HS-a …made you think • Within your group, select one problem that made you THINK! • 4.20 in the purple book made us think hard about where the ball would go. We thought the ball would continue in a straight line, but we would like to see proof in class. (tennis ball and pvc pipes). (a bowling ball and rope would also work well)How about a marble and a pie tin? Though a bowling ball would certainly be more dramatic, especially since we’re working in 2-D without the effects of gravity. That means that the ball would have to be swinging in a perfect horizontal circle while Andrew gets to run in with a pair of scissors and cut the string. • The problem that made us think was the problem with the two cars colliding with different masses and velocities. We had to predict the direction after the collision. It made us think because it was a real life situation.

35. C-c C-a HS-a …made you think • Within your group, select one problem that made you THINK! • Student K’s group did a problem with the quarterback and it showed that you can move backwards and forwards. The quarterback dropped back from the line of scrimmage, then threw the ball forward to a receiver, and then the receiver continued to run into the end zone. This showed us that there is both positive and negative movement in terms of direction. • Student J predicted that two objects of equal size but different weight would hit at different times, the heavier of the two hitting first. I predicted that objects of different weight would hit at the same time.Ok- thanks. Most people on the street would predict that they hit at different times, but now you know! We observed that the shape of the object has more affect on falling rate than the mass of the object does.

36. C-c C-a HS-a Humor • Tell me a story about a situation where net force might be applicable. • All of a sudden, little Timmy musters up enough strength to increase the force of team B … Team B is now able to pull team A into the alligator infested mud pit and win the extreme tug-o-war tournament for the fifth consecutive year. All of the players of team A were sadly consumed by the alligators and will no longer be able to compete in next year’s tournament.

37. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions • How do these learning logs compare to traditional journals? • We all like the electronic learning logs a lot better than having to write them on paper. • They are faster and are easier to correct mistakes with a teachers response.

38. C-c C-a HS-a Student Reactions • Do you think that writing journals in groups or individually helped you learn more in this course? • I thought jounaling in groups helped a great deal with the learning process in this course. With group journaling it was possible to clarify, and bounce ideas off one another. With individual jounaling, if you were confused, you stayed confused until the next jounal collection. • I liked individual journaling because I got to express my individual feelings and problems. I know it would be too much for you to read over but individual computer journals with your questions would be much better. • I'm torn on that topic. I liked the individual work as it allowed me a way to fight myself through a hard place but group work alloed extra voices into the argument and struggle as well as a voice of athority that was very useful.

39. Paper Journals • Traditional paper journals • kept by the student without prompts • checked periodically by an instructor

40. Limitations of paper journals • Student entries do not keep up with class • Feedback limited to instructor comments at end of grading cycle • Quality of writing/reflection limited with students of lower ability MacDonald and Cooper as cited by Bazerman et. al. (2005).

41. Dialogue Journals • Students respond to questions posed by instructor • Instructor reads entries, writes comments, and asks new questions

42. Advantages of Dialogue Journals • Rapid feedback from instructor • High quality reflection can be achieved with proper questions

43. Advantages of Using an Electronic Format • Physical demands of traditional dialogue journals eliminated • Identical questions can be easily directed to all students (copy & paste) • Students can quickly search for topics

44. Advantages of Group-Based Journaling • Easier for instructor -respond to fewer entries • Different experiences lead to good discussion

45. Disadvantages of Dialogue Journals • Time consuming for instructor • Physically challenging: numerous journals to be collected and transported

46. Disadvantages of Using an Electronic Format • Still time-consuming • Files can be lost or corrupted • Physical act of writing is eliminated • Images make for unwieldy files

47. Disadvantages of Group-Based Journaling • Comments may from typist rather than group • Quiet group members may be ignored • Sketches are harder to create

48. C-c C-a HS-a Humor • Invent a motion map and then provide a plausible explanation for how it could have been created. • This guy Chris Gosling was walking along one day and he tripped on a porcupine. It is important to note that he was near the top of a hill when this incident happened. So when he tripped he fell in the direction of the downward slope and proceeded to roll into a ball and then down the hill. Along the way a large rock intercepted Chris’ path and he flew 2ft into the air and was caught by a large eagle and carried off to spend the rest of his life to live in a nest. However, between the time of porcupine impact and when he slammed into the rock, some nearby Physics students decided to measure motion maps than save him from his doomed fate.

49. C-c C-a HS-a Creative Responses • There was a zookeeper and he started at his office, and then he went away from his office to go home and on his way he stopped at the lions cage and realized it was open. So he stopped on his way out to close the gate. He then heard a noise behind him and ran because he knew it was the lion. He ran past his office and into the woods where the lion tackled him and ate him and that is where the line remains in the same position. And finally, please tell me a story that could have resulted in the motion shown on the graph below. Be creative!

50. Sample Learning Log