Microcontrollers in Physics education: a circuit simulation ... - ICL

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Conference ICL2010 September 15 -17, 2010 Hasselt, Belgium that 9-10 years old children are not able to make the connection linking theory and real life situations, as this involves a certain amount of “abstract thinking”. Building the circuit with their own hands and the visual representations helps students grasp a higher level of understanding, and therefore to associate the rather abstract diagrammatic picture with reallife situations. This is in excellent agreement previous findings by other researchers 5 . The number of students that chooses picture (8) as correct in the post-test is reduced to 47.4 (±27.6%) it was 61.1(± 27.7%) in the pre-test, though it seems that this picture confuses the students. During the teaching, the students created a simple circuit using plain cables, and then another one using light bulb holders. They also used light bulb holders in order to create in series and in parallel connections. Although it was stressed, that in a light bulb holder the one end touches the screw of the lamp and the other the bottom of the lamp and children were asked to observe this carefully it seems that they did not grasp the idea. Besides the teaching approach took place within 2 school hours. Therefore the students did not have the chance to repeat the experiments (using plain cables with no crocodile clips at the end and no light bulb holders) and to re-think what they have done. The last experiments they performed were with the use of light bulb holders, and therefore it was not very clear for them where the cables were connected. This perhaps is the reason the students were confused. Picture (9) also confused the students. Perhaps it is not very clear in this picture (9), which was given to the students only in black and white, that one of the cables is not really connected to the circuit. 4.3. Question 2: Which of the following pictures to you believe that represent the electron movement during electric current? 1) 2) 4) 3) 5) 6) 7) Picture 5. ICL 2010 Proceedings – Page 417 8(12)
Conference ICL2010 September 15 -17, 2010 Hasselt, Belgium 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 11,1 31,6 50,0 42,1 0,0 26,3 22,2 15,8 11,1 5,3 27,8 10,5 5,6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Picture 6. red circles: the pre-test , blue triangles post test 0,0 The idea of the movement of electrons is a difficult one for the young students. The electrons move following the direction from the negative pole of the battery to the positive one. While inside the battery, electrons keep moving from the positive to the negative pole, so as to complete the circuit. To make things worse, the so-called “conventional flow” of current is the opposite one from the electron-flow. The new device represents the electron-flow in the circuit, though children had no visual representation of what is happening inside the battery. Since the participants of the educational trial were 9-10 years old, no reference to the conventional flow of current was made in order to avoid a major misconception. In the post-test the students’ answers are divided between (a) 31.6% (±27.3%) (b) 42.1% (±27.6%) and (c) 26.3% (±27.1%). Taking into account that the educational trial lasted 2 hours, the results are encouraging, most children understood that electric current flows following a circle, in the whole circuit, but it is not as good as we would have liked. 4.4. Question 3: Which of the following pictures (referring to the amount of electric current in the wire) do you consider as correct? same same less more 1) 2) ICL 2010 Proceedings – Page 418 9(12)
Page 1 and 2: Conference ICL2010 September 15 -17
Page 7: Conference ICL2010 September 15 -17

Microcontrollers in Physics education: a circuit simulation ... - ICL

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?