Learning about the Energy of a Hurricane System through an Estimation Epistemic Game
Abstract
As part of a study into students' problem solving behaviors, we asked upper-division physics students to solve estimation problems in clinical interviews. We use the Resources Framework and epistemic games to describe students' problem solving moves. We present a new epistemic game, the "estimation epistemic game". In the estimation epistemic game, students break the larger problem into a series of smaller, tractable problems. Within each sub-problem, they try to remember a method for solving the problem, and use estimation and reasoning abilities to justify their answers. We demonstrate how a single case study student plays the game to estimate the total energy in a hurricane. Finally, we discuss the implications of epistemic game analysis for other estimation problems.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1407.3243,
title = {Learning about the Energy of a Hurricane System through an Estimation Epistemic Game},
author = {Bahar Modir and Paul W. Irving and Steven F. Wolf and Eleanor C. Sayre},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.3243},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
4 pages. Submitted to Physics Education Research Conference 2014