arXiv:1502.06340
Video Analysis and Modeling Performance Task to promote becoming like scientists in classrooms
Performance tasks using video analysis and modeling
Research Digest
The key contribution is the framing of video analysis as a performance task: students do not only answer end-of-chapter questions, they collect evidence, model a situation, and defend a scientific explanation. It is a practical bridge between school physics and the habits of scientists.
Use It Tomorrow
Give students a real motion clip, a guiding question, and a model-building requirement. The product can be a graph, a fitted model, and a short claim-evidence-reasoning explanation.
Pedagogical Move
Assess the quality of the model and the evidence, not only the final numerical answer.
Student Agency
Frame the task so students work like young scientists: they choose or justify the variable to test, make a prediction, collect evidence, defend a claim, and decide how to improve the model or investigation.
Discussion Prompts
- What evidence does the model, video, or activity make visible?
- Which variable should students change first, and what should they keep constant?
- What claim can students make from the evidence, and what limitation should they acknowledge?
Reveal suggested answers
- Evidence: The performance task makes evidence collection, modelling, explanation, uncertainty, and scientific argument visible as student work.
- Variable: Change one modelling choice first, such as fit type or tracked point; keep the video, scale, research question, and data-collection method fixed.
- Claim: Students can claim that their model explains the measured event, while acknowledging data uncertainty and assumptions just as scientists do.