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High school excursions to a university physics laboratory
No full textAuthentic experimentation is an important component of physics instruction at the secondary school level, as it allows students to link learned physics concepts to observed reality and provides engagement opportunities that encourage students to pursue Physics/STEM degrees (Constan & Spicer, 2015). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated (and should be immediately apparent) that the quality of a student’s high school physics education affects their preparedness for - and future success in - university physics programs (Salehi et al., 2019). “Authentic” physics experiments, however, are often costly and difficult to organise, engendering a large gap in education quality between schools with the means to afford (and utilise) lab equipment and those who cannot, which may persist into university and unfairly disadvantage students from low socio-economic backgrounds.
In this talk, we will present an overview of The University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) Physics Excursion program, where students from high schools throughout the state of New South Wales visit our first-year teaching laboratory as part of a whole-day school activity. These excursions are tailored to fit with the existing education syllabus in NSW, allowing teachers and students to perform relevant experiments that are typically inaccessible due to logistical or financial issues. These have been utilised within schools as both assessment opportunities and as simple ‘exciting experiences’ aimed at showing students the potential excitement of pursuing a degree in physics. These excursions take place in teaching-free weeks in the university calendar.
We will detail how important input from high school teachers was to the development and creation of this program, how it is currently maintained, explore feedback from staff and students, as well as provide a brief overview of our equipment and current repertoire of experiments. We will also go over our more recent “digital incursion” program aimed at schools for whom the trip to UNSW is not feasible, often rural schools. This talk should be useful for any university academic interested in creating a similar experimental physics outreach program, as well as high school teachers looking for ways to increase student access to high quality physics experiments.
REFERENCES
Constan, Z., & Spicer, J. J. (2015). Maximizing Future Potential in Physics and STEM: Evaluating a Summer Program through a Partnership between Science Outreach and Education Research. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 19(2), 117-136.
Salehi, S., Burkholder, E., Lepage, G. P., Pollock, S., & Wieman, C. (2019). Demographic gaps or preparation gaps?: The large impact of incoming preparation on performance of students in introductory physics. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 15(2), 020114
A longitudinal study on the development of the professional identity of future physics teachers
Get PDFThis presentation derives from a Master’s thesis that aimed to understand some aspects of the conceptions of undergraduates in Physics on topics such as scientific knowledge, science teaching, and the process of constitution of knowledge for teaching. This study is longitudinal; data were taken from admission to completion of the course and looks for understanding the influence of the pedagogical project and the structuring of the course in the formative profile of future Physics teachers.
To assist in the investigative process, the following question was established: How do the conceptions of future Physics teachers regarding scientific knowledge, science teaching, and the process of constitution of knowledge for teaching change throughout the course and outline their professional identity?
The production context of this study took place in the Physics teacher training course at a Brazilian public university. The constitution of the research data occurred through questionnaires answered by the undergraduates annually, from university admission until the completion of the course. In addition, semi structured interviews were also carried out at the end of graduation.
The theoretical and methodological references that supported the development of this research were the Pecheutian Discourse Analysis (Orlandi, 2015; Pêcheux, 2002) and the references in the area of teacher education (Freire, 2020; Goodnough, 2010; McIntyre, 2005; among others).
From the analysis of the interviews and questionnaires, it was possible to understand that the pedagogical project of the course and the curricular structure have an important role in the changes in the conceptions of future Physics teachers and in the construction of their teaching identity.
In addition, it was identified that the teachers' conceptions about the teaching profession are inserted in the perspective of the reflective teacher, which corroborates the constitution of a professional teaching identity in the perspective of the naturalization of an instrumental model of reflective practice, making it impossible for the teacher to reflect critically about the world.
REFERENCES
Freire, P. (2020). Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa (63th ed.). São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
Goodnough, K. (2010). Teacher Learning and Collaborative Action Research: Generating a ‘‘Knowledge-of-Practice’’ in the Context of Science Education. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 21, 916-935.
McIntyre, D. (2005). Bridging the gap between research and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(3), 357-382.
Orlandi, E. P. (2015). Análise de Discurso: Princípios & Procedimentos (12th ed.). Campinas: Pontes.
Pêcheux, M. (2002). O discurso: estrutura ou acontecimento (3th ed.). Campinas: Pontes
The presence of physics education research outcomes in physics education programs in Angola
Get PDFHigher Education in Angola has been the target of much criticism, as several studies point out that there are many academics in the country, but little scientific production, although in recent years there have been some advances. According to some Angolan researchers, the lack of pedagogical qualification, the lack of adequate public policies for the development of higher education, the civil war and the subordination of the teaching staff to the political system implemented, meant that there was little progress in Angolan higher education. The present research we are presenting, with a qualitative approach, aimed to analyze whether the results of research in Physics teaching have been considered in the didactic-pedagogical syllabuses and in the pedagogical projects of Physics education programs for future teachers in Angola. This country was chosen since the first author is from Angola and this study had financial support from the Angola government through the INAGBE – National Institute of Scholarship Management.
In this study we analyzed the pedagogical projects of the program and syllabuses of four didactic-pedagogical disciplines from the academic years 2016 to 2020 of three public higher education institutions in Angola. For data processing, we used Michel Pêcheux's discourse analysis, as published in Brazil by Eni Orlandi (1999) and other authors. The results show that in the pedagogical projects of the analyzed courses, there is guidance for the use of research results, however, in the syllabuses of their disciplines, we found many outdated didactic manuals; the most recent, is over ten years old. The syllabuses present little use of scientific articles, monographs, dissertations and theses. In these documents, we detected only one academic work of national authorship; most of the research results used in the analyzed documents are of foreign origin. In addition, the results showed that most professors are in the process of training and have, at most, the academic degree of master. We can explain that since, until the date of completion of this research, there were no master's and doctoral programs in physics teaching in Angola. This research proves to be relevant, as it encourages professors and future teachers to make contact with scientific production, thus contributing to improve reading and consequently academic writing and argumentation in the teaching of this discipline
From a federal road to Newton's laws
Get PDFPaulo Freire's work (Freire, 2014; 2016) has been studied and is based on the work of several science teaching researches. In this work, the Freirean methodology was used to develop and carry out an intervention in a basic Physics discipline of a Licentiate course. Instead of this discipline being developed in a traditional way, it was contextualized in the problems of displacement, faced daily by students when they go to classes, to access the IFSP campus of São José dos Campos, which is located on the banks of a Federal Road called “Rodovia Dutra” and within the boundary of an oil refinery. The question we intend to answer is: do the physical concepts discussed throughout the discipline, alongside the problems brought by students, become new mediating instruments in other students' activities? The methodology used was based on the concepts of the thematic universe and generating themes. The content of Newton’s Laws taught from a real problem faced by the students; accidents on the road they took every day to the university. Students designed experiments and conducted their research on the road, after this step, the students initiated a discussion about accidents on the road and their motives, so from this, they started to study Newton laws applied to traffic issues, like friction force, conservation of momentum, reaction time, and other causes of accidents (Figure 1). We needed 6 classes of 2 hours to develop this project, all content was related to the problems that the students brought to us with reference to their research about the road and their context. After the course, students were interviewed to identify the activities in which physical concepts learned throughout the course were used. The results indicate that the continuous conceptual movement of descending to the abstract and ascending to the complexified concrete occurred in the students at different times, and their perception of their daily lives changed, becoming a more critical view of their reality.
REFERENCES
Freire, P. (2014) Educação Como Prática da Liberdade. 38ªed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2014.
Freire, P.(2016) Pedagogia do Oprimido. 60ªed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016
Tool for assessing the level of critical thinking
Get PDFINTRODUCTION
Critical thinking is an important skill which is used every day by people together with other abilities to evaluate and interpret information, choose criteria, make decisions or solve problems. It is essential for life in the 21st century. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2018, s.3) states that schools can prepare students for jobs which have not yet been created, for technologies that have not yet been invented and to solve problems that have not yet been anticipated. There are various definitions of critical thinking available in literature (Stobaugh, 2013; Facione, 1990; Crawford, Mathews, Makinster, & Saul, 2005; Paul & Elder, 2007; Collins & O`Brien, 2003), but many authors agree that critical thinking is the one where higher-level thinking processes are used. Various experts agree that critical thinking is not inherent, and students should have an opportunity to learn how to think critically (Gavora, 1995; Facione, 1990; Kosturková, 2016).
INDICATORS OF CRITICAL THINKING AND PHYSICAL TASKS
There were five indicators, which have shown the level of students’ critical thinking in mathematics and science in The Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Project (Crawford et al., 2005). Adapting them for our uses, we work with the following indicators: formulation of hypothesis; gathering of relevant information and data; analysis and evaluation of gathered information and data; determining of conclusion from the results of analysis and evaluation; stating of arguments which support determined conclusions; self-regulation. For each of these indicators we have prepared physics tasks, in which students have to apply some skills of critical thinking.
JUDGEMENTS OF CRITICAL THINKING ON PHYSICS LESSONS
The aim of our investigation was to find out how students could solve our suggested tasks. The survey about correlation between a general test of critical thinking (Assessmentday, 2020) and test with our physics tasks was carried out. As a research sample, 29 participants were chosen. The statistical analysis of the data was carried out using R software. The Spearman correlation coefficient was determined rs = 0,563. This means variables can be considered moderately positively correlated. The suggested tasks may be used to test critical thinking on physics lessons. In this contribution, we will present our test and selected tasks with their evaluation described.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was elaborated with the support of the projects KEGA no. 013UK-4-2021.
REFERENCES
Assessmentday. (2020). Free Critical Thinking Test. Solutions Booklet. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://www.assessmentday.co.uk/free/watson-glaser/freetest1/FullTest/Free-Critical-Thinking-Test-Solutions.pdf
Crawford, A., Mathews, S. R., Makinster, J., & Saul, E. W. (2005). Teaching and learning strategies for the thinking classroom. New York: The International Debate Education Association.
Collins, J. W., & O`Brien, N. P. (2003). The Greenwood Dictionary of Education. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://lnk.sk/hlJ8
Gavora, P. (1995). Kritické myslenie – prehľad situácie v zahraničí. In Kolláriková, Z. Výchova ku kritickému mysleniu – teória a prax. Bratislava: Štátny pedagogický ústav.
Kosturková, M. (2016). Rozvoj kritického myslenia žiakov stredných škôl. Prešov : Vydavateľstvo prešovskej university.
OECD. (2018). The future of education and skills. Education 2030. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://lnk.sk/cit1
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2007). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking. Concepts and Tools. The Foundation for Critical Thinking.
Stobaugh, R. (2013). Assessing Critical Thinking in Middle and High School: meeting the common core. New York: Routledge
The quality of feedback and its influence on the preparation of the future teacher
Get PDFINTRODUCTION
Preparation for physics lessons is part of the preparation of student teachers of physics at the university. We consider it necessary for students to learn to make the best possible preparations and to be able to formulate them appropriately also in written form.
FEEDBACK IN THE CONTEXT OF PREPARATION
A lesson plan is a very useful tool that helps the teacher during the lesson, to fulfil the goals they have set (Jensen, 2001, p. 403). Haynes (2010, p. 1) divides the teacher's activity into three parts: before the lesson, during the lesson and after the lesson. Before teaching, the teacher deals with the preparation and planning of the teaching process, during the lesson it is about execution of the educational activities, and after the lesson there should be an evaluation of the completed preparation. We will focus on preparations before the lesson. According to Fink (2005, p. 3) feedback should be frequent, immediate, discriminating, and loving in the process of improving preparation.
RESEARCH ON THE QUALITY OF PREPARATION BY THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK
In this contribution, we will present the process of preparation for lessons by students of physics teaching, evaluation of the preparations, provision of feedback to students and comparison of preparations before and after the provision of feedback. We provided students with feedback on the created preparations for physics lessons based on an evaluation rubric that we created inspired by several authors: Arribas et al. (2018); Liew et al. (2019); Hubeňáková (2016). According to this evaluation rubric, we were able to quantify individual preparations and then compare each student to see if his preparation improved after receiving feedback.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was elaborated with the support of the projects KEGA no. 013UK-4-2021 and UK/47/2022.
REFERENCES
Fink, L.D. (2005). Integrated course design. Idea paper 42. The IDEA Center Manhattan. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://www.ideaedu.org/
Haynes, A. (2010). The Complete Guide to Lesson Planning and Preparation. Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://ifeet.org/files/-Anthony_Haynes-_The_Complete_Guide_to_Lesson_Plan.pdf
Jensen, L. (2001). Planning Lessons. In: CELCE-MURCIA, M. (ed.) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 3th edition. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from http://docshare01.docshare.tips/files/31572/315720128.pdf
Arribas, E., Ramirez-Vazquez, R., Escobar, I., Gonzalez-Rubio, J., Belendez, A., & Barrera, J. (2018). Development of a laboratory practice for physics introductory courses using a rubric for evaluation by competences. Paper presented at the GIREP Conference in Palermo (GIREP-MPTL).
Liew, S. S., Lim, H. L., Saleh, S., & Ong, S. L. (2019). Development of Scoring Rubrics to Assess Physics Practical Skills. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 15(4), em1691. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/103074
Hubeňáková, V. (2016). Meranie kvality matematického vzdelávania - rubriky na meranie kvality formatívneho hodnotenia. Košice: Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika
The impact of inquiry-based laboratories on improving pre-service teachers’ experimental competency
Get PDFIn the study we are presenting, the effects of inquiry-based laboratories on the experimental competency of pre-service physics teachers have been analyzed. An experimental quantitative analysis method, the static-group pretest-posttest design, has been utilized. A total of 32 pre-service physics teachers participated in the experimental group. To observe the experimental competency level development of pre-service physics teachers, Physics Lab Inventory of Critical thinking (PLIC) test and experimental competency test were used (Walsh et al., 2019). The PLIC is a standardized assessment instrument to determine the degree to which students develop these skills through instructional laboratories. The PLIC test is composed of four scales (evaluating models, evaluating methods, suggesting following-ups and normalized score) and these scales aim to test a part of experimental competencies.
Inquiry-based laboratory (IBL) is understood as an organization method in which learners use experiments to acquire knowledge and form personal competency in different openness levels. IBL is considered as an inquiry-based learning method in the experimental module to develop student engagement (Smallhorn et al., 2015). IBL approaches are more student-involved and develop the scientific process skills (Kolkhorst et al., 2001). IBL attracts the active participation of students for experimental modules. Students prefer to study IBL over traditional laboratory (Parappilly et al., 2013). IBL practices enable the learners who take part in the process to improve students' scientific process skills of pre-service science teachers (Yakar & Baykara, 2012). Therefore, in this study, we have used IBL in the General Physics Laboratory to develop students' experimental competency.
Data obtained from data collection tools were evaluated using a variety of analysis methods available in SPSS 20. For the resolution of data and illustrating whether there was a meaningful difference between pretest and posttest scores, the PLIC test, experimental competency test, and paired Samples t-Test were used. In sum, the first result evaluated the effectiveness of IBL for the General Physics Laboratory course. IBL enhanced pre-service teachers' experimental competency. The second result is the development level of pre-service teachers’ behavioral indicators in the experimental competency framework. There were 14.63% pre-service teachers who achieved at behavioral level 3 and 85.37% pre-service teachers who achieved behavioral level 2. The most developed behavioral indicators of them were 1.3 Determine the purpose of the experiment and 2.1 Determine the experiment instruments to be used; and the least was 2.7 Suggest ideas for improving equipment laboratory.
REFERENCES
Kolkhorst, F. W., Mason, C. L., DiPasquale, D. M., Patterson, P., & Buono, M. J. (2001). An inquiry-based learning model for an exercise physiology laboratory course. Advances in physiology education, 25(2), 45-50.
Siddiqui, S., Zadnik, M., Shapter, J., & Schmidt, L. (2013). An inquiry-based approach to laboratory experiences: Investigating students' ways of active learning. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 21(5).
Smallhorn, M., Young, J., Hunter, N., & Da Silva, K. B. (2015). Inquiry-based learning to improve student engagement in a large first year topic. Student Success, 6(2), 65-72.
Walsh, C., Quinn, K. N., Wieman, C., & Holmes, N. G. (2019). Quantifying critical thinking: Development and validation of the physics lab inventory of critical thinking. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 15(1), 010135.
Yakar, Z., & Baykara, H. (2014). Inquiry-based laboratory practices in a science teacher training program. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 10(2), 173-183