Patterning
“Every moment of every day we organize the random events we see, hear, or feel by grouping them” (Root-Bernstein, 92).
Original Pattern
New Pattern
What I consider defining element of patterning is defined in the quote at the top of the page: the constant subconscious process we use to to organize our perceptions of the outside world.
Thinking about my topic, sports and science, the first pattern I thought of was the relationship between friction and the properties of surfaces. In terms of a formula, this pattern can be expressed as the following: the rougher a surface, the more friction that surface creates, and therefore the less time an object moving along that surface will take to slow to a stop. The standard way I thought of for students to learn about this pattern would be to have them do an experiment with the type of surface as the variable and using a chart to record their results. The chart I would give to students to use for such an experiment is the Original Pattern above. This pattern, and the experiment that corresponds to it, helps students learn about friction by organizing their data in a way that allows them to see the pattern described in the formula. The fact that the students would be instructed to use their hands to feel each surface, from sand to plastic, also helps them experience a new dimension of how roughness and smoothness relate to what they eventually observe about the time the item takes to slow down.
The one learning difficulty created by this pattern, which I didn’t notice until I thought of the New Pattern, is that it boxes student thinking about friction into its most basic application, possibly preventing them from seeing how friction affects the world around them, including sports, in many ways other than objects moving along surfaces. The new pattern, since it was not the traditional experiment related to friction, did not come to mind until I began brainstorming other ways friction impacted sports.
The key realization I had was when I thought about why baseball players use mitts to catch but football players simply use their hands. My mind immediately turned to the different surfaces and a whole new pattern related to friction, one that I had never perceived before, came into focus. This pattern can be described with the following rule: the rougher the surface of a ball, the more friction is created between the ball and your hands, and the easier it is to catch. This pattern still describes the same concept, the relationship between surfaces and friction, but its application to sports is entirely different.
The chart I created for this new pattern is what I would give students for an experiment related to it, helping them envision the pattern as well. The variable would be the type of ball (baseball, football, golf ball, etc.) and students would record how often they could catch each one, and explore why it was easier to catch different balls in order to create their own formula or pattern. This experiment would not only reinforce the connection between surface and friction illustrated in the original experiment but would also help alleviate the concern with the original patterned experiment because it would allow students to experience an alternative example of how friction affects sports, beyond the most obvious one.
After coming up with this new experiment, I realized the importance of looking beyond the standard examples and formulas that are often treated as "gods" of math and science. It reminded me of the discussion in the chapters on patterning in Sparks of Genius about how mathematicians use many different routes to reach conclusions, but eventually only one of those gets honored in a textbook and taught to our students to memorize. From now on, when thinking about patterns in the science of sports, I will make an effort to try to look for the pattern that is not immediately obvious to me based on what I have learned in school because doing so will enable me to broaden my student’s understandings of science concepts.