Reading through DiSessa's "Toward and Epistemology of
Physics," I can see all of the ways that p-prims have been used by my mind
when I have been trying to figure out how things work in life. The way that
they are constructed really does lend itself to a simplification of phenomena
that can be built on to reach a deeper understanding of physics.
Perhaps what I find the most interesting in the work has to
be the apparent ease with which you are able to advance along to deeper and
deeper understanding starting with the p-prims.
Rather than try and boil down what DiSessa said any further,
I feel that it is already quite well put together and trying to reduce it even
further would not only do it a disservice but would obscure information
contained within it, I want to look more at how I see it being used in
classrooms at both the high school and collegiate level. The idea that the
untrained minds of our students will go to these p-prims or something similar
to them when trying to understand things really does help us out when it comes
to planning out how to address new information. These will allow us to build
our instruction in such a way that we get them to trigger those p-prims and
start asking questions. Why does the liquid go up a straw when you suck on it?
The continuous asking of the question of "Why?" in a gentle way to
encourage further exploration can lead a student to deeper understanding about
what is actually going on.
I like that DiSessa uses this example in his paper because
of the complexity inherent in the complete answer. On a basic p-prim level, we
have one answer that accounts for what is going on, but as the understanding
advances further and we know more about how the natural world functions, these
p-prims evolve into more advanced versions. It really is the comparison of an
untrained mind to that of someone trained to thing about physics.
Talking with students, I have found that explaining that
they have not been taught to think a certain way does help them cope with trouble
that they have in physics when it comes to setting up problems or seeing what
is really being asked.
Knowing how a student thinks is a major boon for us in
creating lectures and homework assignments to advance their understanding, so I
really do think that this is very much a cornerstone piece moving forward in
exploring physics education.
DiSessa, A. (1993). Toward an Epistemology of Physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2/3), 105-225
DiSessa, A. (1993). Toward an Epistemology of Physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2/3), 105-225
