\.:: Using Physlet Based Peer Instruction for Regents ~hysics Review Patrick H. Sears SUNY-Buffalo State College Department of Physics Buffalo, NY Abstract I describe instructional experiments helping my Regents Physics students review for their NYSED Regents Physics exams. My forty-three students were divided into groups and assigned sets of NYS Regents content standards. Each group of students was required to find a web-based computer simulation that demonstrated the principles of the assigned content standards. Students then used their simula-tion as the center of a peer-teaching session. Justification for the project is given based on references from the literature that support both peer t~aching and the use of web-based computer simulations in the classroom. The observed positive results of the project were both affective and motivational. Introduction Justification Computer simulation is a powerful tool Peer instruction techniques have been at the disposal of education and science well documented within pedagogical technology. Years ago, programs like literature and many of these studies Interactive PhysicsTM gave teachers suggest that peer instruction is an effec-the ability to demonstrate interactions tive technique in ~he classroom. that would have been otherwise diffi-Supporting examples include the corre-cult to create in the classroom. With lation of peer instruction with social the advance of the Internet and the and academic gains for high achieving widespread use of applets (small appli-students in science classes (Johnson, cation or "appl"+ette) that run within Johnson, and Taylor, 1994) and correla-the control of a web browser tions with overall achievement gains in (www.merriam-webster.com. 2008), Biology (Tessier, 2004) and Physics many authors have written and shared classrooms (Crouch and Mazur, 2001). simulations across the physics educa-A wealth of support for the practice can tion community. Christia~ and Belloni be found as early as the 1970's when have dubbed these applet based physics Menall (1975) noted that peer instruc-simulations, Physlets (2001). In an tion has been deemed effective in ,} effort to use these resources effectively, dozens of studies that have focused on I have developed a project that asks different subject matter and methods. students to use Physlets as a peer-instruction tool. Because they are a product of the file sharing potential of the Internet, physlets are a relatively recent phe-nomenon, but their use in the classroom has also been documented. Christian and Belloni (2001) have drawn on years of experience both to present new Physlets and to offer effective tech-niques by which to use them in the classroom, including having physics majors code the programs themselves. Particularly insightful research was conducted by Lee, Nicoll, and Brooks (2004) suggesting that students using Physlets in learning activities gained a better understanding of physics, partic-ularly if the "cognitive load" was not set urirealistically high. My Project In a classroom where Physlets are used in lectures and demonstrations, stu-dents can see computer simulations used as effective instructional tools. This project drew upon the teacher's example to require that students create a short review lesson on one concept that was presented using a Physlet as the center of the lesson. The project was divided into six steps, each with well-defined parameters stated in a grading rubric. Step #1: Grouping and Assignment The students were divided into groups. Each group was assigned a set of con-tent standards that could all be repre-sented in the context of a single Physlet. The sets included the verbatim text of both the "Process Skills" and "Major Understandings" from the New York State Physical Setting: Physics; Core Curriculum (NYSED, 2008). Some examples of the content sets appear in AppendL'\ A, and the entire list of content sets can be accessed at http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/pubs/ PHY690/Sears2007PeerTchgPhyslets/. At this time the students also received a project description (Appendix B) and a correlated grading rubric (Appendix C). The rubric emphasized connecting the content set to a physical context, which could then be demonstrated with the physlet and explained effectively. Step #2: Connecting Physics to a Physical Context The students were asked to consider a specific contextual event wherein the physical rules expressed in their Content Set could be seen to act. Each group produced a clear, well-labeled diagram of the contextual event. All relative quantities, vectors or not, were to be represented on the diagram. For extra credit, at this point, I required that the diagrams include physically reason-able numbers for each quantity. Step #3: Finding a Physlet The students had to find one or more Physlets that matched their Content Set and contextual diagrams. Before.J approved their choices they wrote a description of the Physlet that focused on its relevance to the content stan-dards they had to explain. I prompted for specific detail on quantitative and qualitative statements in the grading rubic. Step #4: The Lesson Plan The students worked together to create a written lesson plan for their peer instruction. The rubric suggested that 22 STANYS The Science Teachers Bulletin Fall 2009 STANYS The Science Teachers Bulletin Fall 2009 23 //the lesson plan include four parts. Part one included a statement of the content standards the students had been' assigned and class questioning to solic-it prior knowledge, followed by direct explanation to make clear to the audi-ence the vocabulary required to effec-tively discuss the relationships involved in those standards. Part two of the lesson involved using the Physlet to show the relationships called out by the standards: both qualitatively and quantitatively, by soliciting predictions and then running the Physlet. Part three was the presentation of an actual Regents question and an explicit expla-nation of how the information given in the problem was connected to the stan-dards. Finally, in part four of the pres-entation, the class solved the problem on small whiteboards, after which the
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