How Students Understand Physics Equations

By Bruce L. Sherin. 2001

425 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2e44daf03a719aaf03b3e2951ccce34eb4479f34

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In Computer Science Applications

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Conceptual Metaphor Meets Conceptual Change (2009, background): “This “knowledge-in-pieces” or “knowledge systems” view, shifts attention to a sub-conceptual level of knowledge representation at which continuity between the novice and the expert can be identified (diSessa, 1983, 1988, 1993, 2002; diSessa, Elby & Hammer, 2003; diSessa & Sherin, 1998; diSessa & Wag”
Synthesis of Discipline-Based Education Research in Physics. (2014, background): “Sherin [103,104] identified 21 different symbolic forms for equations in physics and how students interpret them, concluding that it is possible for students to have mathematically correct solutions but inappropriate conceptual understanding for the equations.”
Some Assembly Required: How Scientific Explanations Are Constructed during Clinical Interviews. (2012, background): “Our own perspective is most in-line with scholars who argue that commonsense science is not coherent, or what has been called the knowledge-in-pieces perspective (diSessa, 1988, 1993; Sherin, 2001, 2006).”
An Overview of Problem Solving Studies in Physics Education. (2018, methodology): “In the study conducted with a total of 10 students in groups of two, Sherin reported that students produced equations far from the scientific reality and the use of mathematical expressions was incomplete (Sherin, 2001).”
An Interactional Analysis of Clinical Interviewing (2007, background): “See also the description of how students use balancing in generating correct equations in Sherin (2001).”
Scaffolding Complex Learning: The Mechanisms of Structuring and Problematizing Student Work (2004, background): “They may have difficulty mapping between their intuitive understandings and more precise scientific constructs and to formal representations that are the medium for representing work in the domain (Reif & Larkin, 1991; Sherin, 2001).”
How students blend conceptual and formal mathematical reasoning in solving physics problems (2011, methodology): “These two ways in which Sherin (2001) saw students use symbolic forms correspond roughly to the two “steps” involving conceptual reasoning, as described by the problem solving literature: (i) translating conceptual understanding of a physical scenario into mathematical equation(s) at the start of…”
Language of Physics, Language of Math: Disciplinary Culture and Dynamic Epistemology (2014, background): “For example, one way that "embodiment" allows mathematics to feel as if it has meaning, even in abstraction, is through symbolic forms (Sherin, 1996, 2001, 2006).”
A Scaffolding Design Framework for Software to Support Science Inquiry (2004, background): “First, there is a gap between the way learners intuitively think about a phenomenon and the formalisms used to represent it in expert practice (Reif & Larkin, 1991; Sherin, 2001).”
The marginalized identities of sense-makers: Reframing engineering student retention (2010, methodology): “Michael insists that to him, mathematical equations do not simply compute; rather, they embody persuasive, intuitive accounts of how the world behaves [7-9].”
A Comparison of Two Mathematics Problem-Solving Strategies: Facilitate Algebra-Readiness (2011, background): “Traditionally, teaching for understanding has seemed to involve concrete object manipulations or representations that are “away from symbolic formalisms” (Sherin, 2001 , p.”
The prevalence of area-under-a-curve and anti-derivative conceptions over Riemann sum-based conceptions in students’ explanations of definite integrals (2015, background): “For this study, the manner in which students hold their knowledge of the integral is characterized through the lens of symbolic forms.[22] In brief, a symbolic form is a blend”
Common sense clarified: The role of intuitive knowledge in physics problem solving (2006, background): “Elsewhere I have argued that this is precisely the case, that there are intuitive schematizations of physical situations that can be directly embodied in equations (Sherin, 2001b).”