Developed by: Thomas O'Kuma, David P. Maloney, Curtis Hieggelke
middle schoolhigh schoolintro collegeinter-mediateupper levelgrad school other
calc based
alg based
conceptual
Overview
What? Exercises in which students rank variations of a physical situation on the basis of a specified physical quantity and explain their reasoning. Designed to elicit students' natural ideas about the behavior of physical systems rather than a memorized response, providing insight into their thinking.
Why? Because the tasks are short and independent of one another, they are easy to try out without making significant alterations to your course. They are constructed to be the right "step size" so that students feel comfortable responding to them using their natural ideas rather than memorized physics.
Why not? While the structure and content of ranking tasks are based on physics education research and many are taken directly from the research literature, there is no research on the impact of the final collection on student learning. The books are published commercially so there is a cost for students.
Activity outline
Each exercise consists of four elements:
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a place to record the ranking of each variation;
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a description of the physical situation, including any constraints and the basis for ranking different arrangements;
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a set of figures showing the different arrangements of the situation to be compared;
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a place to explain the reason for each ranking choice.
Topic outline
Kinematics Ranking Tasks
Force Ranking Tasks
Projectile and Other Two-Dimensional Motion Ranking Tasks
Work-Energy Ranking Tasks
Impulse-Momentum Ranking Tasks
Rotation Ranking Tasks
SHM and Properties of Matter Ranking Tasks
Heat and Thermodynamics Ranking Tasks
Electrostatics Ranking Tasks
DC Circuit Ranking Tasks
Magnetism and Electromagnetism Ranking Tasks
Wave and Optics Ranking Tasks
Student skills developed
- Conceptual understanding
Instructor effort required
- Low
Resources required
- Cost for students
Resources
Teaching Materials
Research
This is the lowest level of research validation, corresponding to at least one of the validation categories below.
Research Validation Summary
Based on Research Into:
- theories of how students learn
- student ideas about specific topics
Demonstrated to Improve:
- conceptual understanding
- problem-solving skills
- lab skills
- beliefs and attitudes
- attendance
- retention of students
- success of underrepresented groups
- performance in subsequent classes
Studied using:
- cycle of research and redevelopment
- student interviews
- classroom observations
- analysis of written work
- research at multiple institutions
- research by multiple groups
- peer-reviewed publication
References
- A. Cox, M. Belloni, and W. Christian, Teaching Physics with Physlet®-Based Ranking Task Exercises, Phys. Teach. 43 (9), 587 (2005).
- T. O'Kuma, D. Maloney, and C. Hieggelke, Ranking Task Exercises in Physics (Addison-Wesley, Boston, 2000).