Designing physics instruction around technological breakdown: A DLP projector case
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Konstantinos T. Kotsis 1 *
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1 Lab of Physics Education and Teaching, Department of Primary Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, GREECE* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Classroom technologies are generally regarded as impartial instruments for facilitating instruction, whereas their malfunctions are perceived as disturbances to be mitigated. This research contests conventional orientation by providing and assessing an instructional design that intentionally utilizes technological failure as a foundation for physics education. The design is located within a university course for pre-service primary educators and focuses on a defective digital light processing projector that exhibits persistent white dots due to immobilized micromirrors. The instructor utilized the malfunction as a central phenomenon for a series that facilitated observation, hypothesis formulation, representational tasks, and mechanistic elucidation. This research utilizes design-oriented analysis and micro-analysis of classroom interaction to record the evolution of students’ thinking from phenomenological descriptions to causal, model-based explanations that connect macroscopic picture artifacts to microscopic physical mechanisms. Concurrently, students’ epistemological framing of technology transitioned from black-box perceptions to more analytical, system-oriented viewpoints, accompanied by elevated levels of engagement and curiosity. The paper elucidates the pedagogical rationale of the design, analyzes its implementation in practice, and extracts transferable design principles for instruction amid technological failure. It contends that failures in routine classroom technologies can serve as significant epistemic resources, facilitating genuine inquiry, mechanistic reasoning, and pedagogical creativity. The implications for physics education, teacher training, and the development of inquiry-based professional vision are examined.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

INTERDISCIP J ENV SCI ED, Volume 22, Issue 2, 2026, Article No: e2613

https://doi.org/10.29333/ijese/18329

Publication date: 08 Apr 2026

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Article Downloads: 6

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