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January 4–7, 2014
Monday morning
Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking”, is known to be involved
in expert learning, but is generally difficult to observe. At Western
Washington University, exercises have been created and administered
in introductory course labs in order to (1) help students develop
metacognitive skills, and (2) allow researchers to characterize facility
with those skills. A rubric has been developed to code and analyze
students’ written responses. Initial application of the rubric suggests
that analysis of this kind can lead to useful insights. With the use of
a more detailed and comprehensive rubric, it should be possible to
make concrete claims about student metacognitive thinking in physics
and the development of student metacognitive abilities facilitated by
instruction.
PST1C10: 8:45-9:30 a.m. Effect of Visual Cueing on
Students’ Eye Movements and Reasoning*
Poster – Amy S. Rouinfar,** Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
66506;
Elise Agra, Jeffrey Murray, Lester C Loschky, N. Sanjay Rebello, Kansas
State University
Visual cues overlaid on diagrams and animations can help students at-
tend to the relevant areas and facilitate problem solving. In this study
we investigate the effect of visual cues on students’ eye movements
as they solve conceptual physics problems. Students (N=90) enrolled
in an introductory physics course were individually interviewed.
During each interview students worked through four sets of problems
containing a diagram while their eye movements were recorded. The
diagrams contained features relevant to solving the problem correctly
and separate areas related to common incorrect responses document-
ed in the literature. Each problem set contained an initial problem,
six isomorphic training problems, and a transfer problem. Those in
the cued condition saw visual cues overlaid on the training problems.
Students provided their responses verbally. We discuss the influence
of visual cueing on students’ attention and reasoning.
*This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grants
1138697 and 0841414.
**Sponsored by N. Sanjay Rebello.
PST1C11: 8-8:45 a.m. Probing Visual-Spatial Abilities in
Relation to Specific Reasoning Approaches
Poster – Alexandra Lau, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
01075;
Mila Kryjevskaia North Dakota State University
There are several different lines of reasoning students employ when
they attempt to solve the wave tasks administered in introductory
physics courses. We speculated that students’ visual-spatial abilities
may be related to the reasoning approaches they used on the wave
tasks. We used the Paper Folding Test (PFT) to measure students’
visual-spatial skills. We have observed notable differences in the PFT
scores between specific categories of reasoning approaches used in
solving wave tasks.
Pre-college/Informal and Outreach
PST1D01: 8-8:45 a.m. AAPT’s PhysicsBowl: A Contest for
High Schools
Poster – Michael C. Faleski, Delta College, University Center, MI 48710;
The PhysicsBowl is an annual contest for high school students. The
contest itself is 40 multiple-choice questions in length to be answered
in no more than 45 minutes. There are about 5000 students partici-
pating from more than 250 schools across the world. In the past few
years, schools have competed from the United States, Canada, China,
Taiwan, Japan, Spain, the Republic of Korea, and Italy. Prizes are
awarded to both the students and schools for high performers. This
poster is to give high school teachers more information about the
contest.
PST1D02: 8:45-9:30 a.m. Bridging Theory to Practice:
Student Model of Greenhouse Effects in a Ninth
Grade Classroom
Poster – Nicole Strickhouser,* Jefferson High School, Lafayette, IN
47904;
Anita Roychoudhury, Andrew Hirsch, Daniel Shepardson, Purdue
University
Studies have shown that secondary students have difficulty in under-
standing greenhouse effect (GHE). Students tend to view greenhouse
gases forming a lid on the Earth preventing the “heat” from escaping.
It is understandable because classroom experiments often use a model
of greenhouse rather than that of GHE. We used Keating’s (2007)
suggestions to develop a model of GHE. We found that the ninth
grade students in a school, with a large proportion of students from
non-dominant groups (NGSS, 2013), were able to construct the GHE
model based on the data they collected. Their performance on the
post-test also showed that they could compare models of the Earth’s
atmosphere with or without the greenhouse gases and support their
claims with appropriate evidence.
*
Sponsored by Anita Roychoudhury
PST1D03: 8-8:45 a.m. International Young Physicists
Tournament – For High School Students Around
the World
Poster – Donald G. Franklin, Spelman College/ Mercer University,
Hampton, GA 30228;
Martin Plecsh, IYPT Secretary General
Alan Allison, IYPT President
IYPT will be held in Shrewsbury, United Kingdom in July of 2014.
This contest has 17 questions that are used for the Physics Fights
between high school students from different countries. The teams
take turns in the role of Reporter, Opponent, and Reviewer. The top
three point winners advance to the final Physics Fight to determine
the winner.
PST1D04: 8:45-9:30 a.m. Student Models of Weather,
Climate, and Climate Change
Poster – Jignesh Mehta,* Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-
2040;
Anita Roychoudhury, Andrew Hirsch, Daniel Shepardson, Purdue
University
Climate change is an important challenge of out time but public
understanding of it is limited at best. Newly released Next Genera-
tion Science Standards (2013) suggests that climate change be taught
from the middle school level onwards. We think that teaching of
this complex topic needs to begin with what students know about
weather, climate, climate change, and global warming. This explora-
tion of student understanding needs to be done at the level where
climate change education is expected to begin. To meet this need, we
explored middle school students’ responses to open-ended questions
and constructed student models of these concepts. These models
have implications for curriculum development and instruction at the
secondary (7-12) grades.
*
Sponsored by Anita Roychoudhury
PST1D05: 8-8:45 a.m. Dealing with Climate Myths
Poster – Gordon J. Aubrecht, OSU, Marion, OH 43015-1609;
Many scientists understand that climate change has a sociopolitical
aspect, but some scientists are unwilling to address the issue lest they
be perceived as political themselves. Nevertheless, when we scientists
find climate myths, I think it is our duty as scientists to be willing to
debunk them. This poster exhibits some myths and contrasts them
with the science.
