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Jon Gaffney (2011) in his PhysLrnR post "Re:
Interactive Engagement Typically Lowers Student
Evaluations of Teaching?" wrote [my insert at ".
. . . .[[insert]]. . . ."]]:
". . . . . .To be specific, in Spring 2008, their
first activity was to describe in 3 dimensions
the location of a racquetball sitting near the
instructor station in the classroom, with respect
to the center of their table. They had to figure
out how, but eventually THEY CAUGHT ON THAT I
EXPECTED THEM TO USE METER STICKS.. . . . .[[my
CAPS]]. . . . They had to write their answer on
the wall whiteboards, and I used the video camera
to pan around the room, and I discussed with each
table if they were confident in their answer.
This led into a discussion about why we needed a
common origin and coordinate system, the
definition of those, and then the class had to
create a map of the classroom in VPython by
figuring out the location of their table with
respect to the origin. This map was used we
started talking about r-vectors."
I agree that the students should catch on:
(a) (paraphrasing) "that they are expected to use meter sticks,"
but, more generally, I think they should catch on:
(b) to the importance of OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS
of mechanics terms such as "position," "force,"
"mass," "velocity," and "acceleration."
In "Helping Students to Think Like Scientists in
Socratic Dialogue Inducing Labs" [Hake (2011)] I
wrote [bracketed by lines "HHHHHH. . . . ."]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The first kinematic term that the students are
asked to *operationally* define is:
"1. POSITION [Hint: Recall your work in SDI Lab
#0.1 [Hake (1997)]. How did you MEASURE your
position in that lab? Recall that your
operational definition of 'position' was to have
consisted of a sketch of a your position vector
between an origin 'O' and a point 'P' in an
xyz-coordinate reference frame, along with a
statement of the operations for *marking* the
coordinate scales and then *measuring* your
position coordinates.]"
Just below the above instruction is a rectangular
grid to accommodate student sketches. The "hint"
above, and in the quoted material below, indicate
the extensive guidance supplied by the SDI lab
manual, in addition to that furnished by: (a)
fellow students during collaborative discussion
[just as in "Peer Instruction" (Mazur, 1997)],
and (b) the Socratic instructor in response to
students' questions or lab manual entries.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"When we say force is the cause of motion we talk
metaphysics, and this definition, if we were
content with it, would be absolutely sterile. For
a definition to be of any use, it must teach us
to measure force; moreover, that suffices; it is
not at all necessary that it teach us what force
is in itself, nor whether it is the cause or the
effect of motion."
- Henri Poincaré (1905)
"One afternoon several years ago the writer was
asked to proctor an examination in elementary
physics to be administered to a large room full
of army trainees. As he strolled the room waiting
for the examination to begin he overheard many
snatches of excited, apprehensive conversation -
of which one significant piece has haunted him
ever since: 'Sure, I know F = ma, but what's F?
what's m? what's a?' "
- Robert Weinstock (1961)
REFERENCES [All URL's accessed on 20 March 2011;
some shortened by <http://bit.ly/>.]
Gaffney, J. 2011. "Re: Interactive Engagement
Typically Lowers Student Evaluations of
Teaching?" PhysLrnR post of 20 Mar 2011
07:15:18-0600; online at <http://bit.ly/gRwJJW>.
To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs to
subscribe :-( , but that takes only a few minutes
by clicking on
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>
and then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or
change settings)." If you're busy, then
subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under
"Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may
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Hake, R.R. 1997. "SDI Lab #0.1: Vectors,
Position, and Frames of Reference," online along
with 9 other SDI Labs at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>. See also
Hake (1992, 2007).
Hake, R.R. & R. Wakeland. 1997. "What's F? What's
m? What's a?: A Non-Circular SDI-TST-Lab
Treatment of Newton's Second Law," in
"Conference on the Introductory Physics Course,"
Jack Wilson, ed. (Wiley, 1997), p. 277-283.
Hake, R.R. 1992. "Socratic Pedagogy in the
Introductory physics Lab," Phys. Teach. 30(12),
546-552; updated version (4/27/98) online at
<http://bit.ly/9tSTdB>.
Hake, R.R. 2007. "The Socratic Method of the
Historical Socrates, Plato's Socrates, and the
Law School's Socrates"; online on the OPEN!
AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/b5v58m>. Post
of 21 Jun 2007 to AERA-J, AERA-L, Phys-L,
PhysLrnR, and POD.
Hake, R.R. 2010. "Education Research Employing
Operational Definitions Can Enhance the Teaching
Art," online as a 3.8 MB pdf at
<http://bit.ly/aGlkjm>, invited talk, AAPT
Portland Meeting, 19 July).
Hake, R.R. 2011. "Helping Students to Think Like
Scientists in Socratic Dialogue Inducing Labs,"
summarily rejected :-( by the editors of the
2010 Physics Education Research Conference but
accepted for publication in "The Physics
Teacher," scheduled to appear in a Fall 2011
issue; online as a 446 kB pdf at
<http://bit.ly/99yb7p>. See also Hake (1992,
2007, 2010).
Mazur, E. 1997. "Peer Instruction: A User's
Manual." Prentice Hall. Compadre information at
<http://bit.ly/bygvAd>.
Poincaré, H. 1905. "Science and Hypothesis,"
Walter Scott Publishing; online at
<http://bit.ly/9hVfA8> thanks to the "Mead
Project." A Wikipedia entry on Poincaré is at
<http://bit.ly/b4jGVS>.
Weinstock, R. 1961." Laws of Classical Motion:
What's F? What's m? What's a?" Am. J. Phys.
29(10): 698-702; online to subscribers at
<http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v29/i10>.
See also Hake & Wakeland (1997).