Introductory physics labs: We can do better

Holmes, N. G.; Wieman, Carl

doi:10.1063/pt.3.3816

Cited by 127 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The list of activities associated with this practice has a great deal of overlap with the goals of a typical physics lab activity. This raises the possibility that CT may contribute something useful to the current debate over the usefulness of physics labs ( [13,14]). We will return to this topic later.…”

Section: Defining Computational Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is not difficult to imagine similar activities for projectile motion or the "coffee filter" experiment where students model the mo-tion of a falling object with air drag. There is some debate now regarding the value of physics labs [13,14] and activities of this kind may provide a useful new direction for research, especially now that an increasing number of smartphones and tablets can record slow motion video at 240 frames per second. This is the same frame rate that many of excellent direct measurement videos from Peter Bohacek 1 were recorded [24].…”

Section: Thoughts For the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

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Computational Thinking in Introductory Physics

Orban

Teeling-Smith

2020

The Physics Teacher

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Computational thinking” (CT) is still a relatively new term in the lexicon of learning objectives and science standards. The term was popularized in an essay by Wing, who said, “To reading, writing and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability.” Agreeing with this premise, in 2013 the authors of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) included “mathematical and computational thinking” as one of eight essential science and engineering practices that K-12 teachers should strive to develop in their students. There is not yet widespread agreement on the precise definition or implementation of CT, and efforts to assess CT are still maturing, even as more states adopt K-12 computer science standards. In this article we will try to summarize what CT means for a typical introductory (i.e., high school or early college) physics class. This will include a discussion of the ways that instructors may already be incorporating elements of CT in their classes without knowing it.

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Section: Defining Computational Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Thoughts For the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Thinking in Introductory Physics

Orban

Teeling-Smith

2020

The Physics Teacher

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“…In a landmark study, the contributions of undergraduate physics labs to learning outcomes was recently investigated by Natasha G. Holmes and Carl E. Wieman . This detailed and comprehensive study was carried out on different physics undergraduate lab courses, over multiple institutes in the U.S., involving multiple instructors and more than 3,000 students.…”

Section: Introduction: the Goals And Challenges Of Undergraduate Labsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To understand the reasons behind the lack of benefits, the authors probed further and discovered that the causes could be found in the “structured” or “content‐based” labs . As the authors explain: “The only thinking that the students said they did in the structured lab and content focussed labs was in analysing data and checking if it was feasible to finish the lab in time.…”

Section: Introduction: the Goals And Challenges Of Undergraduate Labsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An inquiry‐based approach in large undergraduate labs: Learning, by doing it the “wrong” way

Bachhawat

Pandit

Banerjee

et al. 2020

Biochem Molecular Bio Educ

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Undergraduate laboratory courses, owing to their larger sizes and shorter time slots, are often conducted in highly structured modes. However, this approach is known to interfere with students' engagement in the experiments. To enhance students' engagement, we propose an alternative mode of running laboratory courses by creating some "disorder" in a previously adopted structure. After performing an experiment in the right way, the students were asked to repeat the experiment but with a variation at certain steps leading to the experiment being done the "wrong" way. Although this approach led to fewer experiments being conducted in a semester, it significantly enhanced the students' involvement. This was also reflected in the students' feedback. The majority of students preferred repeating an experiment with a variant protocol than performing a new experiment. Although we have tested this inquirybased approach only for an undergraduate laboratory course in molecular biology, we believe such an approach could also be extended to undergraduate laboratory courses of other subjects. K E Y W O R D Sinquiry based teaching, laboratory exercises, molecular biology, new course development, problem-based learning

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“…In particular, our final lab course aims to teach students how to develop research goals, define criteria, and assess feasibility. A student design approach provides the best opportunity for accomplishing each of these goals [3,4], but effective methods for student designed labs have not been fully explored. We discuss a novel approach to student designed labs aimed at helping students develop their ideas and make plans before the execution phase of a project while providing students a more authentic view of experimental research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Think First, Act Later - A Course Structure for Improving Student Designed Experiments

Powers¹,

Durfee²,

Allred³

2018

2018 Conference on Laboratory Instruction Beyond the First Year of College

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There is a natural tendency for students to act first (e.g. -build and conduct experiments) and think later (e.g.outline goals, identify challenges, predict outcomes, etc.). This is often apparent in labs that include student design components. We have developed a lab course structure that teaches students how to develop their ideas and make plans before beginning an experiment by providing multiple opportunities for peer and instructor feedback. As a result, we have seen significant improvements in the success rate and quality of student-designed experiments and presentations. We provide a detailed explanation of the course structure and rubrics and evidence of the impacts of this course structure.

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Introductory physics labs: We can do better

Abstract: Research reveals that labs are more effective when their goal is to teach experimental practices rather than to reinforce classroom instruction.

Cited by 127 publications

References 17 publications

Computational Thinking in Introductory Physics

Computational Thinking in Introductory Physics

An inquiry‐based approach in large undergraduate labs: Learning, by doing it the “wrong” way

Think First, Act Later - A Course Structure for Improving Student Designed Experiments

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