Title: Reinventing College Physics for Biologists: Explicating an epistemological curriculum
arxiv.org
Edward F. Redish and David Hammer
The University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group (UMd-PERG) carried out a five-year research project to rethink, observe, and reform introductory algebra-based (college) physics. This class is one of the Maryland Physics Department's large service courses, serving primarily life-science majors. After consultation with biologists, we re-focused the class on helping the students learn to think scientifically -- to build coherence, think in terms of mechanism, and to follow the implications of assumptions. We designed the course to tap into students' productive conceptual and epistemological resources, based on a theoretical framework from research on learning. The reformed class retains its traditional structure in terms of time and instructional personnel, but we modified existing best-practices curricular materials, including Peer Instruction, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, and Tutorials. We provided class-controlled spaces for student collaboration, which allowed us to observe and record students learning directly. We also scanned all written homework and examinations, and we administered pre-post conceptual and epistemological surveys. The reformed class enhanced the strong gains on pre-post conceptual tests produced by the best-practices materials while obtaining unprecedented pre-post gains on epistemological surveys instead of the traditional losses.
Showing posts with label Redish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Redish. Show all posts
2008-07-29
2008-06-09
Zia Redish McKay - arxiv.org 2008
Making Sense of the Legendre Transform
arxiv.org
R. K. P. Zia (Virginia Tech), Edward F. Redish (U Maryland), and Susan R. McKay (U. Maine)
The Legendre Transform (LT) is a common feature of many upper division and graduate physics classes. However, discussions of it tend to be ad hoc, poorly motivated, and confusing. As a result, the LT equations become something to be memorized without understanding. In this paper we describe a more satisfying way of looking at LT relations both mathematically and physically. Mathematically this results in highly symmetric equations that clarify the structure of the transform both algebraically and geometrically. Physically, we motivate the transform as an issue of choosing independent variables that are easily controlled and give examples drawn from classical mechanics and thermodynamics. In thermodynamics, we demonstrate how the LT arising naturally from statistical mechanics and show how use of dimensionless thermodynamic potentials lead to more natural and symmetric relations.
COMMENTARY: This paper isn't really about PER, but the writers are fascinating bunch. Joe Redish is, well, Joe Redish. Susan McKay is founding director of the University of Maine Center for Science and Mathematics Education Research (where I work, after all...). And together with Zia, a friend, they wrote a paper which gets deeply into the meaningfulness of some mathematics used in physics. Papers like these might serve as a push for certain kinds of research on student understanding at the upper level, but that's not why I'm posting. I'm posting because 2 of the authors are mentors of mine, so there!
arxiv.org
R. K. P. Zia (Virginia Tech), Edward F. Redish (U Maryland), and Susan R. McKay (U. Maine)
The Legendre Transform (LT) is a common feature of many upper division and graduate physics classes. However, discussions of it tend to be ad hoc, poorly motivated, and confusing. As a result, the LT equations become something to be memorized without understanding. In this paper we describe a more satisfying way of looking at LT relations both mathematically and physically. Mathematically this results in highly symmetric equations that clarify the structure of the transform both algebraically and geometrically. Physically, we motivate the transform as an issue of choosing independent variables that are easily controlled and give examples drawn from classical mechanics and thermodynamics. In thermodynamics, we demonstrate how the LT arising naturally from statistical mechanics and show how use of dimensionless thermodynamic potentials lead to more natural and symmetric relations.
COMMENTARY: This paper isn't really about PER, but the writers are fascinating bunch. Joe Redish is, well, Joe Redish. Susan McKay is founding director of the University of Maine Center for Science and Mathematics Education Research (where I work, after all...). And together with Zia, a friend, they wrote a paper which gets deeply into the meaningfulness of some mathematics used in physics. Papers like these might serve as a push for certain kinds of research on student understanding at the upper level, but that's not why I'm posting. I'm posting because 2 of the authors are mentors of mine, so there!
2008-05-30
FFPER 2007 in the APS Forum on Education - 2008
APS Forum on Education Newsletter
The Spring 2008 newsletter of the APS Forum on Education contains a section with the Working Group reports from the 2007 Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research Conference, held in Bar Harbor, Maine, in August, 2007.
The Spring 2008 newsletter of the APS Forum on Education contains a section with the Working Group reports from the 2007 Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research Conference, held in Bar Harbor, Maine, in August, 2007.
- Background on Working Group Reports from the Foundations and Frontiers in Physics Education Research
Karen Cummings - Non-Traditional Methods of Publication
David E. Meltzer - PER and TA Preparation
MacKenzie Stetzer - The Perfect Parent Organization for PER
Edward F. Redish and David Brooks - A Ph.D. in Physics Education Research
Jennifer Blue and Stephen Kanim - Report of the FFPER 2007 International PER Working Group
Genaro Zavala and Brian Pyper
2008-03-18
Bing Redish - AJP 2008
Symbolic manipulators affect mathematical mindsets.
American Journal of Physics, Volume 76, Number 4 (April 2008), pp. 418-424
Thomas J. Bing, Edward F. Redish
The use of symbolic calculators such as MATHEMATICA is becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. The presence of such powerful calculators can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. These tools do not merely offer students a convenient way to perform the calculations they would have otherwise done by hand. We present examples from the work of upper level physics majors where MATHEMATICA plays an active role in focusing and sustaining their thoughts around calculation. These students still engage in powerful mathematical reasoning while they calculate, but struggle because of the narrowed breadth of their thinking. We model MATHEMATICA’S influence as an integral part of the constant feedback that occurs in how students frame, and hence focus, their work.
American Journal of Physics, Volume 76, Number 4 (April 2008), pp. 418-424
Thomas J. Bing, Edward F. Redish
The use of symbolic calculators such as MATHEMATICA is becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. The presence of such powerful calculators can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. These tools do not merely offer students a convenient way to perform the calculations they would have otherwise done by hand. We present examples from the work of upper level physics majors where MATHEMATICA plays an active role in focusing and sustaining their thoughts around calculation. These students still engage in powerful mathematical reasoning while they calculate, but struggle because of the narrowed breadth of their thinking. We model MATHEMATICA’S influence as an integral part of the constant feedback that occurs in how students frame, and hence focus, their work.
2008-03-05
Gupta Redish Hammer - PERC 2007
Coordination of Mathematics and Physical Resources by Physics Graduate Students
arxiv.org and PERC 2007
Ayush Gupta, Edward F. Redish, and David Hammer
We investigate the dynamics of how graduate students coordinate their mathematics and physics knowledge within the context of solving a homework problem for a plasma physics survey course. Students were asked to obtain the complex dielectric function for a plasma with a specified distribution function and find the roots of that expression. While all the 16 participating students obtained the dielectric function correctly in one of two equivalent expressions, roughly half of them (7 of 16) failed to compute the roots correctly. All seven took the same initial step that led them to the incorrect answer. We note a perfect correlation between the specific expression of dielectric function obtained and the student's success in solving for the roots. We analyze student responses in terms of a resources framework and suggest routes for future research.
Journal-ref: 2007 Physics Education Research Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 951, pp. 104-107 (2007)
DOI: 10.1063/1.2820906
arxiv.org and PERC 2007
Ayush Gupta, Edward F. Redish, and David Hammer
We investigate the dynamics of how graduate students coordinate their mathematics and physics knowledge within the context of solving a homework problem for a plasma physics survey course. Students were asked to obtain the complex dielectric function for a plasma with a specified distribution function and find the roots of that expression. While all the 16 participating students obtained the dielectric function correctly in one of two equivalent expressions, roughly half of them (7 of 16) failed to compute the roots correctly. All seven took the same initial step that led them to the incorrect answer. We note a perfect correlation between the specific expression of dielectric function obtained and the student's success in solving for the roots. We analyze student responses in terms of a resources framework and suggest routes for future research.
Journal-ref: 2007 Physics Education Research Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 951, pp. 104-107 (2007)
DOI: 10.1063/1.2820906
Gupta Hammer Redish - arxiv.org 2008
The Case for Dynamic Models of Learners' Ontologies in Physics
arxiv.org
Ayush Gupta, David Hammer, and Edward F. Redish
Submitted to The Journal of the Learning Sciences on 02/28/2008
In a series of well-known papers, Chi and Slotta (Chi, 1992; Chi & Slotta, 1993; Chi, Slotta & de Leeuw, 1994; Slotta, Chi & Joram, 1995; Chi, 2005; Slotta & Chi, 2006) have contended that a reason for students' difficulties in learning physics is that they think about concepts as things rather than as processes, and that there is a significant barrier between these two ontological categories. We contest this view, arguing that expert and novice reasoning often and productively traverses ontological categories. We cite examples from everyday, classroom, and professional contexts to illustrate this. We agree with Chi and Slotta that instruction should attend to learners' ontologies; but we find these ontologies are better understood as dynamic and context-dependent, rather than as static constraints. To promote one ontological description in physics instruction, as suggested by Slotta and Chi, could undermine novices' access to productive cognitive resources they bring to their studies and inhibit their transition to the dynamic ontological flexibility required of experts.
arxiv.org
Ayush Gupta, David Hammer, and Edward F. Redish
Submitted to The Journal of the Learning Sciences on 02/28/2008
In a series of well-known papers, Chi and Slotta (Chi, 1992; Chi & Slotta, 1993; Chi, Slotta & de Leeuw, 1994; Slotta, Chi & Joram, 1995; Chi, 2005; Slotta & Chi, 2006) have contended that a reason for students' difficulties in learning physics is that they think about concepts as things rather than as processes, and that there is a significant barrier between these two ontological categories. We contest this view, arguing that expert and novice reasoning often and productively traverses ontological categories. We cite examples from everyday, classroom, and professional contexts to illustrate this. We agree with Chi and Slotta that instruction should attend to learners' ontologies; but we find these ontologies are better understood as dynamic and context-dependent, rather than as static constraints. To promote one ontological description in physics instruction, as suggested by Slotta and Chi, could undermine novices' access to productive cognitive resources they bring to their studies and inhibit their transition to the dynamic ontological flexibility required of experts.
2008-02-22
Redish Smith - arxiv.org 2008
Looking Beyond Content: Skill development for engineers
arxiv.org
Edward F. Redish and Karl A. Smith
Current concerns over reforming engineering education have focused attention on helping students develop skills and an adaptive expertise. Phenomenological guidelines for instruction along these lines can be understood as arising out of an emerging theory of thinking and learning built on results in the neural, cognitive, and behavioral sciences. We outline this framework and consider some of its implications for one example: developing a more detailed understanding of the specific skill of using mathematics in modeling physical situations. This approach provides theoretical underpinnings for some best-practice instructional methods designed to help students develop this skill and provides guidance for further research in the area.
License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
arxiv.org
Edward F. Redish and Karl A. Smith
Current concerns over reforming engineering education have focused attention on helping students develop skills and an adaptive expertise. Phenomenological guidelines for instruction along these lines can be understood as arising out of an emerging theory of thinking and learning built on results in the neural, cognitive, and behavioral sciences. We outline this framework and consider some of its implications for one example: developing a more detailed understanding of the specific skill of using mathematics in modeling physical situations. This approach provides theoretical underpinnings for some best-practice instructional methods designed to help students develop this skill and provides guidance for further research in the area.
License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
2007-12-10
Bing Redish - arxiv.org 2007
Symbolic Manipulators Affect Mathematical Mindsets
Thomas J. Bing and Edward F. Redish
arXiv:0712.1187
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 16:57:24 GMT (202kb)
Symbolic calculators like Mathematica are becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. The presence of such a powerful calculator can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. It does not merely offer a convenient way to perform the computations students would have otherwise wanted to do by hand. This paper presents examples from the work of upper level physics majors where Mathematica plays an active role in focusing and sustaining their thought around calculation. These students still engage in powerful mathematical reasoning while they calculate but struggle because of the narrowed breadth of their thinking. Their reasoning is drawn into local attractors where they look to calculation schemes to resolve questions instead of, for example, mapping the mathematics to the physical system at hand. We model the influence of Mathematica as an integral part of the constant feedback that occurs in how students frame, and hence focus, their work.
Thomas J. Bing and Edward F. Redish
arXiv:0712.1187
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 16:57:24 GMT (202kb)
Symbolic calculators like Mathematica are becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. The presence of such a powerful calculator can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. It does not merely offer a convenient way to perform the computations students would have otherwise wanted to do by hand. This paper presents examples from the work of upper level physics majors where Mathematica plays an active role in focusing and sustaining their thought around calculation. These students still engage in powerful mathematical reasoning while they calculate but struggle because of the narrowed breadth of their thinking. Their reasoning is drawn into local attractors where they look to calculation schemes to resolve questions instead of, for example, mapping the mathematics to the physical system at hand. We model the influence of Mathematica as an integral part of the constant feedback that occurs in how students frame, and hence focus, their work.
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