Taking the Phys-Math Interplay from Research into Practice

Abstract

Physics and mathematics are heavily interwoven in the context of physics education at many levels. Research in physics education indicates that insufficient knowledge of the “Phys-Math” interplay may reflect on the quality of the learners’ explanations of physical phenomena, their ability to construct mathematical models of physical processes, or on their ability to describe the physical meaning of mathematical constructs (Clement et al. 1981; Cohen et al. 1983; Rozier S, Viennot L. Int J SciEdu 13:159–170, 1991; Rebmann and Viennot 1994; Bagno E, Eylon B,Berger H. Phys Edu 43(1):75–82, 2007; Redish EF, Smith KA. J Eng Edu97(3):295–307; Baumert et al. 2010; Zuccarini and Michelini 2014).

Studies on physics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) with regard to the “Phys-Math” interplay indicated that high school physics teachers employ complex two-way tracks between the two disciplines in order to support learners in constructing their knowledge and understanding of physics. These tracks construct different patterns, each of which addresses different teaching goals (Lehavi et al. 2013; Pospiech et al. 2014; Pospiech G, Eylon BS, Bagno E, Lehavi Y, Geyer MA. The role of mathematics for physics teaching and understanding. In The GIREP MPTL 2015 Conference Proceedings. Italian Physical Society. https://doi.org/10.1393/ncc/i2015-15110-6, 2015; Lehavi Y, Amit Yosovich A, Barak S. Sch Sci Rev 97(361):9–14, 2016a, Lehavi Y, Bagno E, Eylon B, Mualem R, Pospiech G, Böhm U, Krey O, Karam R. Classroom evidence of teachers’ PCK of the interplay of physics and mathematics. In: Greczyło T, Dębowska E (eds) Selected contributions from the International Conference GIREP EPEC 2015, Wrocław Poland, 6–10 July 2015, p 95–104, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44887-9_8, 2016b).

Here we present two applications of the Phys-Math patterns used by physics teachers, which were identified as construction and application patterns. First, a strategy, which involves visual representations for explaining and predicting phenomena, was applied in the context of Newton’s laws and was shown to significantly advance JHS students’ performance in the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test| (Mualem and Eylon 2007; Mualem R, Eylon BS. J Res Sci Teach 47(9):1094–1115. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20369). This strategy, however, was not discussed in the context of the Phys-Math interplay. Hereafter we will refer to this strategy as “Visual Mathematics” (VM), and we suggest that it will be used possibly as support for students in constructing a mathematical model for physical situations that can also assist them in solving problems. We will also reinterpret the strategy and its implications in the context of the Phys-Math interplay.

To further demonstrate the possible potential of the VM strategy, we will describe here how this strategy, which was developed and tested in the context of Newton’s laws, can be applied in a new context – teaching energy for the JHS level.

We claim that such a strategy can play an important role in teachers’ training and in fostering their Phys-Math PCK.

As a second application of the construction and the application patterns, we will demonstrate in the same teaching context (energy) how formulae can be constructed from experiments. More specifically, we will demonstrate how students can arrive from the results of experiments, similar to those conducted by Joule, to the formula for the energy change corresponding to a change in the height of an object.