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The nine units in this high school physics curriculum guide focus on areas where students have exhibited qualitative preconceptions -- ideas that they bring to class with them prior to instruction in physics -- that conflict with the physicist's conceptions. It has also shown that some of these conflicting preconceptions are quite persistent and seem to resist change in the face of normal instructional techniques. The motivating idea for this book is to provide a set of lessons that are aimed specifically at these particularly troublesome areas and that use special techniques for dealing with them. Other preconceptions contain important, useful intuitions that lessons can build on to foster sensemaking. Ideas in the lessons can be used to supplement any course that includes mechanics.
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Preconceptions in Mechanics: Lessons Dealing with Students’ Conceptual Difficulties
This second edition of Charles Camp and John Clement's book contains a set of 24 innovative lessons and laboratories in mechanics for high school physics classrooms that was developed by a team of teachers and science education researchers. Research has shown that certain student preconceptions conflict with current physical theories and seem to resist change when using traditional instructional techniques. This book provides a set of lessons that are aimed specifically at these particularly troublesome areas: Normal Forces, Friction, Newton's Third Law, Relative Motion, Gravity, Inertia, and Tension. The lessons can be used to supplement any course that includes mechanics. Each unit contains detailed step by step lesson plans, homework and test problems, as well as background information on common student misconceptions, an overall integrated teaching strategy, and key aspects of the targeted core concepts. This edition has a number of substantial changes based on teacher input. A number of the lessons are adaptable for college level courses as well. Evaluations using pre-and post-tests have shown large gain differerfces over control groups.
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- Award ID(s):
- 0723709
- PAR ID:
- 10585499
- Publisher / Repository:
- AIP Publishing LLCMelville, New York
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 1-931024-13-8
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Physics Teaching Preconceptions Mechanics
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Book:
- https://doi.org/10.1063/9780735420571
