Re: Graphing Calculators and Intro Physics

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

Unfortunately just doing graphs of the quantities may be very ineffective.
It would be obviously be more effective than not doing graphs, but much
better pedagogy is available.

If you combine the TIs with calculator based rangers then the students can
observe the graphs of actual motion.  They can do it by walking back and
forth, and also by measuring the motion of carts.  Vernier has a complete
set of labs which called "Tools for Scientific Thinking" which you can use
with the students www.vernier.com .  The cost for the labs is around $30 and
you have right to copy.  They do have a set of labs with the instructions
tailored to use with calculators, or you can modify the sources to
incorporate the calculator instructions.  However if you can get some
computers and the rangers with the necessary interfaces from Vernier or
Pasco, you may have greater success.  Students can observer several graphs
at once with the computers and they will not get bogged down with the
mechanics of using the calculators as much.

A number of papers have shown superiority of labs that use the sonic rangers
over paper and pencil tasks, so try hunting around and see if your dept. has
any.  If you can only scrounge up one with a display panel to be able to
show results to a whole class consider getting the "Interactive Lecture
Demonstrations" also from Vernier.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> Hello all
>
> This pains me to ask, but do any of you incorporate the use of
> graphing calculators into your intro physics class?
>
> Our department has 10 or so TI-92 and I was thinking that if I
> had the students graph for themselves position, velocity, and
> acceleration it may make more sense to them.  Also they would
> have a graph that they would need to interest.
>
> Does this seems like a good idea?  Obviously the implementation
> will determine if it is really useful but I thought it might be
> something to try.
>
> Thoughts on how to go about this?
>
> Thanks
> Tina
>
> Tina Fanetti
> Physics Instructor
> Western Iowa Technical Community College
> 4647 Stone Ave
> Sioux City IA 51102
> 712-274-8733 ext 1429