Designing a programming-based approach for modelling scientific phenomena.

We describe an iteratively designed sequence of activities involving the modelling of one-dimensional collisions between moving objects based on programming in ToonTalk. Students aged 1314 years in two settings (London and Cyprus) investigated a number of collision situations, classified into six cl...

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Publicado en:Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 143 - 159
Autores principales: Simpson G, Hoyles C, Noss R
Formato: equations & formulas pictorial tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Apr2005
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Apr2005
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      place: Malden, Massachusetts
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        10.1111/j.1365-2729.2005.00121.x
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        atl: Designing a programming-based approach for modelling scientific phenomena.
      aug:
        au:
          Simpson G
          Hoyles C
          Noss R
        affil: London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, 23-29 Emerald St, London WC1N 3QS, UK; g.simpson@ioe.ac.uk
      sug:
        subj:
          Computer-Assisted Instruction
          Adolescence
          Collaboration
          Communication
          England
          Physics
          Students
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
      ab: We describe an iteratively designed sequence of activities involving the modelling of one-dimensional collisions between moving objects based on programming in ToonTalk. Students aged 1314 years in two settings (London and Cyprus) investigated a number of collision situations, classified into six classes based on the relative velocities and masses of the colliding objects. We describe iterations of the system in which students engaged in a repeating cycle of activity for each collision class: prediction of object behaviour from given collision conditions, observation of a relevant video clip, building a model to represent the phenomena, testing, validating and refining their model, and publishing it - together with comments - on our web-based collaboration system, WebReports. Students were encouraged to consider the limitations of their current model, with the aim that they would eventually appreciate the benefit of constructing a general model that would work for all collision classes, rather than a different model for each class. We describe how our intention to engage students with the underlying concepts of conservation, closed systems and system states was instantiated in the activity design, and how the modelling activities afforded an alternative representational framework to traditional algebraic description.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        equations & formulas
        pictorial
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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