Disciplinary authenticity: Enriching the reforms of introductory physics courses for life-science students

Watkins, Jessica; Coffey, Janet E.; Redish, Edward F.; Cooke, Todd J.

doi:10.1103/physrevstper.8.010112

Cited by 59 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Curricular design was broadly governed by the principles of authenticity [26] and expansive framing [27,28]. Authenticity refers here to the curricular goal that students would perceive the curricular contexts to be meaningful ones, rather than attempts to find biological meaning where none actually existed (we do not, for example, consider the replacement of a car with an animal in a standard kinematics problem to be authentic).…”

Section: Curricular Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of student engagement in Introductory Physics for Life Sciences

Geller

Turpen

Crouch

2018

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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We explore the sources of student engagement with curricular content in an Introductory Physics for Life Science (IPLS) course at Swarthmore College. Do IPLS students find some life-science contexts more interesting than others, and, if so, what are the sources of these differences? We draw on three sources of student data to answer this question: (1) quantitative survey data illustrating how interested students were in particular contexts from the curriculum, (2) qualitative survey data in which students describe the source of their interest in these particular contexts, and (3) interview data in which students reflect on the contexts that were and were not of interest to them. We find that examples that make interdisciplinary connections with students' other coursework in biology and chemistry, and examples that make connections to what students perceive to be the "real world," are particularly effective at fostering interest. More generally, students describe being deeply engaged with contexts that foster a sense of coherence or have personal meaning to them. We identify various "engagement pathways" by which different life-science students engage with IPLS content, and suggest that a curriculum needs to be flexible enough to facilitate these different pathways.

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Section: Curricular Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of student engagement in Introductory Physics for Life Sciences

Geller

Turpen

Crouch

2018

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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“…Eräs toinen tiedeopetukselle yleisesti asetettu tavoite on, että sen tulisi olla autenttista. Tiedeopetuksen autenttisuudella tarkoitetaan tyypillisesti sitä, että tiedeopetuksen tulee heijastella tieteelle luonteenomaisia piirteitä (sisältöjen ja työta-pojen osalta) tai, että oppilaille muodostuu totuudenmukainen kuva fysiikasta tieteenä (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002;Gilbert, 2004;Koponen & Nousiainen, 2015;Watkins, Coffey, Redish, & Cooke, 2012).…”

Section: Johdantounclassified

“…Nämä piirteet voivat olla tieteen käsitteitä, menetelmiä, prosesseja, epistemologiaa ja ajattelutapoja (Crawford, 2012, Watkins, Coffey, Redish, & Cooke, 2012. Esimerkiksi Chinn ja Malthora (2002) tarkastelivat episteemisesti autenttisten koulutehtävien tunnusmerkkejä, ja Gilbert (2004) keskittyi mallien ja mallintamisen rooliin autenttisessa tiedeopetuksessa.…”

Section: Tavoitteiden Tarkastelu Relevanssin Ja Autenttisuuden Näkökuunclassified

Tiedeopetuksen muuttuvat tavoitteet

Kokkonen

Laherto

2018

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Luonnontieteiden kouluopetuksen tavoitteita on jo pitkään laajennettu tieteellisen sisältötiedon ulkopuolelle. Perinteisen sisältötietopainotuksen sijaan on alettu korostaa luonnontieteellistä lukutaitoa (engl. scientific literacy), jonka tavoitteena on antaa oppilaille valmiuksia osallistua tieteeseen ja teknologiaan liittyvään keskusteluun ja päätöksentekoon henkilökohtaisissa, yhteiskunnallisissa ja globaaleissa kysymyksissä. Suomen tuoreen opetussuunnitelmauudistuksen painotukset ja ilmiöpohjaisuus ovat osa tätä maailmanlaajuista kehitystä. Tässä artikkelissa esitämme, että luonnontieteellisen lukutaidon opettamiseen ja ilmiöoppimiseen liittyy ratkaisemattomia jännitteitä. Vaikka nykyisissä tavoitteissa korostuu opetuksen relevanssi oppijan ja yhteiskunnan kannalta, sisältötieto määritellään edelleen pitkälti oppiainelähtöisen autenttisuuden näkökulmasta. Me argumentoimme, että opetusmenetelmien ja kontekstien lisäksi myös sisältötieto on uudelleenmääriteltävä muuttuneiden tavoitteiden mukaiseksi. The goals of science education expand beyond traditional scientific content knowledge. Scientific literacy has become an important goal, offering students knowledge and skills to engage in public discussion and decision making in personal, societal and global issues related to science and technology. The recent changes in Finnish Core Curricula towards phenomenon-based learning represent these global trends in science education. In this paper, we argue that there are unresolved tensions in the the pursuit for scientific literacy and phenomenon-based learning. While the current aims of science education emphasize relevance for the student and the society, content knowledge is still defined on the basis of disciplinary authenticity. We argue that in addition to the teaching methods and contexts also content knowledge needs to be redefined to reflect the changing goals of science education.

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“…In fact, many students who complete introductory physics fail to view even physics itself as a coherent knowledge structure [1]. This failure suggests that after completing an introductory physics course students are almost certainly unable to meet the challenge [2] of relating the physics that they studied to phenomena encountered in other fields such as chemistry and biology. Furthermore, they are probably not able to approach, simplify, and quantify the complex systems characteristics of these fields with the tools offered by physics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity

Langbeheim

Safran

Livne

et al. 2013

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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We analyze the development in students' understanding of fundamental principles in the context of learning a current interdisciplinary research topic-soft matter-that was adapted to the level of high school students. The topic was introduced in a program for interested 11th grade high school students majoring in chemistry and/or physics, in an off-school setting. Soft matter was presented in a gradual increase in the degree of complexity of the phenomena as well as in the level of the quantitative analysis. We describe the evolution in students' use of fundamental thermodynamics principles to reason about phase separation-a phenomenon that is ubiquitous in soft matter. In particular, we examine the impact of the use of free energy analysis, a common approach in soft matter, on the understanding of the fundamental principles of thermodynamics. The study used diagnostic questions and classroom observations to gauge the student's learning. In order to gain insight on the aspects that shape the understanding of the basic principles, we focus on the responses and explanations of two case-study students who represent two trends of evolution in conceptual understanding in the group. We analyze changes in the two case studies' management of conceptual resources used in their analysis of phase separation, and suggest how their prior knowledge and epistemological framing (a combination of their personal tendencies and their prior exposure to different learning styles) affect their conceptual evolution. Finally, we propose strategies to improve the instruction of these concepts.

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Disciplinary authenticity: Enriching the reforms of introductory physics courses for life-science students

Cited by 59 publications

References 27 publications

Sources of student engagement in Introductory Physics for Life Sciences

Sources of student engagement in Introductory Physics for Life Sciences

Tiedeopetuksen muuttuvat tavoitteet

Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity

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