Chuck Britton (2009), in his Phys-L post titled "Student
engagement--GAIN" wrote (slightly edited):
"A quick note from a retired HS instructor who gained insight from a
couple of Priscilla Laws Workshops and generally was looking for
better ways to do things. d,v,a,t equations are GARBAGE ! ! ! ! ! !
You might work up to them eventually - but not until the students
have a THOROUGH understanding of velocity time graphs (and position
time graphs too of course). Sonic Ranger exercises are where it
starts. Matching, predicting, etc."
As indicated in a post "Re: Understanding rate-of-change" [Hake
(1998a)] and a talk "A Microcomputer Based SDI Lab Emphasizing the
Graphical Interpretation of the Derivative and Integral" [Hake
(1998b)], students are guided through some Sonic Ranger experiments
in Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Lab #0.2 "Introduction to
Kinematics," downloadable at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>.
The objectives of the lab are to promote student understanding of:
1. the use of the sonar position-measuring device and the
"MacMotion/PC-Motion" computer program,
2. position vs time graphs,
3. velocity vs time graphs,
4. acceleration vs time graphs,
5. interrelationship of the above three types of graphs,
6. relationship of the above graphs to the *operational definitions*
of velocity and acceleration,
7. "1" - "6" above with emphasis on the MacMotion/PC-Motion "tangent
and integral tools," and force-motion-vector diagrams.
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Re: Understanding rate-of-change," PhysLrnR post
of 20 Aug 1998 15:54:41-0800; online at <http://tinyurl.com/yej4cvh>.
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Hake, R.R. 1998b. "A Microcomputer Based SDI Lab Emphasizing the
Graphical Interpretation of the Derivative and Integral," AAPT
Announcer 28(2): 101.