Educational software for improving learning aspects of Newton’s Third Law for student teachers.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Educational software for improving learning aspects of Newton’s Third Law for student teachers.
Authors:	Spyrtou, Anna¹ aspirtou@uowm.gr, Hatzikraniotis, Evripidis² evris@physics.auth.gr, Kariotoglou, Petros¹ pkariotog@uowm.gr
Source:	Education & Information Technologies. Jun2009, Vol. 14 Issue 2, p163-187. 25p. 3 Color Photographs, 1 Diagram, 5 Charts.
Subject Terms:	Education of student teachers, Computer software development, *Teaching aids software, Educational technology software, Macromedia software
Abstract:	In this paper, we present the design, development, implementation and evaluation of educational software “Newton-3”, aiming at the learning of Newton’s Third Law by student-teachers who are not Physics majors. We describe the theoretical issues of our teaching approach and the various software tasks that we designed in order to promote students’ understanding. Specifically, the software is designed for the teaching of gravitational and electrostatic interactions between two distant bodies at rest. It is a web-based application and runs on a simple web browser with Macromedia Flash plug-in installed. The development of software and its integration into teaching–learning sequence is based on three main characteristics: the range of contexts in which the concept of force interaction applies, in the specification of the concept, and in an appropriate teaching learning environment (IDRF). We trialled the software on two groups of 8 primary school and 8 pre-school student-teachers, for 3 teaching periods, in the School of Education of our University. The research results indicate that the implementation was effective as the majority of the teacher-students improved their own knowledge concerning the existence and representation of gravitational and electrostatic interactions. An interesting result reveals that student-teachers have difficulty in perceiving the equality of magnitudes of action and reaction forces. This problem seems to be overcome after the teaching of the Inverse square law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	In this paper, we present the design, development, implementation and evaluation of educational software “Newton-3”, aiming at the learning of Newton’s Third Law by student-teachers who are not Physics majors. We describe the theoretical issues of our teaching approach and the various software tasks that we designed in order to promote students’ understanding. Specifically, the software is designed for the teaching of gravitational and electrostatic interactions between two distant bodies at rest. It is a web-based application and runs on a simple web browser with Macromedia Flash plug-in installed. The development of software and its integration into teaching–learning sequence is based on three main characteristics: the range of contexts in which the concept of force interaction applies, in the specification of the concept, and in an appropriate teaching learning environment (IDRF). We trialled the software on two groups of 8 primary school and 8 pre-school student-teachers, for 3 teaching periods, in the School of Education of our University. The research results indicate that the implementation was effective as the majority of the teacher-students improved their own knowledge concerning the existence and representation of gravitational and electrostatic interactions. An interesting result reveals that student-teachers have difficulty in perceiving the equality of magnitudes of action and reaction forces. This problem seems to be overcome after the teaching of the Inverse square law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	13602357
DOI:	10.1007/s10639-009-9087-y