PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

(^) The tendency of these problem-solving groups to avoid direct conflict may help
explain the roles of the Modified Claim and Alternate Claim. The isolated Modified
Claim may be a lower level of creative controversy. When the Modified Claim leads to
an Alternate Claim, the Modified Claim is a first step in the creative controversy process.
The Alternate Claim, with the inherent challenge, is a more obvious form of creative
controversy. It allows students to disagree with one another without being critical of one
another. That is, the Alternate Claim is a crucial step in the process of argument co-
construction. This suggests the making of Modified and Alternate Claims are not ends in
themselves, but steps in a process of argument construction. They are a high-level form
of elaboration. But, conflict avoidance may only be a part of the reason for using
Alternate Claims instead of direct challenges. To further explore the reasons for using
Alternate Claims, I turned to the groups that do not use them.
Why Do Some Groups Not Use Alternate Claims?
It is apparent from Figure 4-2 (page 136) that seven of the prototype patterns
contain Alternate Claims and nine do not typically contain Alternate Claims. In other
words, five of the fourteen groups use Alternate Claims and the other nine groups
typically do not use Alternate Claims, but do use Modified Claims. In the previous
sections Why do Some Groups Use Alternate Claims? and Creative Controversy, I
suggested the Alternate Claim and Modified Claim are a form of creative controversy.
The view of the Modified Claim in that discussion is that the Modified Claim is a step
leading to the Alternate Claim. However, there are Modified Claims that stand isolated
from Alternate Claims. Thus, another way to phrase the theme of this section is, “Why