Time and space: undergraduate Mexican physics in motion

This is an ethnographic study of the trajectories and itineraries of undergraduate physics students at a Mexican university. In this work learning is understood as being able to move oneself and, other things (cultural tools), through the space–time networks of a discipline (Nespor in Knowledge in motion: space, time and curriculum in undergraduate physics and management. Routledge Farmer, London, 1994). The potential of this socio-cultural perspective allows an analysis of how students are connected through extended spaces and times with an international core discipline as well as with cultural features related to local networks of power and construction. Through an example, I show that, from an actor-network-theory (Latour in Science in action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1987), that in order to understand the complexities of undergraduate physics processes of learning you have to break classroom walls and take into account students’ movements through complex spatial and temporal traces of the discipline of physics. Mexican professors do not give classes following one textbook but in a moment-to-moment open dynamism tending to include undergraduate students as actors in classroom events extending the teaching space–time of the classroom to the disciplinary research work of physics. I also find that Mexican undergraduate students show initiative and display some autonomy and power in the construction of their itineraries as they are encouraged to examine a variety of sources including contemporary research articles, unsolved physics problems, and even to participate in several physicists’ spaces, as for example being speakers at the national congresses of physics. Their itineraries also open up new spaces of cultural and social practices, creating more extensive networks beyond those associated with a discipline. Some economic, historical and cultural contextual features of this school of sciences are analyzed in order to help understanding the particular way students are encouraged to develop their autonomy.     

Mentoring,Undergraduate Research,and Identity Development: A Conceptual Review and Research Agenda

Mentored undergraduate research has been identified as a high-impact practice that enhances teaching and learning in higher education. It is reported to influence students’ academic, affective, and behavioral outcomes. However, there is only an emerging literature related to student outcomes associated with identity development, specifically students’ personal and professional identities. This integrative literature review examines the intersections and interrelationship across mentoring, undergraduate research, and student identity development. Its results uncover the complexity of the constructs, and their dynamic interrelationship, especially when viewed through the lenses of the sociocultural perspective grounded in the notion of mediated action. Two assumptions undergird this perspective: first, that all investigation takes place at the intersection of these constructs with mediated action, not individuals in isolation, as a unit of analysis; and, second, that any study of identity must focus on an understanding of identity as multiple, dynamic, and situated in personal and cultural contexts (institutional, disciplinary, and external community culture and values). Thus, the sociocultural perspective and its underlying assumptions shape the proposed research agenda. This research agenda has the potential to advance current knowledge related to mentored undergraduate research and the confluence of elements that contribute to student personal and cultural identities (academic, disciplinary, and professional). Findings from this work will inform our understanding of learning and knowledge construction in sociocultural context, and the trajectory of identity development of students engaged in high-impact learning experiences.     

The influence of parents on undergraduate and graduate students’ entering the STEM disciplines and STEM careers

This research examines the influence of parents on students’ studying the STEM disciplines and entering STEM careers. Cases of two graduate students (one female, one male) and one undergraduate student (male) are featured. The first two students in the convenience sample are biology and physics majors in a STEM teacher education programme; the third is enrolled in computer science. The narrative inquiry research method is used to elucidate the students’ academic trajectories. Incidents of circumstantial and planned parent curriculum making surfaced when the data was serially interpreted. Other themes included: (1) relationships between (student) learners and (teacher) parents, (2) invitations to inquiry, (3) modes of inquiry, (4) the improbability of certainty, and (5) changed narratives?=?changed lives. While policy briefs provide sweeping statements about parents’ positive effects on their children, narrative inquiries such as this one illuminate parents’ inquiry moves within home environments. These actions became retrospectively revealed in their adult children’s lived narratives. Nurtured by their mothers and/or fathers, students enter STEM disciplines and STEM-related careers through multiple pathways in addition to the anticipated pipeline.     

How Can We Improve Problem Solving in Undergraduate Biology? Applying Lessons from 30 Years of Physics Education Research

If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated student problem solving for the past three decades. Although physics and biology problems differ in structure and content, the instructional purposes align closely: explaining patterns and processes in the natural world and making predictions about physical and biological systems. In this paper, we discuss how research-supported approaches developed by physics education researchers can be adopted by biologists to enhance student problem-solving skills. First, we compare the problems that biology students are typically asked to solve with authentic, complex problems. We then describe the development of research-validated physics curricula emphasizing process skills in problem solving. We show that solving authentic, complex biology problems requires many of the same skills that practicing physicists and biologists use in representing problems, seeking relationships, making predictions, and verifying or checking solutions. We assert that acquiring these skills can help biology students become competent problem solvers. Finally, we propose how biology scholars can apply lessons from physics education in their classrooms and inspire new studies in biology education research.     

The Role of Student-Advisor Interactions in Apprenticing Undergraduate Researchers into a Scientific Community of Practice

Among science educators, current interest in undergraduate research (UR) is influenced both by the traditional role of the research apprenticeship in scientists’ preparation and by concerns about replacing the current scientific workforce. Recent research has begun to demonstrate the range of personal, professional, and intellectual benefits for STEM students from participating in UR, yet the processes by which student-advisor interactions contribute to these benefits are little understood. We employ situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger, Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge in 1991) to examine the role of student-advisor interactions in apprenticing undergraduate researchers, particularly in terms of acculturating students to the norms, values, and professional practice of science. This qualitative study examines interviews with a diverse sample of 73 undergraduate research students from two research-extensive institutions. From these interviews, we articulate a continuum of practices that research mentors employed in three domains to support undergraduate scientists-in-training: professional socialization, intellectual support, and personal/emotional support. The needs of novice students differed from those of experienced students in each of these areas. Novice students needed clear expectations, guidelines, and orientation to their specific research project, while experienced students needed broader socialization in adopting the traits, habits, and temperament of scientific researchers. Underrepresented minority students, and to a lesser extent, women, gained confidence from their interactions with their research mentors and broadened their future career and educational possibilities. Undergraduate research at research-extensive universities exemplifies a cycle of scientific learning and practice where undergraduate researchers are mentored by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, who are themselves apprentices to faculty members. As such, research mentors of undergraduate students should be aware of the dual scientific and educational aspects of their advising role and its significance in shaping students’ identities and career trajectories.     

Understanding the development of interest and self-efficacy in active-learning undergraduate physics courses

Modeling Instruction (MI), an active-learning introductory physics curriculum, has been shown to improve student academic success. Peer-to-peer interactions play a salient role in the MI classroom. Their impact on student interest and self-efficacy – preeminent constructs of various career theories – has not been thoroughly explored. Our examination of three undergraduate MI courses (N?=?221) revealed a decrease in students’ physics self-efficacy, physics interest, and general science interest. We found a positive link from physics interest to self-efficacy, and a negative relationship between science interest and self-efficacy. We tested structural equation models confirming that student interactions make positive contributions to self-efficacy. This study frames students’ classroom interactions within broader career theory frameworks and suggests nuanced considerations regarding interest and self-efficacy constructs in the context of undergraduate active-learning science courses.     

USING AN ENHANCED CONFLICT MAP IN THE CLASSROOM (PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT) BASED ON LAKATOSIAN HEURISTIC PRINCIPLE STRATEGIES

Researchers have shown that most students resist changes to their core beliefs by offering auxiliary hypotheses at the first sign of the development of conceptual change. Studies have viewed student reaction to discrepant events as an important clue in helping researchers understand not only the structure of alternative concepts (Niaz, Science & Education, 7(2):107 – 127, 1998) but also the nature of scientific concepts. The main objectives of this research were the following: (a) to consider prudently the conflict map of Tsai (International Journal of Science Education, 22(3):285 – 302, 2000); (b) to initiate and develop an enhanced conflict map based on Lakatosian ethodology, which could help science teachers and students resolve conflicts that occur in the explanation of natural phenomena; (c) to examine the effectiveness of the enhanced conflict map; and (d) to discuss these implications in science education. Specifically, this study used two freshman classes from the Department of Electronics and one class of Astronomy majors from C. National University, South Korea, to investigate how scientific concepts change after selecting the modern physics field (Photoelectric effect), which is included in the Physics and Astronomy courses. Modern physics has led to the so-called Lakatosian heuristic principle or methodology, a useful framework that includes scientific philosophy and science history as study strategies. “Enhanced conflict maps” are suggested for use to consistently show all the study processes.     

In the physics class: university physics students’ enactment of class and gender in the context of laboratory work

This article explores how the doing of social class and gender can intersect with the learning of science, through case studies of two male, working-class university students’ constitutions of identities as physics students. In doing so, I challenge the taken-for-granted notion that male physics students have an unproblematic relation to their chosen discipline, and nuance the picture of how working-class students relate to higher education by the explicit focus on one disciplinary culture. Working from the perspective of situated learning theory, the interviews with the two male students were analysed for how they negotiated the practice of the physics student laboratory and their own classed and gendered participation in this practice. By drawing on the heterogeneity of the practice of physics the two students were able to use the practical and technological aspects of physics as a gateway into the discipline. However, this is not to say that their participation in physics was completely frictionless. The students were both engaged in a continuous negotiation of how skills they had learned to value in the background may or may not be compatible with the ones they perceived to be valued in the university physicist community.     

Here I am Now! Critical ethnography and community service-learning with immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and youth

Here I am Now! is the title a multi-ethnic group of immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and neighboring urban Vietnamese and Cambodian refugee youth gave to their participatory photography installation. The exhibit was the culmination of undergraduate students’ participation in a series of Community Service-Learning (CSL) courses offered through CIRCLE (Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While CSL has become an established educational practice at most US universities campuses, little research has been conducted viewing the educational impact of this pedagogy on diverse student populations. The majority of the scholarship focuses on the experiences of white middle-class students engaged with communities from unfamiliar and different socio-cultural, racial, ethic and economic backgrounds.

This paper examines how immigrant and refugee undergraduate students understood their participation in a creative community service-learning experience where they mentored youth from familiar and similar ethno-cultural contexts. To understand this meaning-making process I employed critical ethnographic approaches and analyzed student narratives and interviews. Through the prisms of critical pedagogy, situated learning theory, and funds of knowledge concept, I viewed the higher education context, analyzed the situation under study and developed an emerging framework for CSL pedagogy with diverse communities. These theories inform the view that culturally relevant pedagogy emphasizing peer-learning, critical thinking, artistic potential and community resources offers diverse undergraduate students alternative and creative spaces of critique and possibility in their higher education and community service-learning experiences.     

Students’ course experience and engagement: an attempt to bridge two lines of research on the quality of undergraduate education

This study attempts to bridge two current lines of research on the quality of undergraduate education, i.e. students’ course experiences and engagement. Defining student engagement from a psychological perspective, this study explores the relationships between students’ course experiences and their motivation and engagement with a sample of 882 Chinese undergraduates who participated in a questionnaire survey. The results of structural equation modelling indicate that, although clear goals and standards, generic skills and appropriate workload positively relate to student engagement, appropriate assessment has a dual effect, while good teaching and emphasis on independence have undesirable, negative effects on students’ motivation and engagement. These findings reveal the potential of combining the two lines of research, and reflect some characteristics of teaching and learning in Chinese higher education institutions. The results have implications for enhancing the quality of undergraduate education in China.     

Collaboration of Teacher Education and Child Disability Health Care: Transdisciplinary Approach to Inclusive Practice for Early Childhood Pre-Service Teachers

The purpose of this paper is to describe the collaborative efforts between an Early Childhood Teacher Education Program and a Child Disability Health Care Program to incorporate a transdisciplinary model in the preparation of early childhood teachers in inclusive practice. Recent studies suggest essential components of teacher preparation in early childhood inclusion include: helping students construct a positive image of inclusive practice, incorporating a family-centered approach, and collaborating and relationship building across disciplines (Campbell et al. 2003; Pretti-Frontczak et al. 2002 and Able-Boone et al. 2002). In this paper, we describe the collaboration between the University of Michigan-Dearborn Early Childhood Teacher Education Program and Oakwood Health Care Center for Exceptional Families to co-teach and mentor early childhood pre-service teachers as they create a family-centered event for children with disabilities and their typically developing peers in a natural environment. Researchers analyze student reflection papers about the family-centered event for evidence of new learning about child disability and inclusive practice. The reflections demonstrate the power of the students’ active role in creating and implementing family-centered activities in a collaborative context. Other key reflective components include rewards and challenges in creating inclusive contexts, integral role of families in supporting child relationships in natural settings, and collaboration and teaming.     

Engagement and learning through social software in finance: a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.     

工科专业普通物理教学的改革与创新

基于工科院校普通物理教学的重要性，通过分析普通物理课程的现状，结合教学体会，提出在工科院校中进行普通物理教学改革与创新的途径和由此引发的一些思考。     

A case study of one instructor’s lecture-based teaching of proof in abstract algebra: making sense of her pedagogical moves

This paper is a case study of the teaching of an undergraduate abstract algebra course, in particular the way the instructor presented proofs. It describes a framework for proof writing based on Selden and Selden (2009) and the work of Alcock (2010) on modes of thought that support proof writing. The paper offers a case study of the teaching of a traditionally-taught abstract algebra course, including showing the range of practice as larger than previously described in research literature. This study describes the aspects of proof writing and modes of thought the instructor modeled for the students. The study finds that she frequently modeled the aspects of hierarchical structure and formal–rhetorical skills, and structural, critical, and instantiation modes of thought. This study also examines the instructor’s attempts to involve the students in the proof writing process during class by asking questions and expecting responses. Finally, the study describes how those questions and responses were part of her proof presentation. The funneling pattern of Steinbring (1989) describes most of the question and answer discussions enacted in the class with most questions requiring a factual response. Yet, the instructional sequence can be also understood as modeling the way an expert in the discipline thinks and, as such, offering a different type of opportunity for student learning.     

Tracing the Transition from Study to a Contemporary Creative Working Life: The Trajectories of Professional Musicians

The classical music academy is a site dominated by traditional meanings of creative practice and an image of the professional creative career as solo performer that is fully available to only a very few students after graduating. The purpose of the study reported in this paper is to explore career-young professional pianists’ talk about the transition from study within a music academy to working life. The focus is on the ways in which they characterize the nature and significance of this transition from very traditional practice and study, and how they (re)negotiate their identities as professional musicians and pianists in contemporary working life. Four classical pianists were interviewed in-depth about their musicianship, including their transition from study to working life. The qualitative analyses presented here suggest that, as they talked about their transitions and developing musicianship, the speakers constructed, re-constructed and oriented to notions of professional trajectories. Such trajectories are emergent, relational and contextually constituted (Sawyer 2003; MacDonald and Miell 2002; Moran and John-Steiner 2004). Rather than being fixed or dependent on communal expectations, they reflect creative freedom and independence, encompassing multiple influences. Crucially, the transition from study to working life is implicated in the process of assuming agency in respect of one’s own musicianship and career—a process that involves identity work, the (re)negotiation of pathways, narrations and trajectories.     

Trajectories in teacher education: Recognising prior learning in practice

This article analyses the trajectories into teacher education of a group of child minders who are studying to become pre-school teachers. The specific focus is what impact their prior experiences and learning from pre-school have on their trajectories, and how these experiences and learning are recognised in the first year of teacher education. A situated learning perspective is applied, with a focus on participation and trajectories in the two communities of practice in which teacher education is situated – the university and the pre-school. The data consist of transcribed interviews with ten student teachers, and additional data are gathered from stakeholders in the program. The results show that prior experiences and learning are given implicit and indirect recognition. In the practice of the pre-school, the trajectory means a shift in identity, from child minder to student teacher and pre-school teacher. In the practice of the university, prior experiences and learning help students in their trajectories from peripheral to fuller participation.     

Using socrative as an online homework platform to increase students’ exam scores

Socrative is an online assessment and student response tool that provides opportunities to increase student engagement in the classroom. We used Socrative as an online homework completing platform to increase students’ exam scores in physics. To explore the relationships among factors and the educational effectiveness of Socrative, data from 85 undergraduate students’ final and midterm grades, and their responses to an attitude survey were used. The ANCOVA results demonstrated that the use of Socrative positively influenced students’ exam scores and a fairly significant correlation was found between students’ attitudes toward Socrative and final exam scores. Moreover, the results of the survey showed that students have moderately positive attitudes toward the use of Socrative as an online homework assignment platform. This empirical study indicates that the use of Socrative can go beyond engaging and motivating students and can be used as an online homework completing tool.     

What Does Distributed Cognition Tell Us about Student Learning of Science?

This paper reports multi-layered analyses of student learning in a science classroom using the theoretical lens of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). Building on the insights generated from previous research employing Distributed Cognition, the particular focus of this study has been placed on the “public space of interaction” (Alac and Hutchins 2004, p. 639) that includes both participants’ interaction with each other and their interaction with artefacts in their environment. In this paper, a lesson from an Australian science classroom was examined in detail, in which a class of grade-seven students were investigating the scientific theme of gravity by designing pendulums. The video-stimulated post-lesson interviews with both the teacher and the student groups offered complementary accounts (Clarke 2001a) that assisted the interpretation of the classroom data. The findings of this study provide supporting evidence to demonstrate the capacity of Distributed Cognition for advancing our understanding of the nature of learning in science classrooms.     

Student and tutor perceptions of learning and teaching on a first‐year study skills module in a university computing department

The level of student preparedness for university‐level study has been widely debated. Effective study skills modules have been linked to supporting students’ academic development during the transition phase. However, few studies have evaluated the learning experience on study skills modules from both a student and staff perspective. We surveyed 121 first‐year students and seven tutors on a study skills module on an undergraduate computing programme. The aspects in which the students’ and tutors’ views diverge provide insights into the perceptions of academic tasks and associated competencies for higher education and the delivery of study skills in practice for computing students.