Research Article
Alexander Volfson, Haim Eshach, Yuval Ben-Abu
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 2, Article No: ep413
ABSTRACT
Circus art excites amazes and delights. Most of circus genres are based on the principles of classical physics. Dialogic discussions are known as an instrument to identify conceptual barriers (misconceptions) and facilitate their further revision. The present study integrates the three worlds: physics education, dialogic teaching and circus art; and provides a research foundation for experiential physics teaching through dialogic discussions about circus tricks (DDCT) in formal and informal setups. It aims at examining the potential of DDCT as a tool for identifying misconceptions and facilitating conceptual change regarding physics concepts. The study encircles about 40 DDCT provided in the Israeli KESHET circus. In total, about 5,500 people watched the shows. From them, about 400 actively participated in the DDCT. We analyze in details four typical DDCT relating (a) circular motion, (b) moment of inertia, (c) torque, and (d) heat transfer. For each DDCT we demonstrate the way it pinpoints participants’ knowledge and its implementation in circus devices’ analysis. Further we examine whether and how the DDCT could facilitate developing physics knowledge and/or going through a meaningful conceptual change regarding each of these concepts. Due to our results DDCT seems to be an original and promising approach to bring advanced physics ideas to the general public, in ways that are interesting, experiential and relatively easy to understand. We finish with practical recommendations for physics educators (as well as circus artists) who would like to implement DDCT in their classes (shows).
Keywords: physics education, dialogic teaching, informal teaching, misconceptions, conceptual change, circular motion, moment of inertia, torque, heat transfer
Research Article
Unal Cakiroglu, Huseyin Yilmaz
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 8, Issue 4, pp. 390-405
ABSTRACT
This article draws on a one-semester study to investigate the effect of videos and 3D animations on students’ conceptual understandings about basic computer units. A quasi- experimental design was carried out in two classrooms; videos and 3D animations were used in classroom activities in one group and those were used for homework in the other group. A three-phase concept test was used to determine the misconceptions, and clinical interviews were conducted to explain the improvements in conceptual understandings. The results indicated that using videos and 3D animations positively affected to remedy misconceptions and no significant difference was found among two groups in terms of conceptual change. Students’ perspectives reflected that the videos and 3D animations facilitated the conceptual understanding via concretization, pausing, slowing down, replaying, and enlarging features. Along with the study findings, some implications were included for the use of videos and 3D animations in conceptual learning studies.
Keywords: 3D animations, Conceptual change