‭Collin Crafts‬

‭Spring 2024‬

‭Oakland University‬

‭Dan Majeske‬

‭Student Learning Analysis‬

‭Introduction:‬

‭In Physical Science, students have been working on developing ideas of‬

‭Newton's three laws of motion and the significance of them in physics. Students were‬

‭tasked with investigating Newton’s laws through a project where they are designing and‬

‭building a cardboard car. Through this project I conducted my Student Learning‬

‭Analysis assignment and collected data based on the understandings that students‬

‭came to through their project. The individual steps that I took throughout this process‬

‭are outlined sections two, three, and four. The fifth section details how I retested the‬

‭students and observations I made about their growth through the official test scores.‬

‭Learning Goals and Standards:‬

‭By the beginning of this project, students had been learning about forces for‬

‭roughly a week and a half but had only heard of Newton’s laws mentioned as‬

‭“something we will get to later”. Through the “Eggy Car” concept was created through a‬

‭group consisting of my mentor teacher, two other teachers that have Physical Science‬

‭courses, and myself, where we are able to incorporate ideas from each of Newton’s‬

‭three laws as well as hitting multiple standards outlined by NGSS. Although ideas from‬

‭each law are incorporated into the project, I wanted the learning goal to primarily focus‬
‭on the second law as that is the ones the students will interact with the most. This led to‬

‭the learning goal of‬‭“students will identify the relationship‬‭between force, acceleration,‬

‭and mass through Newton’s second law”‬‭. This learning‬‭goal is based off of the standard‬

‭HS-PS2-1‬‭“Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s‬‭second law of motion‬

‭describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object,‬

‭its mass, and its acceleration.”‬‭Although we also‬‭were able to touch two other‬

‭standards: HS-PS2-2‬‭“Use mathematical representations‬‭to support the claim that the‬

‭total momentum of a system of objects is conserved when there is no net force on the‬

‭system.”‬‭and HS-PS2-3‬ ‭“Apply science and engineering‬‭ideas to design, evaluate, and‬

‭refine a device that minimizes the force on a macroscopic object during a collision.”‬‭This‬

‭learning goal is for students to collect data through testing their car to come to the‬

‭conclusion that, since the acceleration due to gravity is not changing, as mass‬

‭increases, the force the car experiences should also increase. This result is verifiable‬

‭through a combination of the data that students collected and the equation‬‭𝐹‬ = ‭𝑚𝑎‬‭.‬

‭Analysis of Student Understanding:‬

‭To gather a sense of students' understanding of forces and initial ideas of‬

‭Newton’s laws, I started with a pre-lab assignment where students had to go over each‬

‭question and answer it to the best of their ability. After a first pass over it, students were‬

‭then given the opportunity to revise their answers in a different color pen while they‬

‭could research the topic through the textbook or google. The pre-lab questions covered‬

‭ideas from the first half of the chapter; what are forces, how do forces interact with each‬

‭other, how does friction play a part in this. The second part of the pre-lab was listing‬
‭Newton’s three laws and coming up with ideas of how these laws are going to relate to‬

‭the cars that they will be constructing. The last question was focused solely on how‬

‭does the bumper of a car affect the force that a car experiences in a collision, as this is‬

‭what the data they would collect later in the project would be related to.‬

‭From this pre-lab questionnaire, I saw that few students in the class,‬

‭approximately 40 of the nearly 120 students were able to identify at least two of‬

‭Newton’s laws, but not knowing which one of the laws they were. Several students,‬

‭about 5 knew Newton’s laws relatively well, although all these students are also on the‬

‭Robotics team, so it is likely that they had learned them through this group previously.‬

‭After students were given an opportunity to go back and revise their work, nearly‬

‭everyone had identified the three laws correctly, granted they were able to look them up.‬

‭At this point, students were turned loose to begin constructing their car with their‬

‭partners while I wanted to test their understanding. As they were building their cars, I‬

‭moved group to group to have a discussion and elicit their thinking relating to Newton’s‬

‭laws and how they are significant to what they are doing. Significantly more students‬

‭were able to answer these questions than before they were able to revise their ideas,‬

‭although many were still confused when I was asking them how the bumper on their car‬

‭will affect the force of an impact. Many students went with their prior knowledge of what‬

‭happens when a car hits a wall by answering that it will crumple but were unsure of how‬

‭the crumpling really affected the force the passengers experience.‬

‭After students had concluded assembling their cars, they collected data using a‬

‭Go!Motion Force Sensor that would record the force the car experiences as it crashes‬

‭into the wall. They recorded this data with multiple different masses in their car ranging‬
‭from 0-300 grams of additional mass. At this point students were given an assignment‬

‭to analyze their data and draw conclusions from it. This analysis included questions‬

‭where students had to convert their data into a graph to calculate the slope of the‬

‭resulting line that represents the acceleration of the object, as well as using their data to‬

‭defend their conclusions of how force, mass and acceleration are related as well as how‬

‭a bumper affects the force the car experiences. I used this assignment as a gauge of‬

‭how well students were understanding the material when working together as a group.‬

‭This assignment showed that several groups were significantly confused on how these‬

‭three concepts were related due to their inaccurate data.‬

‭Analysis of Data and Student Feedback:‬

‭The second week of this project was set to end on a half day Thursday, where‬

‭most of the students had concluded with the work for this project. Going into this long‬

‭weekend I wanted to get a clearer idea of where students were at through a more‬

‭formal assessment. In Physical Science, all summative assessments are given through‬

‭multiple choice Google forms, so that is what I set up for this mini test. Students were‬

‭given the full ~30 minutes to complete a 15 question form where, unlike normal being‬

‭multiple choice, they had to select one of the answers and then explain their reasoning‬

‭of why they believe their choice is the correct one. To incentivize students to provide‬

‭meaningful answers, 75% of the grade was based upon the depth of their explanations,‬

‭whether right or wrong as long as there is clear effort made.‬

‭The data that was collected from this mini test was very revealing of where‬

‭students were getting hung up on problems. One question many students seemed to be‬
‭getting confused on was‬‭“Newton's first law states that an object at rest will stay at rest‬

‭or an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by what? Explain how we‬

‭can determine if this condition is met.”‬‭This question‬‭had the most incorrect‬

‭explanations by a large margin, although overall they were very close with one major‬

‭point that threw everyone off. The correct answer should be something along the lines‬

‭of‬‭“a net force or unbalanced force”‬‭while nearly‬‭half of all 120 students answered with‬

‭“an outside force”‬‭. Since so many students were hung‬‭up on this question I wanted to‬

‭look back at their previous work to see if there was a specific question that caused this‬

‭large amount of confusion. Going back to the pre-lab questions I saw that most of the‬

‭students had the same answer to a question asking what Newton’s first law was where‬

‭they had answers similar to “when an outside forces causes an object to begin or stop‬

‭moving”. While this answer is partially true, it does not hit the main point of what kind of‬

‭force is actually required. Since so many students got this wrong, I did not provide‬

‭individual feedback for this question as it would be better to go over as a class which I‬

‭discuss in the next section.‬

‭Another observation from this mini test was that students were still very confused‬

‭on the significance of a bumper in a collision. I had stressed this point heavily through‬

‭this project as it is fundamental to understanding how forces are related to many‬

‭different science and engineering practices, specifically how spreading out the duration‬

‭of a collision lowers the overall force experienced by the passengers leading to safer‬

‭collisions. Throughout the project, more students were getting to this conclusion,‬

‭however based upon the mini tests data, about 25% of students were still unclear by‬

‭providing more life-like answers of‬‭“the car will‬‭crumple”‬‭or‬‭“the wall would break”‬‭. While‬
‭these are technically true, they do not provide any insights into the physics that is taking‬

‭place while the collision is happening.‬

‭Altered Instruction Based Upon Student Thinking:‬

‭On Monday when students returned to class I had prepared a lesson that would‬

‭allow me to reteach and clear up much of the confusion. I combined this reteaching of‬

‭the material with a review game to prepare them for the additional material that will be‬

‭on the test in a few days. To begin with addressing the‬‭“outside force”‬‭idea I had a few‬

‭students volunteer to come up and push a table. I gave these volunteers the‬

‭assignment of pushing the table without having the table move, making sure that they‬

‭were the only ones to hear what they were doing. To do this, students had to push with‬

‭a low amount of force to not overcome friction, or to have two people pushing in‬

‭opposite directions. While this was happening I asked the rest of the class‬‭“are these‬

‭students exerting outside forces on the table? Is the table moving? Why isn't the table‬

‭moving?”‬‭Through this questioning, students began‬‭to ask other questions which led to‬

‭a large group discussion where I stepped back and let students answer each other's‬

‭questions only providing small adjustments when necessary to keep them on topic‬

‭using correct information.‬

‭Following this discussion where the misconceptions were corrected we began a‬

‭review game through the website Gimkit where students are given questions to earn‬

‭“energy” that allows them to play the game. This game is often used as a review‬

‭material in physical science as the kids are invested in winning the game, but to win the‬

‭game they have to accurately answer the questions. While students were playing this‬

‭game I came around to talk to specific students and small groups based upon their‬
‭individual answers to the mini-test. During my first lap around I made sure to check in‬

‭with specific students that had difficulties with questions that a majority of the class was‬

‭getting correct to see more of where their misconceptions were. During these‬

‭discussions I would ask probing questions, mainly asking “why do you think that is” to‬

‭their explanations to have them push further into their thinking and hoping to reach a‬

‭point where the student has a “ah-ha” moment and sees their mistakes. After‬

‭completing this lap I restarted in reverse order doing what I was calling a “rapid fire‬

‭review”. During this I walked around to tables with a review guide in my hands and‬

‭would randomly call on people at the table and ask them to pick a number‬

‭corresponding to a specific question that they would have to answer and also defend‬

‭their answer. While on their test they only need the correct answer, having students‬

‭defend their answers assisted in building concrete understanding of not only how the‬

‭forces work, but why they work the way that they do.‬

‭Additional Assessment to Determine Student Growth:‬

‭To conclude the unit that this SLA was conducted in, students were given a‬

‭summative assessment over the entirety of the unit. This assessment is structured very‬

‭similarly to both the review guide and the review games that we used in class‬

‭previously. Students were given a full class period to work on this assessment and were‬

‭given instant feedback as it was a Google Form. When looking at the grade breakdown‬

‭for each question I noticed that, of the topics that were on the mini-test, students‬

‭performed about 10% better overall compared to topics that were not covered and‬

‭re-taught.‬
‭Conclusion:‬

‭Through this experience I realized how little there was in terms of additional work‬

‭on myself to prepare and analyze data in the same way that I did here was. Since I‬

‭typically am already spending time grading assignments, I can just make small notes on‬

‭a separate document for myself on what students consistently get wrong and why I think‬

‭they are making mistakes. Being able to take these answers from students and turn it‬

‭into concrete data not only shows where they are struggling with the content, but also‬

‭where I may be falling short as a teacher. In the future I would like to do this at least‬

‭once a week where I could then spend 10 to 15 minutes reteaching some material as a‬

‭mini review as we progress through a unit.‬

‭Link to student answers (names removed)‬

‭https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwOzCOUOhFTSVXkzM5HzBZV77BBILzs21‬

‭Q2eqGCuRJo/edit?usp=sharing‬