<< back to Seminars & Meetings

 

What: The Physics Education Research Group in the Department of Physics hosts seminar speakers from diverse fields such as science education, psychology, cognitive science, and anthropology. 

 

When: 4:00 PM on Select Wednesdays during the Fall 2009 Semester; to receive emails about upcoming talks, contact Renee Michelle Goertzen

 

Where: Physics Building 4208

 

Scheduled speakers for Fall 2009:

(This list will be updated as speakers are confirmed.)

 

October 28th: Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Department of Educational Psychology, Rutgers University

Special Time: 1:20-2:50

Special Location: 2212B, Benjamin Building

Title: Collaborative Knowledge Building in Problem-based Learning

Abstract  .Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which students learn  collaboratively through solving problems and reflecting on their experience.  Such collaborative learning settings provide opportunities for knowledge building as groups work to improve their collective ideas.  This presentation describes a detailed analysis of a problem-based learning group. For knowledge building to occur in the classroom, the teacher needs to create opportunities for constructive discourse in order to support student learning and collective knowledge building. The setting for this study is a group of second-year medical students working with an expert facilitator. The analysis was designed to understand how the facilitator provided opportunities for knowledge-building discourse and how the learners accomplished collective knowledge building.  Analyses examined episodes of knowledge-building discourse, the questions and statements

that the students and facilitator generated throughout the tutorial, the change in their understanding of the problem that they were solving, and the collective knowledge that was constructed.  The results indicate that the group worked to progressively improve their ideas through engaging in knowledge-building discourse. The facilitator helped support knowledge building through asking open-ended metacognitive questions and catalyzing group progress. Students took responsibility for advancing the group’s understanding as they asked many high-level questions and built on each others thinking to construct collaborative explanations.  The results of this study provide suggestions for orchestrating knowledge-building discourse.

 

November 4th: no seminar

 

November 11th: Kathy Perkins, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder

Time: 4:00-5:15

Location: 1304, Physics Building

Title: Examining the nature and role of implicit scaffolding in PhET simulations

 

The PhET Interactive Simulations team has created over 85 interactive simulations for learning physics and other sciences. These simulations provide flexible learning environments where students can learn through scientist-like exploration. They emphasize the connections between real life phenomena and the underlying science, make the invisible visible (e.g. electrons, photons, field vectors), and include the visual models that experts use to aid their thinking.

In this seminar, we will examine the nature and role of implicit scaffolding within the PhET sims. Through several recent and current PhET research studies, we are examining how students learn through interaction with the simulations, how the type of guidance influences that learning process, and how various design features and the complexity of the simulation enhance or deter students' “engaged exploration” of the simulations.

 

November 18th:

November 25th: No seminar (Thanksgiving)

December 2nd:

December 9th: no seminar

December 16th:

 

 

Speakers for Spring 2009:

 

         February 5: Chandralekha Singh, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh

 

Improving Teaching and Learning of Quantum Mechanics 

 

We are investigating the difficulties that students have in learning

quantum mechanics. Our investigation includes interviews with individual

students and the development and administration of free-response and

multiple-choice questions. To help improve student understanding of

quantum concepts, we are designing quantum interactive learning

tutorials (QuILTs) and clicker questions.  We will discuss the

implication of this research and development project on improving

student understanding.

 

          March 5: Megan Bang, TERC, Cambridge, MA

 

Investigating Relational Epistemologies: Improving Science Education in Native American Communities

 

This talk will explore meanings and cognitive implications of relational epistemologies, their cognitive consequences and implications for science education. To unpack what relational epistemologies mean at various grain sizes we have examined community-based practices involving the natural world across three communities (2 Native and 1 non-Native) and conducted a series of mini cognitive studies. Our analysis focuses on understanding the relational distance of children's reasoning in community based ways of knowing and in understanding knowledge organization and the impacts on reasoning. We have found relationships between the structure of practices and participants tendency to focus on relational understandings, their narrative structures, and the construal of the relational distance of the natural world within everyday practices. Building on these findings we have been designing and implementing science learning environments in two Native communities through a community based design process.Through our design studies we have found significant shifts in students epistemological stances towards science and science education.

 

          March 26: Randi Engel, Graduate School of Education, UC-Berkeley 

 

Could the Framing of Learning Contexts Play a Causal Role in Transfer? Initial Evidence from a Tutoring Experiment

The core of my developing situative theory of transfer is the idea that it is not just the content what students learn that matters for transfer, but also how learning contexts themselves are framed (Engle, 2006; extending Tannen, 1993; Hymes, 1972).  In particular, I predict that teachers can promote transfer by framing learning contexts in anexpansive manner in which settings are broadly defined across time, places, and people; topics are presumed to be parts of larger bodies knowledge; and students are positioned as authors whose own ideas are at the center of activity.  This contrasts with a bounded framing in which settings are narrowly defined; the sole focus is the topic being learned; and students are positioned as peripheral reporters of other people’s ideas.  To test this hypothesis my research group and I are conducting a tutoring experiment about human body systems in which we manipulate framing as expansive versus bounded while controlling for content-based mechanisms of transfer.  In this talk, I will describe the design of the experiment; present initial findings about the transfer of facts, principles, and learning practices; and solicit your advice about next steps.

 

         

April 2: Eric Brewe, Science Education, Florida International University

 

Threading Energy Throughout the Introductory Physics Curriculum

 

The Energy Thread is an approach to the organization and structure of introductory physics, which aims to provide students with powerful tools for reasoning about physical phenomena and balances the treatment of force and energy concepts. In this talk I will present motivations for the curricular reorganization and restructuring, compare an Energy Threaded curriculum with standard curriculum and present results of a problem solving research project.  These results support the view that energy concepts are essential for development of an expert-like understanding of introductory physics

          

April 9th: [Elizabeth Spelke @ Cognitive Science Seminar] 

April 23rd: Anna Sfard, Division of Science and Mathematics Education, University of Haifa, Israel

May 7th: Paula Heron, Department of Physics, University of Washington