Multiple tools for visualizing equipotential surfaces: Optimizing for instructional goals

Curriculum developers are interested in how to leverage various instructional tools like whiteboards, Mathematica notebooks, and tangible models to maximize learning. Instructional tools mediate student learning and different tools support learning differently. We are interested in understanding how the features of instructional tools influence student engagement during classroom activities and how to design activities to match tools with instructional goals. In this paper, we explore these questions by examining an instructional activity designed to help advanced undergraduate physics students understand and visualize the electrostatic potential. During the activity, students use three different tools: a whiteboard, a pre-programmed Mathematica notebook, and a 3D surface model of the electric potential. We discuss how the tools may be used to address the the instructional goals of the activity. We illustrate this discussion with examples from classroom video.