Katrina Black dissertation defense, Aug 23, 2pm

Katrina Black will be defending her Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, August 23, at 2 pm, in Bennett Hall room 102.

Multiple Perspectives on Student Solutions to Air Resistance Problems

Physics Education Research uses multiple theoretical perspectives to describe student reasoning and behavior. I use two common lenses, difficulties and knowledge pieces, to examine the methods students use when solving first order separable differential equations in the context of air resistance problems. I discuss several difficulties students have when incorporating boundary conditions. Additionally, using air resistance as a context, I expand upon resources, a model of student thinking that falls into the pieces paradigm. I introduce procedural resources as a type of resource, give several examples of procedural resources used in the incorporation of boundary conditions. Finally, I extend existing links between the resources model and epistemic games, showing how procedural resources can be organized to create epistemic game facets.

UPDATE: Congratulations, Dr. Black!