Hawkins, Frank, Thompson, Wittmann, and Wemyss on alternative question strategies

Probing student understanding with alternative questioning strategies
Jeffrey M. Hawkins, Brian W. Frank, John R. Thompson, Michael C. Wittmann, and Thomas M. Weymss
AIP Conf. Proc. 1413, 207 (2012)

Common research tasks ask students to identify a correct answer and justify their answer choice. We propose expanding the array of research tasks to access different knowledge that students might have. By asking students to discuss answers they may not have chosen naturally, we can investigate students' abilities to explain something that is already established or to disprove an incorrect response. The results of these research tasks also provide us with information about how students' responses vary across the different tasks. We discuss three underused question types, their possible benefits, and some preliminary results from an electric circuits pretest utilizing these novel question types. We find that the answer students most commonly choose as correct is the same choice most commonly eliminated as incorrect. Also, given the correct answer, students can provide valuable reasoning to explain it, but they do not spontaneously identify it as the correct answer.

Harrer, Scherr, Wittmann, Close and Frank on proximal formative assessment about energy

Elements of proximal formative assessment in learners' discourse about energy
Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, and Brian W. Frank
AIP Conf. Proc. 1413, 203 (2012)

Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students' ideas that informs ongoing instruction, is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer explanation) that follows is based on the second law of thermodynamics, and acts as corrective rather than collaborative.

Hawkins et al. on vector addition

Jeffrey M. Hawkins, John R. Thompson, Michael C. Wittmann, Eleanor C. Sayre, and Brian W. Frank

Students' Responses To Different Representations Of A Vector Addition Question

AIP Conf. Proc. -- October 24, 2010 -- Volume 1289, pp. 165-168
2010 PHYSICS EDUCATION RESEARCH CONFERENCE; doi:10.1063/1.3515188

We investigate if the visual representation of vectors can affect which methods students use to add them. We gave students one of four questions with different graphical representations, asking students to add the same two vectors. For students in an algebra-based class the arrangement of the vectors had a statistically significant effect on the vector addition method chosen while the addition or removal of a grid did not. ©2010 American Institute of Physics

Frank on the stability of students' thinking

Brian W. Frank

Multiple Conceptual Coherences in the Speed Tutorial: Micro-processes of Local Stability
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2010) - Volume 1, Full Papers, pp.873-881
Published on line at arXiv:1008.3258v1

Researchers working within knowledge-in-pieces traditions have often employed observational approaches to investigate micro-processes of learning. There is growing evidence from this line of work that students' intuitive thinking about physical phenomena is characterized more so by its diversity and flexibility than its uniformity and robustness. This characterization implies that much of the dynamics of students' thinking over short timescales involve processes that stabilize local patterns of thinking, later destabilize them, and allow other patterns to form. This kind of "change" may only involve dynamics by which the system of intuitive knowledge settles into various states without changing the system structure itself. I describe a case study in which a group of college students shift their thinking about motion several times during a collaborative learning activity. Instead of focusing on micro-processes of change, I describe these dynamics in terms of mechanisms that contribute to local stability of students' conceptual coherences.