At a Glance
Discipline
- Physics
Instructional Level
- College & CEGEP
- University
Course
- Mechanics
Tasks in Workflow
Social Plane(s)
- Individual
- Group
- Whole Class
Type of Tasks
- Solving problems
- Analyzing
- Creating & designing
- Writing
- Presenting
- Taking a quiz & test
Technical Details
Useful Technologies
- Online collaborative platform
- In class students can work on smartboards or whiteboards
Class size
- Small (20-49)
Time
Single class period (< 90 mins)
Instructional Purpose
- Assessment & knowledge refinement
- Application & knowledge building
Socio Affective Engagement
- Collaboration & group work
Overview
Out of class, individual students find an image of interest with two or more interacting objects. They prepare free-body diagrams of the objects in the images. Both the images and free-body diagrams are uploaded to an online collaborative platform. They write a short reflective piece on how the phrase "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" applies to their image.
In class, students are assigned to groups; each group selects a single image that has been uploaded to work with. The groups prepare free-body diagrams for the objects in the images in the case when acceleration is ...
Read More +Out of class, individual students find an image of interest with two or more interacting objects. They prepare free-body diagrams of the objects in the images. Both the images and free-body diagrams are uploaded to an online collaborative platform. They write a short reflective piece on how the phrase "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" applies to their image.
In class, students are assigned to groups; each group selects a single image that has been uploaded to work with. The groups prepare free-body diagrams for the objects in the images in the case when acceleration is zero. They then present their results to the class for peer review. The groups prepare free-body diagrams for the objects in the case when acceleration is non-zero. They write a statement comparing and contrasting the forces in the free-body diagrams in two cases of zero and non-zero acceleration. Finally they prepare a short written heuristic on identifying 3rd Law force pairs.
Finally, the groups present their free-body diagrams, statements and heuristics to the entire class for peer review and feedback from the instructor.
Read Less -Instructional Objectives
The objective of this activity is to understand and identify 3rd Law force pairs. Students prepare free-body diagrams from relevant images they have selected and then compare them in the accelerating and non-accelerating state.
Workflow & Materials
Contributor's Notes
Chris Whittaker
Dawson College, Montreal, QC
Benefits
By having the students select their own image, it situates the activity in their own world and deepens their engagement. This activity leverages group learning capacities and works at multiple levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (levels of cognition). Format of the activity scaffolds the near transfer of concepts and deepens an understanding of 3rd law force pairs.
Challenges
A big challenge is getting students to model the actual object in a simplified way (abstraction). Also, getting students to build a rich heuristic. As is the case with most activities, finding and implementing an appropriate online collaborative platform (OCP) is challenging. If a single group has poor overall understanding, students can try to compensate by adding every detail they can find which is not the point of the activity and complicates the matter at hand.
Tips
Potentially add more emphasis on the abstraction process. The simplified free body diagram is vital to this activity so additional time can be spent illustrating how to simplify the images.
Applied Strategies
-
1Toolkit
Published: 18/09/2018
Copyright: © 2021 Whittaker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication on this website is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.