Multiple tools for visualizing equipotential surfaces: Optimizing for instructional goals

Abstract

Curriculum developers are interested in how to leverage various instructional tools -like whiteboards, Mathematica notebooks, and tangible models -to maximize learning. Instructional tools mediate student learning and different tools support learning differently. We are interested in understanding how the features of instructional tools influence student engagement during classroom activities and how to design activities to match tools with instructional goals. In this paper, we explore these questions by examining an instructional activity designed to help advanced undergraduate physics students understand and visualize the electrostatic potential. During the activity, students use three different tools: a whiteboard, a pre-programmed Mathematica notebook, and a 3D surface model of the electric potential. We discuss how the tools may be used to address the the instructional goals of the activity. We illustrate this discussion with examples from classroom video. I. RESEARCH QUESTIONS & METHODSedited by Ding, Traxler, and Cao; Peer-reviewed,

Investigating Unprompted and Prompted Diagrams Generated by Physics MajorsDuring Problem Solving

“…Researchers have also used eye-tracking software to better understand how students refer to diagrams given with the problem prompts [18]. Much of this work specifically looks at the ways in which students interpret and coordinate between multiple representations [3,4,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]19].…”

Changes to equipotential diagrams to improve student ranking of electric potential

“…There has been extensive research on student difficulties with interpreting and applying data from pictorial and graphical sources such as free-body diagrams and motion maps [6,7], however, there has been relatively little research on student issues with equipotential diagrams. Two such studies on equipotential diagrams were reported in the 2013 and 2018 PERC Proceedings [5,8].…”