I've read some interesting thoughts along the lines of integrating simulations. Noah Finklestein (which I might be spelling incorrectly) is from University of Colorado. They have the pretty darn nice PhET simulations. He suggests that when instructors use the PhET sims, they let students simply play around with them for a while before giving them any direct instruction. After some time, then ask what the students have come up with, and then given them an simulation lab assignment or other question to answer.
Recently, Andy Rundquist (Hamline University in MN) has stated that a part of his homework assignments is going to be to have student use simulations and document their experiences. Rundquist has his students do screen-captures of their homework. When they do problem sets, the students are to talk their way through the problem solving process. This is recorded on a computer-based video. The student talk is apparently quite revealing. It becomes rather obvious what the student does/doesn't understand. Andy has done this with standard calculation problems and is now doing this with the simulations.
The simulation homework, linked to more traditional homework and labs seems (to me) to be a pretty powerful tool. I think some questions could make them really tightly interwoven: When does the simulation work well compared to (or strongly agree with) the hw? Are there ever conflicts? How can you resolve the conflicts between the simulation and the hw or lab?
I am going to see what I can do to implement some of these ideas. However, at the hs level, families and students are starting to have a lot of computer time issues (what does a family do if they have 3 kids that need a computer for homework?).
I'm in a bit of a hurry. I hope this conveys something useful.
Have a good one.
Paul Lulai
Physics Teacher
St Anthony Village S.H.
3303 33rd Ave NE
St Anthony Village, MN 55418
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Donald Polvani
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 9:47 AM
To: 'Forum for Physics Educators'
Subject: [Phys-l] Simulations and Computer Homework Problems for Freshman and Sophomores
I am an adjunct physics instructor teaching at a community college. I have been trying to get the full time faculty to add computer simulations to their lab courses and computer programming to their homework assignments.
The lab simulations need not replace the physical lab but could supplement the existing lab by pre (or post) showing the students how typical results "should" turn out. Another use of the simulation would be to indicate the effect of factors which would be impractical to demonstrate in the physical lab (e.g. air resistance, fall off of gravity with distance from the earth, averaging of random errors as the number of measurements becomes large, etc.). An example of a computer homework problem would be the "Skateboarders rock at physics" problem discussed in the latest Science News, 12/3/11, p10. Here students are given the choice of skateboarding down either a shorter incline angling down modestly but without changing slope (Case a) compared with a relatively longer incline angling steeply downward in two sections (Case b). The article claims that Case b is the correct choice and is the intuitive choice of students who skateboard. This problem can be solved with basic freshman/sophomore physics (algebra based).
When I did this and implemented the solution in a simple Excel program, I found that for certain ranges of parameters (relative steepness of the slopes and relative lengths and heights of the inclined sections) Case a would actually be the better choice while for other parameter choices Case b was, in fact, better. Such a problem is solvable with elementary physics equations but is onerous to compute for the wide range of parameters needed to completely span the solutions. Seeing how the solutions vary with parameter choices and then trying to physically understand the behavior seems to me highly worthwhile and not feasible with a few hand calculations.
Assigning a few such problems, over the semester, as homework (or even a full lab session ) seems worthwhile to me.
While the full time instructors acknowledge that such computer simulations/homework may be useful, they maintain that such work (particularly, the lab simulations) belongs in junior/senior year level courses and the freshman/sophomore courses we exclusively teach (as a community college) should only contain real physical measurements. I feel that, at least, a small portion of our labs and homework should involve computer simulations and programming. I've seen at what a young
(pre-school) age my grandchildren are becoming computer literate. I think our modern freshmen and sophomores are easily up to using (and, perhaps, even writing) lab simulations and certainly writing simple Excel programs to solve problems like the skateboarding problem.
I feel our graduating sophomores may be behind their peers at other institutions who have already started down the computer simulations/homework path, but I don't have any data on what other institutions (either 2 year or
4 year ) are doing.
I'd appreciate your inputs on your experiences on either using such simulations/homework in freshman/sophomore courses or why you have not done so.