Title
Exploring the mathematics of motion through construction and collaboration
Abstract
In this paper, we give a detailed account of the design principles and construction of activities designed for learning about the relationships between position, velocity and acceleration, and corresponding kinematics graphs. Our approach is model-based, that is, it focuses attention on the idea that students constructed their own models-in the form of programs-to formalise and thus extend their existing knowledge. In these activities, students controlled the movement of objects in a programming environment, recording the motion data and plotting corresponding position-time and velocity-time graphs. They shared their findings on a specially designed Web-based collaboration system, and posted cross-site challenges to which others could react. We present learning episodes that provide evidence of students making discoveries about the relationships between different representations of motion. We conjecture that these discoveries arose from their activity in building models of motion and their participation in classroom and online communities.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1111/j.1365-2729.2006.00164.x
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING
Keywords
Field
DocType
communication,mathematics,modelling,programming,science
Design elements and principles,Graph,Computer software,Kinematics,Computer science,Pedagogy,Discovery learning,Cooperative learning,Conjecture
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
22
2
0266-4909
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.87
3
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Gordon Simpson1102.82
Celia Hoyles27312.63
Richard Noss37912.16