The Missing Material in Computational Science Education

• In Event: Materiality and Sociomaterial Practices in Learning, Designing, and Making

Abstract

Purpose
We present a designed intervention bringing together making and computational physics. Modeling is one way scientists and students learn physics (Clark & Sengupta, 2013), and computational tools can support efforts to build and refine models (Authors, 2017). At the college level, pedagogical approaches to teaching computational modeling often build from abstract problem descriptions using conventional mathematical representations (Caballero, Kohlmyer, & Schatz, 2012). However, students rarely engage the material world in these contexts. Here, we explore the “missing material” of computational physics by explicitly centering materiality (Bergström et al., 2011) in learning environments designed to teach computational physics.
Perspectives
Representing physical phenomena is central to how students learn through modeling (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006). This “physical transcription” is challenging for students (Authors, 2017) as it requires selecting representations (e.g., mathematical expressions) that correspond to the entities of the physical phenomena (Greeno, 1983). To explore this challenge—of going from the material world to a computational model—we use making, where attention to materiality expands learners’ access to their resources for making sense of the physical world (Hammer, 2000). This “computational making” approach blends notions of design as material conversations (Schön, 1992), computing with objects (Knight & Stiny, 2015), and disciplinary practices (Engle & Conant, 2002), asking students to make objects (Figure 1) they can model computationally. From these perspectives, we ask:
How does computational making expand the repertoire of resources students use to make sense of and model the physical world?
Methods and data sources
We present data from a design-research project (Brown, 1992) focused on computational making. Students in an undergraduate computational physics course were prompted to “make an oscillator” with simple craft materials. Students explored the materials, designed oscillators, and built computational models of their creations.
We present cases from three groups’ efforts to build and model oscillators. Using fieldnotes, video data, and interviews, we explore three dimensions of “physical transcription”—ontology, composition, and material conversations—using examples from each case.
Results
The cases further describe physical transcription through three lenses:
Ontology. We explore how Makayla and Cortland grappled with the bizarre behaviors of their two-magnet oscillator. By trying to represent the poles in these circular magnets, they discovered the magnets did not behave as they expected—requiring them to reorganize their assumptions about the nature of the material.
Composition. Jack and Edwin noticed discrepancies between their empirical results and their computational model, leading them to recompose their model to account for previously unnoticed twisting of the nylon string.
Material conversations. We investigate a final group’s development of a curved surface from one piece of material anchored at four points (which required them to attend to the possibilities suggested by different materials).
Significance
Our findings show how computational making opens new space to explore issues of transcription—ontology, composition, and material conversations—where students’ resources are available in their quests to build and refine computational models. Explicit consideration of materiality contributes new ways of understanding how students listen and respond to the physical world as they build representations of them in different ways.

Authors

• Brian E. Gravel, Tufts University

• Timothy Atherton, Tufts University

• Eli Tucker-Raymond, Boston University

• Maria C Olivares, Boston University

• Ezra Gouvea, Tufts University