Nurturing sensemaking of, through, and with a mathematical model

Kapon, Shulamit; Schvartzer, Maayan

doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.kapon

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In our view, this is a manifestation of the tension between personal relevance, school science, and the discipline (e.g., who decides what counts as doing physics?) (Kapon & Schvartzer, 2018). If we really want to capitalize on the Maker culture in science education, we need to find ways to resolve these tensions, and support marginalized students in participating in these activities as engineers, not just as technicians.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forms of participation in an engineering maker‐based inquiry in physics

Kapon

Schvartzer

Peer³

2020

J Res Sci Teach

Self Cite

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This article discusses a case study of a pair of students mentored by a physics teacher as they engaged in a long‐term (15 months) engineering maker‐based inquiry (EMBI), a mandatory part of these students' formal learning of physics at the advanced high school level. We conceptualize the students' engagement as participating in a particular figured world, which is distinct from the figured world of authentic scientific inquiry. Using fine‐grained discourse analysis of mentor–mentee interactions in authentic working sessions, complemented by interviews and other ethnographic accounts, we: (a) characterize this figured world; (b) identify central legitimate forms of participation that were enacted by the students and influenced their learning; (c) articulate how these forms of participation were socially communicated, constructed, and enforced over time in the interaction between the two students and the educational staff; and (d) examine how these forms of participation facilitated (or impaired) the learning of content and practices of the related physics. Two legitimate forms of participation, which contributed extensively to the EMBI's goal of creating a working artifact, are discussed in detail. The analysis articulates the social construction of these forms of participation and shows that (a) participating as an engineer facilitated many foundational aspects of learning of physics, (b) participating as a technician fostered a sense of agency and efficacy with regard to physics in a student who did not find ways to express himself in the regular physics classroom; however, it did not facilitate the learning of scientific content and practices. The implications for the instruction of physics in school, particularly given recent calls for integrated STEM education and Making in education, are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forms of participation in an engineering maker‐based inquiry in physics

Kapon

Schvartzer

Peer³

2020

J Res Sci Teach

Self Cite

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“…Two research questions guided the study reported in this paper: What instructional materials and activities can support university teaching to highlight the structural role of mathematics in the development of new ideas in physics, and overcome the tendency to reduce it to a mere technical instrument [1,[17][18][19][20]? What is the effect of these materials and activities on students' understanding, epistemologies and skill development?…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At this stage, two crucial interpretative issues emerged: (i) to interpret the assumption that E exchanged between resonators and radiation must be divided in equal packets for every group of resonators with the same frequency; (ii) to interpret the proportionality between the energy of a packet and the frequency, ϵ ¼ hν, that emerged formally equating the expressions for the first derivative of S Eqs. (20) and (21).…”

Section: This Point Is Expressed By Planck In Different Papers As Folmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Although based on a case study, the paper has the ambition to contribute to the wider debate in physics education research about the role played by mathematics in physics teaching and learning, and the main research questions go beyond the specific case: What instructional materials, curricular choices, and activities can support university teaching to boost students to understand the authentic roles of mathematics in the development of new ideas in physics? In particular, we articulate the above question into two subquestions: What instructional materials and activities can support university teaching to highlight the structural role of mathematics in the development of new ideas in physics, and overcome the tendency to reduce it to a mere technical instrument [1,[17][18][19][20]? What is the effect of these materials and activities on students' understanding, epistemologies, and skills development?…”

Section: A the Case Of Blackbody And Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interplay between mathematics and physics to catch the nature of a scientific breakthrough: The case of the blackbody

Branchetti

Cattabriga

Levrini

2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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This paper aims to provide a contribution to the research in physics education regarding the interplay between mathematics and physics in teaching and learning physics at the university level. The argument is developed through a study focused on the historical case study of the blackbody that led Planck to make one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in physics: the introduction of discreteness and quantization into physical processes. The study is methodologically guided by the model that Udhen, Karam, Pietrocola, and Pospiech elaborated to highlight the interplay between physics and mathematics within teaching and learning practices [O. Uhden, R. Karam, M. Pietrocola, and G. Pospiech, Modelling mathematical reasoning in physics education, Sci. Educ. Netherlands 21, 485 (2012).]. The model emphasizes the distinction between the technical and structural roles of mathematics in physics, with the latter role being argued to correspond to processes of mathematization and interpretation. We used this model to analyze Planck's original papers and to reconstruct the reasoning that, thanks to the structural role played by mathematics, paved the way for the quantistic scientific breakthrough. The results of the analysis led us to design a teaching tutorial that we implemented with mathematics and physics university students. Students' reactions are reported to discuss the educational potential of the approach beyond the specific case and to argue for its potential general application to other similar physics topics.

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“…When solving problems, the work of professional physicists and engineers relies on reasoning that leverages coherence between formal mathematics and conceptual understanding [1][2][3][4][5][6]-a form of reasoning which has been described as mathematical sense making [7][8][9][10][11]. For this reason, proficiency with mathematical calculations and conceptual reasoning in isolation, though necessary, may not be sufficient to prepare students for the complex, challenging problems they will face in their future work.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing mathematical sensemaking in physics through calculation-concept crossover

Kuo

Hull

Elby

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Professional problem-solving practice in physics and engineering relies on mathematical sense making-reasoning that leverages coherence between formal mathematics and conceptual understanding. A key question for physics education is how well current instructional approaches develop students' mathematical sense making. We introduce an assessment paradigm that operationalizes a typically unmeasured dimension of mathematical sense making: use of calculations on qualitative problems and use of conceptual arguments on quantitative problems. Three assessment items embodying this calculationconcept crossover assessment paradigm illustrate how mathematical sense making can positively benefit students' problem solving, leading to more efficient, insightful, and accurate solutions. These three assessment items were used to evaluate the efficacy of an instructional approach focused on developing students' mathematical sense making skills. In a quasi-experimental study, three parallel lecture sections of first-semester, introductory physics were compared: two mathematical sense making sections, one with an experienced instructor and one with a novice instructor, and a traditionally taught section, as a control group. Compared to the control group, mathematical sense making groups used calculation-concept crossover approaches more often and gave more correct answers on the crossover assessment items, but they did not give more correct answers to associated standard problems. In addition, although students' postcourse epistemological views on problem-solving coherence were associated with their crossover use, they did not fully account for the differences in crossover approach use between the mathematical sense making and control groups. These results demonstrate a new assessment paradigm for detecting a typically unmeasured dimension of mathematical sense making and provide evidence that a targeted instructional approach can enhance engagement with mathematical sense making in introductory physics.

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Nurturing sensemaking of, through, and with a mathematical model

Cited by 5 publications

References 14 publications

Forms of participation in an engineering maker‐based inquiry in physics

Forms of participation in an engineering maker‐based inquiry in physics

Interplay between mathematics and physics to catch the nature of a scientific breakthrough: The case of the blackbody

Assessing mathematical sensemaking in physics through calculation-concept crossover

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