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The Physics Teacher -- September 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 6, pp. 380

Motivating Calculus-Based Kinematics Instruction with Super Mario Bros

Jeffrey C. Nordine

Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

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High-quality physics instruction is contextualized, motivates students to learn, and represents the discipline as a way of investigating the world rather than as a collection of facts and equations.1 Inquiry-oriented pedagogy, such as problem-based instruction, holds great promise for both teaching physics content and representing the process of doing real science.2 A challenge for physics teachers is to find instructional contexts that are meaningful, accessible, and motivating for students. Today's students are spending a growing fraction of their lives interacting with virtual environments, and these environments—physically realistic or not—can provide valuable contexts for physics explorations3–5 and lead to thoughtful discussions about decisions that programmers make when designing virtual environments. In this article, I describe a problem-based approach to calculus-based kinematics instruction that contextualizes students' learning within the Super Mario Bros. video game—a game that is more than 20 years old, but still remarkably popular with today's high school and college students.

© 2011 American Association of Physics Teachers

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank two of my students: Trevor Phillips, whose insight provided the basis for the Super Mario Bros. unit, and Emily Youngblood, who graciously allowed me to include her work in this paper.

Article Outline

  1. Problem situations in Super Mario Bros.
    1. The Mario Flagpole Problem
    2. The Invincibility Star Problem
    3. Gravity in Mario's World Problem
  2. Student reaction to the unit
  3. Conclusion

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

computer games, kinematics, physics education

PACS

  • 01.50.ht

    Instructional computer use

  • 01.50.ff

    Films; electronic video devices

  • 45.40.-f

    Dynamics and kinematics of rigid bodies

  • 45.50.-j

    Dynamics and kinematics of a particle and a system of particles

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0031-921X (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Association of Physics Teachers

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3628271

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