From Cook Book to Exploration: Optimizing Learning Gains in Introductory Physics Laboratory Instruction

传统的实验练习通常旨在为学生提供科学实践经验，强化课堂上的规则和关系，并传达一种科学很酷的感觉。其他潜在的目标，如澄清科学方法和提高学生对测量、误差和假设的理解，在教学中没有得到很好的框架和很大程度上被忽视。即使是最初的目标也不总是明确的，这让学生感到沮丧，并促进了对实验室的消极态度，甚至更糟的是，对科学的消极态度。本项目为物理导论课程的实验部分制定了三种不同的教学策略：一种强烈引导、以内容为中心的策略；问题驱动、最低限度指导的策略；以问题为导向，以科学能力为中心的策略。每一种策略都是在考虑到可评估的学生学习结果的情况下制定的，以确保我们能够评估每种策略的成功。对学生努力实现这些目标的形成性评估包括对个别实验室和以实验室为重点的考试问题的基于规则的评估。总结性评估包括期末考试、FCI或CSEM和CLASS。这一评估为未来实验室教学的迭代提供了信息，并为科学教育界的实验室教育策略提供了重要的见解。更广泛的影响：该项目促进了对内容和科学能力的不同层次指导如何影响学生学习、认识论信念和实验室技能的理解。由于实验室教师对他们的课程可能有非常不同的目标，该项目正在评估几种不同的结果，以确定教师如何设计他们的实验室来满足这些目标。此外，该项目正在通过录像带和访谈收集关于学生在实验室行为的额外数据，这些数据可用于构建实验室，并修改学生与彼此、教师和实验室设备的互动方式。定量和定性数据允许与其他研究人员进行广泛的合作，并可以促进对设计，实施和评估实验室的理解。智力优势：该项目深深植根于当前STEM教育的研究中。最近关于学生在实验室学习的研究表明，教学策略是至关重要的。STEM社区刚刚开始开发一个有凝聚力的框架来理解这些因素，而这项研究在其发展中起着关键作用。科学入门课程的实验部分通常是非专业学生了解物理学家是做什么的以及他们是如何思考的唯一机会。如果没有有效的实验指导，学生可能会带着不明确的科学观点离开这门课程，并且在课堂之外成为科学研究的知识贫乏的消费者。通过帮助教师开发实验室，这些实验室不仅可以影响未来的科学家，还可以帮助发展科学内容知识和普通公众的能力，该项目可以导致一个更具科学素养的社会，能够根据科学数据做出合理的决定。

Traditional laboratory exercises are often intended to provide hands-on experience in science to students, reinforce the rules and relationships presented in lecture, and convey a sense that science is cool. Other potential goals, such as clarifying the scientific method and improving student understanding of measurement, error and assumptions, are poorly framed and largely neglected during instruction. Even primary goals are not always made clear, which frustrates students and promotes negative attitudes toward the laboratory, or worse, science in general. This project is developing three different instructional strategies for the laboratory component of an introductory physics course: a strongly guided, content-focused strategy; a question-driven, minimally guided strategy; and a question-driven, scientific ability-focused strategy. Each of these strategies is being developed with assessable student learning outcomes in mind, to ensure that we can evaluate the success of each strategy. Formative assessment of student efforts to reach these goals involves rubric-based evaluation of individual laboratories and laboratory-focused examination questions. Summative assessment incorporates the final exam, FCI or CSEM, and CLASS. This assessment is informing future iterations of laboratory instruction and provides significant insight about strategies for laboratory-based education in the science education community. Broader impact: This project advances understanding on how different levels of guidance in content and scientific abilities impact student learning, epistemological beliefs, and laboratory skills. As laboratory instructors can have very different goals for their courses, the project is assessing several different outcomes to determine how instructors can design their laboratories to match these goals. Furthermore, the project is gathering additional data on student behavior in laboratories - through videotapes and interviews - that can be used to structure laboratories and modify how students interact with each other, the instructor, and the laboratory equipment. The quantitative and qualitative data allow for extensive collaborations with other researchers and can advance understanding on designing, implementing, and assessing laboratories. Intellectual Merit: The project is deeply embedded in current research in STEM education. Recent research on student learning in the laboratory setting suggests that the instructional strategy is crucially important. The STEM community is just beginning to develop a cohesive framework for understanding these factors, and this study plays a pivotal role in its development. The laboratory component of an introductory science course is often the only exposure that nonmajors get on what physicists do and how they think. Without effective laboratory instruction, students may leave the course with unclear views about science and be less knowledgeable consumers of scientific research beyond the classroom. By helping instructors develop laboratories that not only impact future scientists, but help develop the scientific content knowledge and abilities of the general public, the project can lead to a more scientifically literate society, able to make reasoned decisions involving scientific data.