The “How” and “What” of learning physics

Recent research on student learning in higher education has increasingly focussed on experiential aspects of how students approach their studies and what they learn from their studies. In this paper we describe the results of a study using phenomenographic research techniques, which focusses on student learning in a first year university physics course. The study, using interviews with sixteen volunteer students from the course, shows that only those students who actively sought to change their conceptions of the subject matter did so, while those who sought only to reproduce that subject matter did not.     

Exploring the Impact of Varying Degrees of Cognitive Conflict in the Generation of both Subject and Pedagogical Knowledge as Primary Trainee Teachers Learn about Shadow Formation

Primary teacher preparation courses to need support students in developing not only science content knowledge, but also pedagogical knowledge appropriate to the effective translation and representation of subject matter for learners in classrooms. In the case of the generalist primary trainee, this constitutes a considerable challenge. This study explored how a group of 13 primary trainees developed subject and pedagogical knowledge during university‐based training as they investigated shadow production in a variety of contexts using cognitive conflict as a strategy for promoting conceptual change. By using a metacognitive approach, students analysed their own learning in response to increasing depth of conflict within a series of shadow investigations. The results indicate that the depth of conflict perceived by the learners in this study was instrumental in inducing conceptual change and generating pedagogical insight within the domain of light.     

TOWARD AN AFFECTIVE OUTCOME OF HIGHER EDUCATION

A test was developed for measuring the ability of college students to analyze emotional and nonemotional subject matter. The rationale for the test was that students should become able to analyze material more objectively as they pass through the 4 years of college. Results of convergent and discriminant validation indicated that subject responses to "emotional" items appeared to change at an increasing rate with years in college, while responses to nonemotional items did not. Lack of correlation of the test with cognitive materials, adequate internal reliability, and performance consistent with expectations gave support to the construct, labeled "analytical objectivity." Initial structuring of a nomological net for support of the validity of the construct was achieved.     

A Critical Analysis on Evaluating the Students’Feedback of Learning

Teaching involves finding out about students’misunderstandings,intervening to change them and creating a context of learning that encourages students to engage with the subject matter.This theory of making student learning possible is very much concerned with the content of what students have to learn in relation to how it should be taught.Evaluation implies collecting information about our work,interpreting the information and making judgments about which actions we should take to improve practice.Evaluation is an analytical process that is intrinsic to good teaching.     

Academics’ experiences of understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this to their experiences of teaching and learning

In this paper we focus on the issue of how academic staff experience the understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this understanding to their experience of teaching. In recent years there has been a substantial amount of research into how academic staff conceive of teaching and learning, how they approach their teaching, and how their approaches to teaching relate to how their students approach their learning. In our present project this research is being extended by looking at the way 31 academics from four broad fields of study experience their understanding of their subject matter and how this relates to the way they experience their teaching. Using a phenomenographic approach we show that academics who experience their subject matter in atomistic and less integrated ways experience their teaching in more information transmission and teacher-focused ways, while those with a more integrated and holistic experience of understanding their subject experience their teaching in more conceptual change and student-focused ways.in final form: 9 September 2004     

Linguistic‐minority Students and Bilingual Mathematics Teaching

Mathematics teaching and subject‐matter acquisition of two groups of linguistic minority students were studied; one in a minolingual second‐language class and the other in a traditional bilingual‐education model in the city of Oslo, Norway. The background of attempts at bilingual education in the Norwegian context is presented, and some aspects of bilingual education, bilingual pedagogy and research‐based perspectives on the role of bilingual education in subject‐matter acquisition is discussed. On the basis of an empirical study of the teaching situation of linguistic‐minority students it is concluded that linguistic‐minority students profit from bilingual mathematics teaching. The empirical research results indicate that linguistic‐minority students (LMSs) with a bilingual‐education (BE) background can achieve as good or better results in mathematics as monolingual students. The strength of bilingual education can therefore be said to reside in the favourable conditions that it creates for the comprehension of linguistic‐minority students of the content taught. By creating favourable conditions bilingual subject‐matter teaching also fulfils minorities’ expectations of participating in content‐area instruction: to understand what is being communicated in subject‐matter teaching and to learn what is normally expected to be learned in subject‐matter teaching. It is therefore legitimate to argue for bilingual education on pedagogical grounds without the support of old‐fashioned anthropological or psychological arguments.     

The impact of integrated environmental studies programs: are students motivated to act pro-environmentally?

In Canada, there exists a noteworthy educational initiative referred to as Environmental Studies Programs (ESPs). These secondary school programs are interdisciplinary, helping to link subject matter and encouraging student responsibility. The results of two case studies of Ontario ESPs that analyze the impact of ESP participation on students’ attitudes to, and relationships with, the environment and the extent to which program participation informs domestic pro-environmental behaviors and/or emancipatory social and environmental actions are presented. The results from the focus group sessions indicate that students believe that they can effect environmental change but that they struggle with ways to meaningfully enact that change in light of ‘real world’ constraints.     

Conceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases

Preconceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases were investigated on a total of 400 students. The procedure used consisted of free interviews, semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires.

It was found that the constituents of matter were well known to students, but that interactions between these constituents were either totally unknown or were the subject of severe misconceptions. The students’ knowledge tended to be qualitative and formal, with a worrying lack of connection with everyday life.     

Promoting ethnic identity development while teaching subject matter content: A model of ethnic identity exploration in education

This grounded theory study was conducted to investigate how two veteran social studies teachers, one African American and one Japanese American, incorporated opportunities for students to explore their ethnicity while learning subject matter content. Four themes emerged that form the basis of a model that provides teachers with strategies for assisting students as they learn about their ethnic groups through existing subject matter curricula. These data, and teachers' reports of sustained student engagement when exploration of cultural heritage was incorporated into the curriculum, provide warrant for including instruction in ethnic identity exploration in teacher preparation programs.     

Teaching for learning-to-learn: a critical appraisal with some proposals

The recent literature on learning-to-learn is reviewed from the aspect of how to improve learning activities. Focus is on questions such as the appropriate dependent variable, the most promising variables to practise and particularly the diverse learning strategies to teach to students. Other questions dealt with are the kind of curriculum and the optimal breadth of the interventional program. The main proposal is that teachers should be qualified not only to teach the respective subject matter but also to teach students how to learn this subject matter.     

Knowledge presented in concept maps: correlations with conventional cognitive knowledge tests

Our study focuses on the correlation of concept map (CMap) structures and learning success tested with short answer tests, taking into particular account the complexity of the subject matter. Novice sixth grade students created CMaps about two subject matters of varying difficulty. The correlation of the complexity of CMaps with the post-test was small but highly significant in both subject matters. The complexity of the CMaps correlated with the long-term knowledge in the difficult subject matter but not in the context of the easy one. Furthermore, the high number of technical errors makes it close to impossible to estimate students’ knowledge. In summary, CMaps do not provide an adequate alternative to conventional short answer knowledge tests, but together with them they may offer a better comprehension of a student’s knowledge structure and aid in the preparation of further instruction tailored to individual needs.     

Does Student–Teacher Thinking Style Match/Mismatch Matter in Students’ Achievement?

This study concerns the contingent nature of the relationships of student–teacher style match (or mismatch) to students’ academic achievement. Participants were 135 (59 male and 76 female) students (average age of 21.5 years) from three academic disciplines (mathematics, physics, and public administration) who responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory and rated their own abilities (analytical, creative, and practical). The academic achievement scores in two subject matters for each student were also used. The students’ subject matter teachers responded to the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory. Three major findings were obtained. First, the effects of style match/mismatch upon students’ achievement vary as a function of academic discipline and subject matter. Second, the statistical procedures used to analyse the data play an important role in the relationships under investigation. Third, students’ self‐rated abilities make a difference in the tested relationships. Findings have implications for both researchers and teachers.     

Implementation and Assessment of Food Safety Educational Materials for Secondary and Postsecondary Education

Previous studies have reported on the inadequacy of youth knowledge and practice of food safety principles. The formal high school science classroom environment presents an opportunity to stimulate interest and increase knowledge in food safety with potential benefits to students in improved science literacy, development of life skills, and greater awareness of career opportunities. Previously developed educational materials, Foodborne Illness Outbreak Investigations for Food Safety Education, were evaluated for instruction by high school and community college science educators of various subject matters including foods, microbiology, disease, and chemistry courses. Educator feedback was favorable on measures of quality, implementation ease, and student engagement, with ratings greater than 3 on a 5‐point scale corresponding to “good” to “excellent.” A positive change in familiarity with food safety concepts for 4 groups of students, representing approximately 77% of the participants, was demonstrated by an overall increase, ranging from 4% to 14%, in correct responses to a test administered before and after exposure to the materials. There was variation in degree of change and the topics positively impacted for student groups by subject matter.     

Comparison of Two Methods of Studying History

This study examined the effects of team teaching on selected attitudes and achievement of ninth grade students in English and World History after 1 year. Seventy-four ninth grade students from a local school were randomly assigned to a team teaching treatment group while the remaining seventy-one members of the freshman class received traditional instruction in three separate classrooms. A teacher constructed test was employed to measure achievement in subject matter, and a personality inventory was used to measure changes in selected attitudes. The findings indicated that the team teaching approach did not appear to complement academic growth over traditional teaching methods but it did have a significant impact on student attitudes toward teachers, interest in subject matter, sense of personal freedom, and self-reliance.     

On the Roots of Difficulties in Learning about Cell Division: Process‐based analysis of students’ conceptual development in teaching experiments

Empirical investigations on students’ conceptions of cell biology indicate major misunderstandings of scientific concepts even after thorough teaching. Therefore, the main aim of our research project was to investigate students’ difficulties in learning this topic and to study the impact of learning activities on students’ conceptions. Using the Model of Educational Reconstruction, a four‐phase design was carried out. Firstly, there was the clarification of science subject matter. Secondly, students’ conceptions were investigated, and finally, the learning activities were designed. An evaluation of these learning activities was carried out using five teaching experiments, each with three 9^th grade students (15–16 years, Grammar school). Interpretation of students’ “pathways of thinking” and their conceptual change during instruction was framed theoretically by experiential realism. Theoretical framework, methods and outcomes of the study may contribute to a deeper understanding of students’ ways of thinking in the field of cell biology and reveal the process of conceptual development by using well planned learning activities.     

Power Dynamics and Questioning in Elementary Science Classrooms

We describe the dynamic discourse interactions between a teacher and her students in a third-grade science classroom. We focused on how the teacher and students initiate, prompt, respond, and provide feedback; use questioning and power strategies; and how questions are associated with power dynamics. We relate the consequences of teacher use of power to the engagement of student with subject matter. Two classroom sessions were observed and teacher?Cstudent interactions audio recorded. Data were transcribed and a method was developed for analyzing teacher-student interactions, power dynamics, and types of questions asked. Results revealed that teacher talk was twice as frequent as students?? talk; questions were primarily closed-ended and task-oriented; and students asked few questions. The teacher exercised power by keeping activities organized and conventional, and utilizing subject matter. The developed methods showed us the complexity of question and power dynamics in classroom discourse and have implications for professional development and research.     

Teaching the Nature of Inquiry: Further Developments in a High School Genetics Curriculum

In order for students to truly understand science, we feel that they must be familiar with select subject matter and also understand how that subject matter knowledge was generated and justified through the process of inquiry. Here we describe a high school biology curriculum designed to give students opportunities to learn about genetic inquiry in part by providing them with authentic experiences doing inquiry in the discipline. Since a primary goal of practicing scientists is to construct explanatory models to account for natural phenomena, involving students in the construction of their own explanatory models provides a major emphasis in the classroom. The students work in groups structured like scientific communities to build, revise, and defend explanatory models for inheritance phenomena. The overall instructional goals include helping students understand the iterative nature of scientific inquiry, the tentativeness of specific knowledge claims (and why they should be considered tentative), and the degree to which scientists rely on empirical data as well as broader conceptual and metaphysical commitments to assess models and to direct future inquiries.     

EDUCATIONISTS AND ACADEMICS: RATINGS OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE INSTRUCTORS

Relationships between student ratings, instructor pedagogical training, subject‐matter preparation in teaching field, and length of teaching experience were examined for community college university transfer instructors. Moderate but statistically signficant relationships were found between pedagogical training, amount of subject‐matter preparation in teaching area, and the rating subscale of Course Organization and Planning. Results indicated that students tend to give higher ratings to instructors with pedagogical training, while instructors with greater amounts of graduate‐level, subject‐matter preparation tend to receive lower ratings.     

Self-explanation in the domain of statistics: an expertise reversal effect

This study investigated the effects of four instructional methods on cognitive load, propositional knowledge, and conceptual understanding of statistics, for low prior knowledge students and for high prior knowledge students. The instructional methods were (1) a reading-only control condition, (2) answering open-ended questions, (3) answering open-ended questions and formulating arguments, and (4) studying worked-out examples of the type of arguments students in the third group had to formulate themselves. The results indicate that high prior knowledge students develop more propositional knowledge of statistics than low prior knowledge students. With regard to conceptual understanding, the results indicate an expertise reversal effect: low prior knowledge students learn most from studying worked-out examples, whereas high prior knowledge students profit most from formulating arguments. Thus, novice students should be guided into the subject matter by means of worked-out examples. As soon as students have developed more knowledge of the subject matter, they should be provided with learning tasks that stimulate students to solve problems by formulating arguments.     

再谈“让课程面向事情本身”——兼论课程的实践品质

从目的层面看,课程"面向事情本身"的根本目的在于提升学生的实践智慧,即让学生掌握"事情本身"显现的方式,让学生合乎理性地去生活,让学生以"以道观之"的方式认识世界;从内容层面看,课程所面向的"事情本身"具有明显的实践性",事情本身"归根到底是在实践中生成的,并在实践中显现自身;从方法层面看,课程"面向事情本身"的本体性方法是实践论方法,即以体验为中心,通过主体与世界的交互作用回到"事情本身"。