Developing the learning physical science curriculum: Adapting a small enrollment, laboratory and discussion based physical science course for large enrollments

Abstract

We report on the adaptation of the small enrollment, lab and discussion based physical science course, Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PSET), for a large-enrollment, lecture-style setting. Like PSET, the new Learning Physical Science (LEPS) curriculum was designed around specific principles based on research on learning to meet the needs of nonscience students, especially prospective and practicing elementary and middle school teachers. We describe the structure of the two curricula and the adaptation process, including a detailed comparison of similar activities from the two curricula and a case study of a LEPS classroom implementation. In LEPS, short instructor-guided lessons replace lengthier small group activities, and movies, rather than hands-on investigations, provide the evidence used to support and test ideas. LEPS promotes student peer interaction as an important part of sense making via ''clicker'' questions, rather than small group and whole class discussions typical of PSET. Examples of student dialog indicate that this format is capable of generating substantive student discussion and successfully enacting the design principles. Field-test data show similar student content learning gains with the two curricula. Nevertheless, because of classroom constraints, some important practices of science that were an integral part of PSET were not included in LEPS.

Development and Evaluation of a Large-Enrollment, Active-Learning Physics Curriculum

“…These units are similar to Units 1, 2, and 3 in LEPS, which are described in [1]. Class time is spent on 'clicker' questions (which students answer with electronic response devices, often following a discussion with nearest neighbors), gathering evidence from videos of experiments and simulations, and making sense and summarizing questions.…”

“…LEP and LEPS were developed using similar sets of design objectives and learning principles [1]. These build on an understanding of learning as a complex process that builds on prior knowledge, and is facilitated through interactions with tools and peers, and by establishing behavioral norms.…”

“…In developing LEP, we sought to address two issues from the earlier curriculum, LEPS, which was adapted for large-enrollment settings from PSET [1]. While it was designed to adapt many pedagogical features of PSET, LEPS lacked or only partially included two important features: opportunities for hands-on exploration of phenomena, and construction of scientific explanations.…”

“…LEP is one of a family of related curricula: Learning Physical Science (LEPS) [1,2], Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PSET) [3], and Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) [4]. PET and PSET are intended for small, discussionbased courses, while LEPS and LEP are designed for large enrollment classes taught in a lecture-format without a lab component.…”

Improving the Attitude of Pre-service Elementary School Teachers Towards Teaching Physics

“…While many efforts have been made in recent years to improve the pre-service elementary school teacher education, their focus has been for the most part to increase the teachers' content knowledge in the sciences [13] and about the nature of scientific knowledge, about science as a human endeavor, and the unifying concepts and processes of science [14,15] However, the attitudes of future teachers towards science and science teaching have to be considered as well. Some attitude studies on a mix of non-science students and preservice teachers have been done [16], showing that preservice elementary teachers who have a favorable attitude towards science are more likely to actually teach it -rather than avoid it -once they begin teaching professionally.…”