Secondary School Students Learn Newton s Third Law Debora Shafer Department of Physics State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave Buffalo NY 14222 ybecause111 yahoo com Abstract This is a description of seven middle school Special Needs Students reforming their thinking about Newtonian force concepts over ten forty minute classes The students were tested via the Force Concept Inventory FCI Hestenes Wells Swackhamer 1992 and then interviewed individually to confirm their reasoning Students were grouped and through inquiry and hands on discovery the students preconceptions were developed into a deeper understanding of Newtonian force concepts specifically Newton s Third Law Acknowledgements This manuscript was prepared as part of requirements for PHY690 Master s Project at SUNY Buffalo State College under the direction of Dr Dan MacIsaac Thanks for comments from Dr Joe Zawicki Dr David Abbott my peers in Physics Workshops colleagues and Yianna Fantrazzo 1 Introduction Much research on teaching physics using inquiry based methods Arons 1997 Garner 1991 developing explanations of natural phenomena in a continuing creative process Department of Education 1996 and students working in cooperative learning groups Gijlers de Jong 2005 Hake 1998 MacIsaac D 2002 Trowbridge Bybee Powell 2000 makes a case for two elements first arrange the environment to facilitate student centered instruction and second include sufficient guidance to ensure direction and success in discovering the concepts being taught Trowbridge Bybee Powell 2000 Rochelle 1992 Halloun 1985 Strategies of inquiry teaching are emphasized in the National Science Education Standards as primary methods of conducting science classes to acquaint students with the scientific method of problem solving techniques that are used in the field by scientists Trowbridge Bybee Powell 2000 Students are asked to develop through research explanations for what they have observed After an explanation is heard by classmates and discussed students can reformulate their ideas into a hypothesis which is clarified through co operative learning activities in the classroom When students carry out their own research plan through hands on activities and keep track of their findings either with diagrams or the written word concepts are seen with a deeper insight into the phenomena Department of Education 1996 Teaching physics utilizing The Learning Cycle Musheno Lawson 1999 and Traditional Text Guzzeetti Williams Skeels Wu 1997 have been at the basis of several studies The Learning Cycle Method is taught in three consecutive phases known as exploration term introduction and concept application which is the way people spontaneously learn about life and the world around them Musheno Lawson 1999 Traditional texts are usually written with term introduction and vocabulary at the 2 beginning of a chapter followed by examples and exploration of the concepts Garner 1991 Textbooks are often written in such a way that they confuse the student particularly students with low reading scores Musheno Lawson 1999 This study uses curriculum techniques modeled in modeling physics based physics teacher workshops at Buffalo State College MacIsaac D Zawicki J Henry D Beery D Falconer K A 2004 using activities taken from the Constructing Physics Understanding CPU http cpucips sdsu edu materials first and then reinforcing the activities with refutational text text that points out where the misconceptions are Zitzewitz P W 1999 developing the idea of the concepts before devulging the vocabulary Arons 1997 Once this is carried out and the students understand the word usage and the classroom texts are then introduced for reinforcment because The U S Department of Education 1991 states that 90 of instruction time is devoted to textbook use McCarthy 2004 Physics content vocabulary is specific in nature and literacy is critical for many physics concepts and students with special needs often have difficulty with language and reading Cawley 1990 Moreover studies that compared students who received instruction in discovery and activity oriented instruction showed that inquiry instruction performed better than direct instruction or traditional approaches using lecture and memorization of vocabulary terms McCarthy 2004 Seven special needs students in the BOCES 1 program in a suburban school of Buffalo NY were given a condensed version ten items associated with Newton s third law of the Force Concept Inventory FCI Hestenes Wells Swackhamer 1992 as a pre test to evaluate their conceptual knowledge base of Newtonian Force Concepts Testing using this tool because Hestenes and Halloun 1995 claim the FCI is designed to assess student understanding of the most basic concepts in Newtonian physics Afterwards on the same day as the pre test all seven students were interviewed individually in a casual classroom 3 setting From the interview students basic reasoning and social levels were evaluated and later used to form two student groups Students were grouped based on understanding reasoning level and social abilities to maximize ability variation in each group The seven students were then instructed during ten 40 minute classroom periods over a six month time frame There were ten sessions with the students not including test taking and initial interviews Assigned aides accompanied some individual students to all lessons and there were usually between two and three aides in each class as well as the instructor Lesson Design Class discourse The students used whiteboards to convey their answers and when working in small cooperative learning groups The students were informed that there would be a lot of discussion techniques just like scientists use We talked about how scientists explore and we decided a good way to explain what they do is to say they solve a problem or problem solve First teacher question posed What is a force Example answers push pull off balance feeling Next teacher question posed What makes a force There was a long silence 15 to 20 seconds The students were then asked What is capable of creating a force on something Example Answers wind person car As follow up the students were asked Do you have to touch something to give it a force to make it move The students agreed unanimously that a touch was required Finally teacher asked What force causes a book to fall to the floor After a wait of 10 to 15 seconds a book was dropped to the floor for
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