SGER: Conceptual Development About Forces & Motion In Elementary/Middle School Students

对运动有不同的看法似乎是形成牛顿力观的重要先决条件之一。在这个项目中，我们将尝试诱导学生对运动和力的概念发生变化。基于微型计算机的实验室(MBL)方法已被证明对高中生和大学生实现了这一点。我们打算找出在多大程度上同样适用于四年级、六年级和八年级的学生。这些学生将在一系列合作课程中使用MBL设备，这些课程旨在诱导认知失衡，然后促进学生努力理解他们在实验室活动中发现的惊喜。我们将在他们对运动的描述中寻找变化的证据，并寻找他们在关于运动原因的信念与力如何被视为影响真实物体运动之间的矛盾上可以被失衡的证据。在某种程度上，这种证据是在特定年级的学生中发现的，因此有理由试图改变对该年级的力的更多牛顿观点。该项目还具有重大意义，因为它涉及行动研究。在这项研究中，一名课堂教师将成为联合调查员。该项目的发现将：1.对课程设计和我们对决定学生概念性学习的因素和2.对在课堂上引起概念改变的实际方面提供有价值的见解。

Coming to a differentiated view of motion seems to be one of the important prerequisites for coming to a Newtonian view of forces. In this project we will attempt to induce change in student conceptions of motion and forces. The microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) approach has been shown to accomplish this for high school and college students. We intend to find out to what extent the same will be true for students in the fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. These students will use MBL equipment in a series of collaborative lessons which are designed to induce cognitive disequilibration and then to facilitate student efforts in making sense of the surprises they uncover in the laboratory activities. We will be looking for evidence of change in their descriptions of motion and for evidence that they can be disequilibrated over the contradiction between their beliefs about causes of motion and how forces are seen to influence to the motion of real objects. To the extent that such evidence is found in students at a particular grade level, a case can be made for an attempt to induce change to a more Newtonian view of forces at that grade level. The project is significant also in that it involves action research. A classroom teacher will be a co-investigator in the research. The findings of the project will: 1. have strong implications for curriculum design and our notions about factors which determine student conceptual learning and 2. provide valuable insights into the practical aspects of inducing conceptual change in the classroom.