Hunter G. Close

Enacting Conceptual Metaphor through Blending: Learning activities embodying the substance metaphor for energy

We demonstrate that a particular blended learning space is especially productive in developing understanding of energy transfers and transformations. In this blended space, naturally occurring learner interactions like body movement, gesture, and metaphorical speech are blended with a conceptual metaphor of energy as a substance in a class of activities called Energy Theater. We illustrate several mechanisms by which the blended aspect of the learning environment promotes productive intellectual engagement with key conceptual issues in the learning of energy, including distinguishing among energy processes, disambiguating matter and energy, identifying energy transfer, and representing energy as a conserved quantity. Conceptual advancement appears to be promoted especially by the symbolic material and social structure of the Energy Theater environment, in which energy is represented by participants and objects are represented by areas demarcated by loops of rope, and by Energy Theaters embodied action, including body locomotion, gesture, and coordination of speech with symbolic spaces in the Energy Theater arena. Our conclusions are (1) that specific conceptual metaphors can be leveraged to benefit science instruction via the blending of an abstract space of ideas with multiple modes of concrete human action, and (2) that participants’ structured improvisation plays an important role in leveraging the blend for their intellectual development.

Criteria for creating and categorizing forms of energy

Traditional instruction on energy often presents forms of energy as a seemingly arbitrary list to be memorized, with little discussion of the meaning or purpose of these forms. Learners often struggle to make sense of these forms, and neither physicists nor physics educators are explicit about the criteria used to create these lists. This article presents our understanding of the meaning and purpose of forms, based on (1) our understanding of how physicists have used forms and (2) our observations of how elementary teachers create new forms and categorize existing forms in order to understand real-world problems. We propose that explicitly articulating the criteria used to identify forms of energy can empower teachers and students and help them to understand both the concept of energy and the nature of science.

Intuitive ontologies for energy in physics

The nature of energy is not typically an explicit topic of physics instruction. Nonetheless, participants in physics courses that involve energy are frequently saying what kind of thing they think energy is, both verbally and nonverbally. Physics textbooks also provide discourse suggesting the nature of energy as conceptualized by disciplinary experts. The premise of an embodied cognition theoretical perspective is that we understand the kinds of things that may exist in the world (ontology) in terms of sensorimotor experiences such as object permanence and movement. We offer examples of intuitive ontologies for energy that we have observed in classroom contexts and physics texts, including energy as a quasi-material substance; as a stimulus to action; and as a vertical location. Each of the intuitive ontologies we observe has features that contribute to a valid understanding of energy. The quasi-material substance metaphor best supports understanding energy as a conserved quantity.

Differentiation of energy concepts through speech and gesture in interaction

Through microanalysis of speech and gesture in one interaction between learners (in a course on energy for in-service teachers), we observe coherent states of conceptual differentiation of different learners. We observe that the interaction among learners across different states of differentiation is not in itself sufficient to accomplish differentiation; however, the real-time receptivity of the learners to conceptually relevant details in each others actions suggests that future instruction that focuses explicitly on such actions and their meaning in context may assist differentiation.

Development of proximal formative assessment skills in video-based teacher professional development

Developing skills for proximal formative assessment is a primary goal of the academic-year professional development course offered by the Energy Project at SPU. We have adapted a video club model (Sherin & Han, 2004) in which groups of teachers watch and discuss video of classroom interactions. In this paper, we use a framework developed by Sherin & Han to analyze teacher reasoning about student understanding in an episode of video from our course. Teachers in the video use evidence from student interactions to propose general models of student thinking about energy. Our analysis suggests that the video-based professional development supports teachers in developing their professional vision for teaching: practicing the selective attention to and reasoning about evidence of student understanding that is required for proximal formative assessment.

Energy In Action: The Construction Of Physics Ideas In Multiple Modes

In a course organized around the development of diverse representations, no single mode of expression offers a complete picture of participants’ understanding of the nature of energy. Instead, we argue, their understanding is actively constructed through the simultaneous use of a range of quite different kinds of representational resources (Goodwin, 2000; Hutchins, 1995; Ochs, Gonzales, & Jacoby, 1996), including not only words and prosody but also gestures, symbolic objects, participants moving their bodies in concert, and whatever other communicative modes the course invites them to use. Examples are provided from a teacher professional development course on energy.

Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in Learners' Discourse about Energy

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.

Promoting proximal formative assessment with relational discourse

The practice of proximal formative assessment - the continual, responsive attention to students developing understanding as it is expressed in real time - depends on students sharing their ideas with instructors and on teachers attending to them. Rogerian psychology presents an account of the conditions under which proximal formative assessment may be promoted or inhibited: (1) Normal classroom conditions, characterized by evaluation and attention to learning targets, may present threats to students sense of their own competence and value, causing them to conceal their ideas and reducing the potential for proximal formative assessment. (2) In contrast, discourse patterns characterized by positive anticipation and attention to learner ideas increase the potential for proximal formative assessment and promote self-directed learning. We present an analysis methodology based on these principles and demonstrate its utility for understanding episodes of university physics instruction.

Learning Assistant Identity Development: Is One Semester Enough?

The physics department at Texas State University has completed five semesters with a Learning Assistant (LA) program and reform-based instructional changes in our introductory course sequences. We are interested in how participation in the LA program influences LAs’ identity both as physics students and as physics teachers; we have previously reported trends in increased community involvement and a shift in experienced LAs’ concepts of what it means to be competent. Our interview data now include first-semester LAs, and we see a significant difference in physics identity development between these LAs and those with more experience. LAs near the end of their first semester seem to be experiencing a state of unease with respect to teaching and learning. We explain this discomfort in terms of Piagetian disequilibrium: their conceptions of competence in teaching and learning have been challenged, and they have not yet constructed a new model.

Learning Assistants' Development of Physics (Teacher) Identity

The physics department at Texas State University is developing a Learning Assistant (LA) program with reform-based instructional changes in our introductory course sequences. We are interested in how participation in the LA program influences LAs’ identity both as physics students and as physics teachers; in particular, how being part of the LA community changes participants’ self-concepts and their day-to-day practice. We analyze written artifacts from program applications, reflections, and evaluations; our analysis of self-concepts is informed by the identity framework developed by Hazari and colleagues [1,2] and our analysis of practice is informed by Lave and Wenger’s theory of Communities of Practice [3,4]. Preliminary experience suggests that engagement in the collaborative physics education community elements of the LA program blurs the distinction between learner and teacher practice and increases LAs’ engagement in negotiation of meaning in both contexts.