Review by: Reichert, Raimond (2005-04-07)

Physics education often suffers from over-formalization, from a focus on algebraic, quantitative problem solving. As a consequence, students have difficulty in developing a qualitative understanding of the underlying principles. This seminal publication reports how an innovative, computer-based approach to teaching Newton’s laws of motion was successfully implemented. Note that since the article is quite long (100 pages), this review focuses on those aspects most relevant to designers of interactive, inquiry-based educational software; much of what is discussed regarding physics education is neglected here.

The goal of the so-called ThinkerTools curriculum is to enable 11–12 years old children to develop a qualitative, conceptual model of the principles underlying Newtonian mechanics and to apply their model to solve real-world problems. ThinkerTools is based on four computer-based microworlds of increasing complexity which students use collaboratively. These microworlds help students in understanding, in this order: Motion in one dimension, two-dimensional motion, understanding continuous forces, analyzing trajectories. For each microworld, students complete an instructional cycle consisting of: Motivation phase, model evolution phase, formalization phase, and a transfer phase. This inquiry cycle is explicitly modeled after the scientific method used by empirical physics researchers.

ThinkerTools was evaluated thoroughly in instructional trials. One of the most notable results was that on a set of classic force and motion problems, sixth graders taught following the ThinkerTools curriculum significantly outperformed high school students taught using a traditional, text-book based curriculum. With regards to elearning, it should be noted that it can not be determined how much of this effect is due to the curriculum approach itself (i. e. focus on qualitative understanding, collaborative learning) and how much of the effect is afforded by the use of computers (i. e. use of interactive microworlds).

The author argues that the following pedagogical approaches to the design of the microworlds helped enable students to successfully develop a conceptual model of the Newtonian laws of motion: Using multiple and manipulable representations of key abstractions, making the phenomena easy to see and interpret, creating scaffolded inquiry activities, having students formalize the knowledge they acquire, fostering collaborative learning, providing model progression using the four microworlds, and incorporating learning about scientific inquiry. These approaches, or at least some of them, are independent of the problem domain of physics and should be considered in the design of other inquiry software.

This article is a must-read for those designing computer-based inquiry environments. It is also an excellent read with a very thoughtful discussion of the results of the instructional trials. Also, it is highly interesting to observe that there is a wealth of domain specific research on the specific problems students encounter when learning about counter-intuitive laws of physics, and to see how this knowledge enabled and influenced the design of ThinkerTools. Last but not least, the ThinkerTools software is available for free download on the web, but unfortunately, it runs only on Macintosh: thinkertools.soe.berkeley.edu.