Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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DD: Fachverband Didaktik der Physik

DD 23: Lehr-Lernforschung II (Veranschaulichung)

DD 23.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 14:40–15:00, M 102

Building models by coloring diagrams — •Joel Rosenberg — Museum of Science, Boston, MA, USA

In our high school engineering curriclum, developed in the United States, we teach students to use colors to represent qualitative differences in intensive variables (temperature, pressure, and voltage). This low-tech tool helps make a student's reasoning explicit to the teacher and other students. It also helps the student visualize physical differences by using room temeperature, atmospheric pressure, and neutral charge as references.

I will explain how we use these diagrams in our course, their history, and some of the research that has been conducted on their use. I will also discuss the more general role that diagrams play in student model building.