Spiral teaching sequence and concept maps for facilitating conceptual reasoning of acceleration

In sum, this study has revealed the serious difficulty that the students encountered when conceptually reasoning acceleration. In order to help students gradually grasp the abstract and counterintuitive scientific conceptions, instructional scaffolding of concept maps and a spiral teaching sequence was found to be beneficial. However, among the four instructional strategies, the pedagogical benefits of “preview the core concepts” were not appreciated by some of the participants. Therefore, raising the students’ awareness of their conceptual difficulties and promoting their motivation to learn are essential before implementing any teaching interventions.

Several suggestions are made regarding the teaching design. (1) At the beginning of the teaching intervention, a brief concept test can be administered before the strategy of “previewing the core concepts,” as it may promote the participants’ awareness of the conceptual pitfalls and stimulate their learning motivation. (2) Right after introducing any physics principles or defining formulas, providing conceptual questions for students to practice is crucial in order to allow them to grasp the meanings and usages of the introduced physics concepts; (3) When initiating a novel instructional tool, such as a concept map, the meaning and value of the new tool need to be highlighted; and (4) The spiral teaching sequence, which introduced multiple stages of testing and explanation, received positive appraisal from many students, and was also shown to be beneficial by the objective tests. Therefore, in order to comprehend the insights of physics conceptions and to gradually gain acquaintance with effectively using the concepts, multiple tests (learning practice) and reviews (instructional guidance) are required.

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the National Science Council in Taiwan, Grant No. MOST 103-2511-S-018 -002 -MY3.