Kitagawa, MidoriFishwick, Paul AnthonyKesden, MichaelUrquhart, MaryGuadagno, R.Jin, RongTran, Ngoc M.Omogbehin, ErikPrakash, AdityaAwaraddi, PriyankaHale, BailySuura, KenRaj, A.Stanfield, J.Vo, H.2020-03-182020-03-182019-069781450367233http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3316480.3325513https://hdl.handle.net/10735.1/7410Due to copyright restrictions and/or publisher's policy full text access from Treasures at UT Dallas is limited to current UTD affiliates (use the provided Link to Article).We are a year into the development of a software tool for modeling and simulation (M&S) of 1D and 2D kinematics consistent with Newton’s laws of motion. Our goal has been to introduce modeling and computational thinking into learning high-school physics. There are two main contributions from an M&S perspective: (1) the use of conceptual modeling, and (2) the application of Finite State Machines (FSMs) to model physical behavior. Both of these techniques have been used by the M&S community to model high-level “soft systems” and discrete events. However, they have not been used to teach physics and represent ways in which M&S can improve physics education. We introduce the NSF-sponsored STEPP project along with its hypothesis and goals. We also describe the development of the three STEPP modules, the server architecture, the assessment plan, and the expected outcomes. ©2019 Association of Computing Machinery.en©2019 Association of Computing MachineryThought and thinkingConcept mappingSequential machine theoryModelingPhysicsProgramming (Electronic computers)ScaffoldingComputer simulationComputer softwareSequential machine theoryProgramming (Mathematics)ScaffoldingComputer-aided software engineeringarticleKitagawa, M., P. Fishwick, M. Kesden, M. Urquhart, et al. 2019. "Scaffolded training environment for physics programming (STEPP)." SIGSIM-PADS 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation: 127-136, doi: 10.1145/3316480.3325513