graphing

Plotting x-t data for Constant Acceleration

This year I had students use Excel for plotting graphs in physics. I went pretty good for constant velocity but very awkward for constant acceleration. It required students to manually find tangent lines on their x-t graphs, calculate slopes, then put it all together coherently to produce a v-t graph. There are lots of things going on in this task and while I think many physics teachers see value in this, I also think that performing all the manual steps the confounds foundation ideas in the constant acceleration model.