Reflection on Student Work

Description of Task This task falls at the end of an inquiry activity sequence on momentum and impulse. Students are creating a contraption made of at most ten sheets of paper and one meter of masking tape. The contraption is meant to stop an egg from breaking when it is dropped onto the contraption from a height of 1.5 meters. Students already know that the momentum of the egg has to decrease to zero during the collision. They also know the equation that relates change in momentum to force ( p!" t#. $ asked students to do a quick write after their activity that relates the egg%s change in momentum to the force it e&perienced. What feature in your contraption best protected the egg? Explain, in terms of momentum & impulse, how that feature protected the egg. Ideal Response We put some of our paper through a shredder and used that paper as kind of a cushion. This was the best feature that protected our egg. As the egg falls and collides with the ground, the momentum is going to change from a positi e momentum to no momentum. The change in momentum is impulse, which is related by p!" t. !ur shredded paper lengthened the time of the impact, which in turn decreased the force the egg experienced. Patterns in Students Responses $ have some student'produced work below( but the general trends $ saw are listed here) *ll of the students were able to identify the feature that saved their egg from the collision with the ground. Students * and + have an almost acceptable answer because both identified that force is decreased when time of collision is increased. ,owever( the rest of their written response indicates a disconnect between momentum and impulse. Students +( -( and . all talked about /absorbing(0 /deflecting(0 or /slowing down0 the momentum( even though change in momentum was established to be the same if the egg was dropped onto the bare floor or onto their contraption. This was the most common trend $ saw among a ma1ority of students. Student . says that the cushioning%s /impulse deflected the momentum of the egg.0 This response was not as common( maybe about 253 of students. Student - mentioned force( but not time in her response. Student . did not mention force or time in her response. Student * included the equation in her response( which was moderately common( again about 253 of students. 4one of the students quite understand what causes a change in momentum. Student + also talks about /slowing down time0 instead of increasing the impact time.

Analysis of Student Work 5hat $ think a ma1ority .67S understand) 5e need to decrease force on the egg in order to prevent it from cracking. The egg goes through a change in momentum. * cushion decreases the force the egg e&periences. 5hat $ think a ma1ority .67S 46T understand) 5hat causes the change in momentum in the egg8 5hat does impulse mean8 5here do we see impulse in our e&periment8 ,ow can we decrease force8 5hat does it mean to /deflect0 or /absorb0 momentum8

Implications for prior lessons and for assessment task 9rior lessons established a lot of misconceptions about change in momentum and how

it relates to force. * large pattern $ saw in student work is that they used terms like /absorb(0 /deflect(0 and /cancel out0 to e&plain change in momentum( even though $ tried very hard not to use those terms in class to keep it as simple as possible. $ hypothesize that because $ avoided using the terms and did not address not using these words( students pulled from their own previous knowledge about collisions and forces to write these e&planations of their lab. Their responses are not wrong( but not quite right for this particular activity. $n the assessment( $ asked for students to specifically use the terms impulse and momentum in their e&planation. * ma1ority of students did not use either of these terms correctly( so this shows that $ did not sufficiently e&plain to them what each meant in lessons leading up to this activity. "or future reference( $ would probably need to do a full e&ample of a different but similar collision( such as a person 1umping out of a burning building onto a trampoline( as part of my model phase. Implications for following lessons $n the ne&t lesson( $ may have to go back and address some of the misconceptions that were established( using the words that Students +( -( and . used. $ would also give them a full e&planation of impulse( which is another way of saying change in momentum. *fterwards( based on this new information that they 1ust received( $ would pass back their papers and ask them to revise their answer based on what we 1ust learned. What I learned about how students learn Implications for teaching in general $ am seeing how difficult it is for students to make connections between equations and what is happening in real life. $deally( $ would love for student to see that force and time have an inverse relationship with time being the independent variable: when time decreases( force increases and when time increases( force decreases. Several students remember the term /inverse relationship0 from their math class( but none were able to draw knowledge from math and apply it to physics. $f $ want them to be able to develop these math skills( $ will need to give them data for them to analyze. (Sometime after this assignment( one student liked to call inverse relationship the /6ompa ;oompa0 effect because in the oompa loompa dance( one would lower down and the other would raise up. $ think this is a great analogy to use connect student%s prior knowledge to new material#. $ also learned that misconceptions can be formed by the lack of addressing what $ wanted them to avoid. $ am creating a bank of all of these words $ don%t want students using and putting them in my back pocket to bring up for when $ teach this lesson again. $ feel like this activity was en1oyable for the students( but it might not have been the best activity to get the material across. +ecause there is no way to measure impact force or impact time( we could only verbally e&press their relationship and not see data to support our claims. $n order for students to see the relationships in the data( $ think the best way would be to find real life numbers of crash site dummies and the force they e&perienced during automobile crash testing.