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

传统的实验室练习通常旨在为学生提供科学实践经验，加强讲座中提出的规则和关系，并传达科学很酷的感觉。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，在教学过程中框架不佳，在很大程度上被忽视。即使是主要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负面态度，或者更糟的是，一般的科学。该项目正在为物理导论课程的实验室部分开发三种不同的教学策略：一种强烈引导的，以内容为中心的策略;一种问题驱动的，最低限度的指导策略;以及一种问题驱动的，以科学能力为中心的策略。这些策略中的每一个都是在考虑到可评估的学生学习成果的情况下制定的，以确保我们可以评估每个策略的成功。形成性评估学生努力达到这些目标包括基于规则的评价个人实验室和实验室为重点的考试问题。总结性评估包括期末考试，FCI或CSEM和CLASS。这项评估为未来的实验室教学提供了信息，并为科学教育界的实验室教育战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指导水平如何影响学生学习，认识论信念和实验室技能的理解。由于实验室教师可以有非常不同的目标，他们的课程，该项目正在评估几个不同的结果，以确定教师如何设计他们的实验室，以满足这些目标。此外，该项目正在通过录像带和访谈收集有关学生在实验室行为的更多数据，这些数据可用于构建实验室，并修改学生之间、教师之间和实验室设备之间的互动方式。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STEM教育的当前研究。最近的研究表明，学生在实验室环境中学习的教学策略是至关重要的。STEM社区刚刚开始为理解这些因素制定一个有凝聚力的框架，这项研究在其发展中发挥了关键作用。科学入门课程的实验室部分通常是非专业学生了解物理学家的工作和思考方式的唯一机会。如果没有有效的实验室指导，学生可能会离开课程，对科学的不明确的看法，并在课堂以外的科学研究的知识较少的消费者。通过帮助教师开发实验室，不仅影响未来的科学家，而且有助于发展公众的科学内容知识和能力，该项目可以导致一个更科学的社会，能够做出涉及科学数据的合理决策。

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.