Developing Conceptual and Teaching Expertise in Physics Graduate Students: An Integrated Approach

尽管有许多培训助教的项目，但很少有研究关注这些挑战的具体性质。该项目详细介绍了研究生助教对教育改革的期望、态度和认识论，并开发了一个学习环境来帮助他们克服问题。该项目旨在解决围绕物理研究生教育和专业发展的两个问题。研究生助教（TAs）通常被期望在实施“合作主动学习”课程中发挥重要作用，在这些课程中，学生以小组形式学习。然而，许多助教在这种形式的教学中遇到了困难，部分原因在于他们对学生学习方式的看法。此外，一些物理学研究生没有继续发展概念专业知识，对核心物理概念达到深入的定性理解，从而促进研究和教学。这是因为研究生课程往往强调数学方法，而不是概念上的专业知识。物理系助教的专业发展通常与物理研究生教育分开处理。然而，研究表明，以统一的方式培养概念专业知识和教学专业知识可能是有效和高效的。在这个试点项目中，研究人员正在创建和教授一个专业发展研讨会，旨在帮助研究生发展复杂的教学实践和“学习理论”，以应用于他们的教学和自己的学习。该项目正在研究在改革后的物理导论课程中，助教研讨会和相关教学的结构如何改变助教的教学、概念专业知识和认识论——他们对知识和学习本质的看法。教师的认识论强烈地影响着他们在实施合作主动学习材料方面的成功。其中一个问题是助教们认为学生能从听迷你讲座和自己解决问题中学习到什么程度。另一个原因是他们重视将日常经验和先入之见作为学习物理的一部分。因此，研究人员正在使用各种方法（包括定期访谈和录像观察他们的教学）来观察参与这个项目的研究生，以探索他们的认识论和他们的教学方法。通过将项目中的助教与有效实践的绝对标准进行比较，并通过深入分析他们的认识论和教学实践的轨迹，研究人员正在开发可以在后续项目中严格验证的假设。科学领域的助教几乎包括了所有的下一代大学理科教师；在物理方面，他们参与了许多物理入门课程的实际传授，通常负责所有的小组环境。由于许多最有效的大学物理导论教学创新都是在小组环境中进行的，因此助教进行改革教学的能力对改革的成败至关重要。

Although there have been many projects for training TAs, little research has focused on the specific nature of the challenges. This project details the expectations, attitudes, and epistemologies of graduate teaching assistants towards educational reform, and develops a learning environment to help them overcome problems. The project is addressing two issues surrounding the education and professional development of physics graduate students. Graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) are often expected to play significant roles in implementing "collaborative active learning" sessions, where students work in small groups. However, many TAs have trouble teaching in this format, partly because of their views about how students learn. Also, some physics graduate students do not continue to develop conceptual expertise, reaching a deep level of qualitative understanding of core physical concepts that facilitates both research and teaching. This is because graduate coursework often stresses mathematical methods rather than conceptual expertise. The professional development of TAs in physics departments is typically handled separately from graduate education in physics. Research suggests, however, that it might be effective and efficient to foster conceptual expertise and teaching expertise in a unified way. In this pilot project the investigators are creating and teaching a professional development seminar designed to help graduate students develop sophisticated teaching practices and "learning theories" to apply both to their teaching and to their own learning. The project is conducting research on the ways in which the structure of TA seminars and associated teaching in a reformed introductory physics course changes TAs' teaching, conceptual expertise, and epistemologies - their views about the nature of knowledge and learning. Teachers' epistemologies strongly affect their success at implementing collaborative active-learning materials. One issue is the extent to which TAs think students can learn from listening to mini-lectures vs. working through problems for themselves. Another is the importance they attach to addressing everyday experiences and preconceptions as part of learning physics. Thus, the investigators are observing graduate students who are participating in this project using a variety of methods (including periodic interviews and videotaped observations of their teaching) to probe their epistemologies and their approaches to teaching and learning. By comparing TAs in the program to an absolute standard of effective practice and by analyzing in depth the trajectories of their epistemologies and teaching practices, the investigators are developing hypotheses that can be tested rigorously in a subsequent project. TAs in the sciences include almost all of the next generation of university science faculty; in physics they are involved in much of the actual delivery of introductory physics classes, typically responsible for all small-group environments. Since many of the most effective instructional innovations developed for introductory college-level physics are delivered in small-group environments, the ability of TAs to deliver reformed instruction is critical to the success or failure of a reform.