On October 20, 2015 SyMETRI meeting, we discussed an interesting article posted by Dr. Milner-Bolotin. The article explores “whether knowledge of physics guides attention differently for experts and novices when they inspect physics-relevant changes or physics-irrelevant changes” (Morphew, Mestre, Ross & Strand, 2015). Prime highlights of the discussion focused on the following questions:

who is an expert or novice ?

How will educators positionality as experts or novice influence their teaching strategies and relationship with students? Interesting in the discussion was the need for educators to take humbling stance in their approach to teaching rather than positioning themselves as people who “know it all” (Milner-Bolotin).

We also did an interesting visual cognition exercise (led by Dr. Nicol)

The diagram below is one of many diagrams from the article we discussed. Participants in the study where asked to identify “physics relevant” changes in the diagrams.

Thanks to everyone who made it to this week’s meeting. We are looking forward to meeting you all on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015: 1:00 – 2:30 pm.