CAREER: Learning Entropy and Energy Project (LEEP)

没有足够的语言来谈论变化和变化的方向，科学课程从根本上受到限制，过度强调静态结构，如分类法和记忆事件序列。与这些过于简单、静态的课程相比，学生生活的世界是复杂和动态的。学习者对世界的认知与学校教给他们的基于静态的科学之间产生了根本的脱节。除了在学校课程和早期的大学课程（如早期的非微积分科学）中朝着变化的方向发展之外，一个完整的基于动态的课程需要解决我们在周围世界中所经历的指导性问题。当我们早上起床时，能量总是从温暖的脚流向寒冷的地板，而不是反过来。热力学第二定律，即熵定律是唯一能让学习者理解物理过程的方向性的科学定律。用一场全面的以动态为基础的改革来取代静态课程，在很大程度上取决于能否谈论变化，也取决于能否谈论变化的方向。最近的教育创新与早期引入变化的数学有关，例如运动检测器和强大的模拟软件的使用，开始在重大的课程改革中找到自己的方式。不幸的是，与熵相关的基础研究、材料开发和旨在提高所有学习者基于动态的理解的课程几乎不存在。这笔赠款旨在解决在进行基于动力的改革时所缺少的这一关键因素。十多年来基于熵的研究和创新使我相信熵的概念可以在科学教育的早期就被纳入能量动力学的学习中，熵可以以跨学科和跨层次的方式（从很小的到很大的）进行教授，朝着这个方向发展不仅可以提高学生对熵的理解，而且可以提高所有学生更好地理解和成功的能力。在几乎所有层次的科学学习中，他们都是非常先进的。虽然我打算让这个以熵为中心的工作影响从小学晚期到广泛的本科科学课程的科学学习，但我的主要重点将放在学生生活中与正式科学学习相关的两个关键时刻：高中早期和大学早期水平的工作。进入这一阶段，许多学生“仍在游戏中”，并对进一步的科学研究感兴趣。在这些关键时刻，许多学生决定离开，尤其是来自弱势群体的学生。在这些级别上教授的课程将为基于熵的学习的有效性和研究设置提供帮助。在学校，我将主要关注国家规定的九年级综合物理和化学课程。在大学阶段，我将专注于一门名为“熵与能量”的新开发的本科科学课程，我将与一位研究物理学家共同教授这门课程，他也是一个完全重组并迅速发展的名为UTeach的新二级认证项目的联合主任。在新的UTeachprogram中，像这样的领域课程将在大学层面上模拟基于标准的教学。与学生学习相关的研究观点，如熵的学习将与我新开发的“知与学”课程相结合，这是UTEACH所有学生的第一门必修课程。通过在学校建立教师工作圈，通过在大学建立棕色袋系列研讨会，通过研究报告和出版物，以及通过开发学习熵和能量（LEEP）网站，该项目旨在支持与学习熵的有效性和重要性相关的更广泛的对话，并将熵作为向所有学生提供基于动态的课程的重要组成部分。

Absent an adequate language to talk about change and the direction of change, sciencecurricula are fundamentally constrained to over-emphasize static constructs liketaxonomies and memorized sequences of events. In contrast with these over-simplified,statics-based curricula, the world students live in is complex and dynamic. Afundamental disconnect is created between what learners know of their world and thecurrent statics-based science they are taught in school. In addition to moving toward amath of change strand in school curricula and early university curricula (e.g. early non-calculussciences), a full dynamics-based curriculum needs to address the directed-nesswe experience in the world around us. When we get up in the morning, energy alwaysflows from our warm feet to the cold floor and never the other way around. The secondlaw of thermodynamics the entropy law is the only law of science that allowslearners to understand the directed-ness of physical process. Replacing statics-basedcurricula with a full dynamics-based reform depends vitally on being able to talk aboutchange but also on being able to talk about the direction of change. Recent educationalinnovations related to the early introduction of the math of change e.g. the use ofmotion detectors and powerful simulation software are starting to find their way intosignificant curricular reform. Unfortunately, entropy related fundamental research,materials development, and course-work aimed at advancing the dynamic-basedunderstanding of all learners is all but non-existent. This grant is aimed at addressingthis critical missing element in pursuing dynamics-based reform.Over a decade of entropy-based research and innovation leads me to believe thatentropy ideas can be incorporated into learning about energy dynamics early on inscience education, that entropy can be taught in a way that is cross-disciplinary and cross-level(from the very small to the very large), and that moving in this direction not onlyadvances student understanding of entropy but that the ability of all students to betterunderstand and succeed, at virtually all levels of their science learning, is significantlyadvanced. Although I intend for this entropy-focused work to impact science learningfrom late elementary through the wide range of undergraduate science courses, myprimary focus will be on two critical junctures in students' lives relative to formalscience learning: early high school and early university level work. Coming into thesejunctures many students are "still in the game" and are interested in further sciencestudy. Coming out of these junctures many students decide to leave, especially studentsfrom under-represented groups. Courses taught at these levels will serve both astestbeds for the efficacy of entropy-based learning and as research settings. In schools, Iwill focus primarily on the state-mandated, ninth-grade Integrated Physics and Chemistrycourse. At the university level I will focus on a newly developed undergraduate sciencecourse titled Entropy and Energy that I will co-teach with a research physicist who is alsoCo-Director of the completely restructured and rapidly growing new secondarycertification program called UTeach. Domain courses, such as this, in the new UTeachprogram are to model Standards-based teaching at the university level. Researchinsights related to student learning as such learning with entropy will be integratedwith my newly developed Knowing and Learning course that is the first requirededucation course for all the UTEACH students. Through the establishment of a workcircle of teachers in schools, through the establishment of a brown-bag seminar series atthe university, through research presentations and publications, and through thedevelopment of a Learning Entropy and Energy (LEEP) website, this project is intendedto support a larger conversation related to the efficacy and significance of learning aboutand with entropy as a vital part of moving towards a dynamics-based curriculum for allstudents.