Guest Comment: How we teach and how students learn—A mismatch?

McDermott, Lillian C.

doi:10.1119/1.17258

Cited by 150 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

105

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Standard physics textbooks present equations in terms of general symbols and elaborate upon what those symbols stand for; however, there is little guidance for students regarding when it is useful to apply a particular relation to a problem [15]. Understanding the "conditions of applicability" for a principle and the procedures for determining whether the necessary conditions have been met are essential for proficient problem solving, and these conceptual aspects need to be made explicit during instruction [6,14,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Physics teaching in both high school and college places an emphasis on problem solving [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], and although students demonstrate reasonable competence in traditional assessments of problem solving skills, there is evidence that understanding of fairly fundamental concepts is weak or lacking following completion of introductory courses [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Students in introductory physics courses solve problems largely using a process termed means-ends analysis, whereby they search for equations containing the quantities in a problem and try to reduce the "distance" between the goal state and their current state in the solution process [5,8,15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Conceptual problem solving in high school physics

Docktor

Strand

Mestre

et al. 2015

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Problem solving is a critical element of learning physics. However, traditional instruction often emphasizes the quantitative aspects of problem solving such as equations and mathematical procedures rather than qualitative analysis for selecting appropriate concepts and principles. This study describes the development and evaluation of an instructional approach called Conceptual Problem Solving (CPS) which guides students to identify principles, justify their use, and plan their solution in writing before solving a problem. The CPS approach was implemented by high school physics teachers at three schools for major theorems and conservation laws in mechanics and CPS-taught classes were compared to control classes taught using traditional problem solving methods. Information about the teachers' implementation of the approach was gathered from classroom observations and interviews, and the effectiveness of the approach was evaluated from a series of written assessments. Results indicated that teachers found CPS easy to integrate into their curricula, students engaged in classroom discussions and produced problem solutions of a higher quality than before, and students scored higher on conceptual and problem solving measures.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual problem solving in high school physics

Docktor

Strand

Mestre

et al. 2015

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This theoretical article is about the teaching and learning challenges that arise from students experiencing this partiality of representations, where important physics aspects are not initially discernible. These issues are educationally important because what creates a powerful communicative system for physics at the same time manifests in the difficulties students experience in terms of becoming "fluent" [2] (p. 28) in the disciplinary-specific representations [2,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Theoretical details from the literature, together with the concept of disciplinary affordance [11,12], are used to underpin a case that physics representations need to be "unpacked" for students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance

Fredlund

Linder

Airey

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This theoretical article problematizes the access to disciplinary knowledge that different physics representations have the possibility to provide; that is, their disciplinary affordances. It is argued that historically such access has become increasingly constrained for students as physics representations have been rationalized over time. Thus, the case is made that such rationalized representations, while powerful for communication from a disciplinary point of view, manifest as learning challenges for students. The proposal is illustrated using a vignette from a student discussion in the physics laboratory about circuit connections for an experimental investigation of the charging and discharging of a capacitor. It is concluded that in order for students to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordances of representations, more attention needs to be paid to their "unpacking." Building on this conclusion, two questions are proposed that teachers can ask themselves in order to begin to unpack the representations that they use in their teaching. The paper ends by proposing directions for future research in this area.

show abstract

“…Previous research has shown that student knowledge about topics discussed in physics courses often tends to be situation-specific, concentrated on sensory features of physical objects, weakly structured and fragmented (Halloun & Hestenes 1985-a & b;Hammer 1994;McDermott 1993;Novak 1987Novak , 1994Reif 1987;Reif & Allen 1992). VASS data suggest that student reactions to physics courses may be limited by an epistemological view that physics consists of a loose collection of directly perceived facts.…”

Section: Structurementioning

confidence: 91%

“…They often attack problems by searching lists of formulas for given variables rather than constructing clear depictions for the situations at hand (Arons 1984;Chi, Feltovich & Glaser 1981;Hammer 1994;Larkin et al 1980;McDermott 1993;Novak 1987Novak , 1994Reif 1987;Reif & Larkin 1991;Strnad 1986;Van Heuvelen 1991;Viennot 1985). VASS data suggest that these behaviors may be guided by erroneous beliefs about the methods of physics.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%