When students solve physics problems, physics instructors hope that they use and interpret algebraic symbols in coordination with their conceptual understanding, their understanding of geometric relationships, and their intuitions about the physical world. We call this process physics sense-making. "Plug-and-chug" and "template" problem solving strategies, which are common for many students, exclude sense-making. We have designed a mechanics course for sophomore, undergraduate students that emphasizes sense-making and traditional physics content in equal measure. Sense-making is supported in all aspects of the course: during in-class activities, on augmented homework assignments, and on exams. While sense-making prompts on homework assignments are strongly scaffolded at the beginning of the course, these supports fade as the course progresses. In this paper, we discuss an analysis of students' homework responses to open-ended sense-making prompts throughout the course.
One difference between expert and novice problem-solvers is their use of sense-making strategies. Sense-making while solving physics problems involves coordinating the use of algebraic symbols with conceptual understandings, understandings of geometric relationships, and intuitions about the physical world. We have developed a new sophomore-level course that explicitly supports students in using various sense-making strategies in the context of classical mechanics and special relativity. In this paper, we examine one student whose sense-making performance improved dramatically throughout the course. We present an analysis of a series of interviews with this student, his homework, and his pre-and post-sense-making assessments. While he reports having been familiar with many of the sense-making strategies emphasized in the course, he discusses several ways his use of these strategies was enriched. We see evidence of this shift in his written coursework.
Special relativity is both exciting and challenging in that it requires developing new intuitions about relativistic situations. How can we help students make sense of special relativity when their intuitions are classical? This paper will discuss student sensemaking about special relativity in a sophomore-level course designed to explicitly teach and support physics sensemaking. The course particularly emphasizes two sensemaking strategies: visualization with spacetime diagrams and the development of rules of thumb. Rules of thumb, like "proper time is the shortest time," serve as footholds when solving problems in special relativity. Specifically, we present an analysis of students' use of rules of thumb in their written solutions to homework problems. We found that students draw upon time rules, length rules, and relativity rules to solve the Twin Paradox. We also discuss how rules of thumb fit with other theoretical constructs.
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