CAREER: Physics Education Research and Contexts of Student Learning

职业：物理教育研究和学生学习的背景

• 批准号: 0448176
• 负责人: Noah Finkelstein
• 金额: $ 47.99万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-01 至 2011-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0448176&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Physics; Education; Research; Contexts

Why do university students exit courses capable of solving difficult analytic problems (e.g., calculate current in a complex circuit), but are unable to explain the same content conceptually (e.g., which light bulb is brighter in such a circuit)? Which educational activities address this challenge and why?Building on the well-established foundations of physics education research that have focused on student cognition, curriculum design and course practices, this research program establishes another perspective from which we may understand student learning in physics: one that emphasizes learning in context. That is, how and what students learn depends not only on traditionally conceived content but also upon the formation of tasks, class environments, and broader institutional structures in which the content is embedded. Such a perspective begins to explain a host of research questions, such as the one listed above, and is directed at understanding sustainable and scalable models of reform in physics education.This project coordinates two levels of research on the role of context in student learning: the level of individual students and the level of course activities. Many of the associated research questions are new in physics (e.g., examining the effects of having students teach others in order to learn) while others augment existing lines of research (e.g., the role of computer simulations in the classroom). Collectively, these investigations provide a framework for understanding each of the individual research studies, as well as the portability of the results of these studies to other environments. Furthermore, their coordinated outcomes will result in meaningful models of context in student learning, which will serve as the foundation for long-term research in this area. This research is designed to improve educational practices in physics and to better understand how to make them sustainable and scalable.

为什么大学生退出能够解决困难的分析问题的课程（例如，计算复杂电路中的电流），但不能从概念上解释相同的内容（例如，在这样的电路中哪个灯泡更亮）？哪些教育活动应对这一挑战，为什么？建立在物理教育研究的基础上，重点关注学生的认知，课程设计和课程实践，该研究计划建立了另一个视角，我们可以从中了解学生在物理学中的学习：一个强调在上下文中学习。也就是说，学生如何学习和学习什么不仅取决于传统的内容，而且还取决于任务的形成，课堂环境和内容嵌入的更广泛的制度结构。这样的观点开始解释一系列的研究问题，如上面列出的一个，并针对理解可持续的和可扩展的物理教育改革模型。本项目协调两个层次的研究背景在学生学习中的作用：学生个人的水平和课程活动的水平。许多相关的研究问题在物理学中是新的（例如，检查让学生为了学习而教别人的效果），而其他人则增加现有的研究路线（例如，计算机模拟在课堂上的作用）。总的来说，这些调查提供了一个框架，以了解每个单独的研究，以及这些研究的结果到其他环境的便携性。此外，他们的协调成果将导致有意义的模式，在学生学习的背景下，这将作为在这一领域的长期研究的基础。这项研究旨在改善物理学的教育实践，并更好地了解如何使其可持续和可扩展。