Abstract from Dr. Epstein’s thesis:

Students often make errors when trying to solve qualitative or conceptual physics problems, and while many successful instructional interventions have been generated to prevent such errors, the process of deduction that students use when solving physics problems has not been thoroughly studied. In an effort to better understand that reasoning process, I have developed a new framework, which is based on the mental models framework in psychology championed by P. N. Johnson-Laird. My new framework models how students search possibility space when thinking about conceptual physics problems and suggests that errors arise from failing to flesh out all possibilities. It further suggests that instructional interventions should focus on making apparent those possibilities, as well as all physical consequences those possibilities would incur.

The possibilities framework emerged from the analysis of data from a unique research project specifically invented for the purpose of understanding how students use deductive reasoning. In the selection task, participants were given a physics problem along with three written possible solutions with the goal of identifying which one of the three possible solutions was correct. Each participant was also asked to identify the errors in the incorrect solutions. For the study presented in this dissertation, participants not only performed the selection task individually on four problems, but they were also placed into groups of two or three and asked to discuss with each other the reasoning they used in making their choices and attempt to reach a consensus about which solution was correct. Finally, those groups were asked to work together to perform the selection task on three new problems.

The possibilities framework appropriately models the reasoning that students use, and it makes useful predictions about potentially helpful instructional interventions. The study reported in this dissertation emphasizes the useful insight the possibilities framework provides. For example, this framework allows us to detect subtle differences in students’ reasoning errors, even when those errors result in the same final answer. It also illuminates how simply mentioning overlooked quantities can instigate new lines of student reasoning. It allows us to better understand how well-known psychological biases, such as the belief bias, affect the reasoning process by preventing reasoners from fleshing out all of the possibilities. The possibilities framework also allows us to track student discussions about physics, revealing the need for all parties in communication to use the same set of possibilities in the conversations to facilitate successful understanding. The framework also suggests some of the influences that affect how reasoners choose between possible solutions to a given problem.

This new framework for understanding how students reason when solving conceptual physics problems opens the door to a significant field of research. The framework itself needs to be further tested and developed, but it provides substantial suggestions for instructional interventions. If we hope to improve student reasoning in physics, the possibilities framework suggests that we are perhaps best served by teaching students how to fully flesh out the possibilities in every situation. This implies that we need to ensure students have a deep understanding of all of the implied possibilities afforded by the fundamental principles that are the cornerstones of the models we teach in physics classes.

Possibilities: A Framework for Modeling Students’ Deductive Reasoning in Physics

Courtesy of Underworld :mSpnkr:

From the late master of loch, Jacques Derrida, came a work called The Post Card. Says the back of the book:

You were reading a somewhat retro loveletter, the last in history. But you have not yet received it. Yes, its lack or excess of address prepares it to fall into all hands: a post card, an open letter in which the secret appears, but indecipherably.

What does a post card want to say to you? On what conditions is it possible? Its destination traverses you, you no longer know who you are. At the very instant when from its address it interpellates, you, uniquely you, instead of reaching you it divides you or sets you aside, occasionally overlooks you. And you love and you do not love, it makes of you what you wish, it takes you, it leaves you, it gives you.

On the other side of the card, look, a proposition is made to you, S and p, Socrates and plato. For once the former seems to write, and with his other hand he is even scratching. But what is Plato doing with his outstretched finger in his back? While you occupy yourself with turning it around in every direction, it is the picture that turns you around like a letter, in advance it deciphers you, it preoccupies space, it procures your words and gestures, all the bodies that you believe you invent in order to determine its outline. You find yourself, you, yourself, on its path.

The thick support of the card, a book heavy and light, is also the specter of this scene, the analysis between Socrates and Plato, on the program of several others. Like the soothsayer, a “fortune-telling book” watches over and speculates on that-which-must-happen, on what it indeed might mean to happen, to arrive, to have to happen or arrive, to let or to make happen or arrive, to destine, to address, to send, to legate, to inherit, etc., if it all still signifies, between here and there, the near and the far, da und fort, the one or the other.

You situate the subject of the book: between the posts and the analytic movement, the pleasure principle and the history of telecommunications, the post card and the purloined letter, in a word the transference from Socrates to Freud, and beyond. This satire of epistolary literature had to be farci, stuffed with addresses, postal codes, crypted missives, anonymous letters, all of it confided to so many modes, genres, and tones. In it I also abuse dates, signatures, titles or references, language itself.

*NM*

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

Sure, the CLIQUE likes to ruin Mararthon, but have any of us managed to do this?

Stats collected so far this month:

$ grep -i survival misc.log | wc
229 4496 25219
$ grep -i emfh misc.log | wc
228 4198 21697

I know we have an OSH award for maps, but to me, this seems like an even greater accomplishment. Congratulations to Megabyte for ruining the metaserver!

A. Huxley
c/o Goulburn Correctional Centre
PO Box 264
Maud St
Goulburn NSW 2580

Job wanted: Unemployable

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

Dugit and friends have been the subject of much discussion on #alephone, especially in light of some recent Pfhorums threads. To confirm the public’s suspicions that CLIQUE is more concerned with posturing than anything else, here’s what half of us really think of shitposting:

[thermoplyae] jesus christ
[thermoplyae] i was just thinking “man the pfhorums sure are active, this is totally contrary to that graph that irons had”
[thermoplyae] but 2/3 of the last posts were made by DUGIT, and now i understand what you guys are so uppity about
[thermoplyae] i’m gonna do steve’s job and see if i can flag any of these for shitposting
[Stevedollars] if you report posts I’m more likely to actually do something
[Stevedollars] I’ve only deleted two or three posts today
[ray] it’s a good thing shitposting kingpin patrick is suspended and quality poster dugit is able to go about his posting^†
[thermoplyae] well i lied, i don’t really know what shitposting even means, so i’m not going to flag anything
[Wrkncacnter] i took a screenshot from last night
[Wrkncacnter] it’s pretty great
[ray] nobody knows what shitposting means
[Wrkncacnter] ^
[treellama] ^^
[Wrkncacnter] that’s why it’s so fun to talk about
[ray] the only thing we can agree on is that dugit is a loser

^†: Whatever CLIQUE feels about shitposting has had little bearing on Steve, who’s taken the opportunity to seize some Pfhorums political power^‡ by suspending patrick and leaving the Dugit/WJ/Envy cell undisturbed.
^‡: hahaha

On the first day of CLIQUEmas, irons sent to me:

In honor of the Fat Sam video being mirrored by RAYLABORATORIES, here is the CLIQUE guide to preventing uncomfortable Maintenance Closet Incidents in YOUR building. Follow the six easy steps of BE LORD.

1. Ban fat kids. This is a simple precaution that can save millions of dollars. Fat kids are practically born to be picked on, and when one fat kid establishes dominance over another, it is only a matter of time before he goes looking for an unlocked maintenance closet. Cut straight to the root of the problem by removing all fat kids from the premises.

2. Enforce beackpeack protocol. Beackpeacks are valuable tools, but they cause blind spots in wearers and are more often than not the starting point of a given Maintenance Closet Incident. If and only if beackpeacks are absolutely necessary, they should be worn on the beack at all times, and removed only when the wearer is alone and ready to place the beackpeack in storage. Otherwise, beackpeacks must be prohibited.

3. Lock all maintenance closets. It might seem like an obvious step, and it is. Most readers will move on to the next point before they finish this sentence. Even so, it is imperative that the custodial staff perform daily closet-sweeps. They must check all maintenance closet interiors, lock all closets, and make sure that no existing closets have disappeared or no new closets have appeared.

4. Outlaw three-syllable laughter. Many experts recognize that Maintenance Closet Incidents are triggered on both ends by small vocal ticks that come from one, or both, of the participants. The most common trigger by far is the reflexive three-syllable aspirate laugh. Don’t let dormant Maintenance Closet Offenders awaken; stem the tide with silence.

5. Require assistance paperwork. Should a person wish to give or receive help, he or she must place the request in writing using an approved Assistance Form. In the (hopefully) unlikely event that a Maintenance Closet Incident does occur, it must be possible to determine who the culprits were, and all liability must be traced to the involved assistance giver and receiver. Any assistance in progress, if observed, must be challenged through a request to see both  participants’ forms.

6. Don’t ever releacks. A single moment of releacksation can cost your facility a billion dollars under present-day socialist law. If you ever cut corners on the above steps; if you ever let customers or employees believe they can get away with the violation of your policies; if you ever turn a blind eye to any suspicious behavior–those billion dollars will only be the beginning of your worries.

When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.

—William S. Burroughs