Re: PER-based textbooks (some ideas)

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

> 3) Some ideas related to physics topics
>
> a) Newton's Laws
>
> I believe that the idea of interaction is crucial in forming the
> Newtonian understanding of the force concept. Students need an
> appropriate tool which helps them to gain familiarity with
> interactions. I have used SRI diagrams (Symbolic Representations
> of Interactions, Jim´enez-Valladares and  Perales-Palacios 2001)
> before introducing free-body diagrams. I have had very positive
> results by emphasising interactions in the very beginning of the
> teaching of the Newton's laws. Modeling method System Schemas
> which also shows very clearly interactions (Turner & Politano
> 2001). Perhaps the SRI or System Schema tool could be introduced
> in the PER textbook?

In general the ideas put forward by Antti are excellent.  The ideas in the
previous secion actually mirror the curriculum that was developed by
Karplus.  He introduced the idea of interactions in elementary school.  Some
of this is also done in the Minds on Physics series, Leonard et al.  I would
however try to avoid plug and chug problems, and make all problems higher in
context.  I suspect that this is old news.

An idea that has not been mentioned is the use of refutational text.  Some
articles in JRST showed positive results using it.  I think that some MS and
HS texts have tried it, but the implementation is not adeqate.  The research
also showed that students tend to dislike refutational text.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX