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

传统的实验室练习通常是为了向学生提供科学实践经验，强化课堂上介绍的规则和关系，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，在教学过程中框架不佳，基本上被忽视。即使是主要目标也不总是明确的，这让学生感到沮丧，并助长了对实验室的负面态度，或者更糟糕的是，总体上对科学的态度。该项目正在为物理入门课程的实验室部分制定三种不同的教学策略：一种以内容为重点的强指导策略；一种以问题为导向、最少指导的策略；以及一种以问题为导向、以科学能力为重点的策略。这些策略中的每一种都是在考虑到可评估的学生学习结果的情况下制定的，以确保我们可以评估每种策略的成功。对学生为实现这些目标所做努力的形成性评估包括对各个实验室的基于标准的评估和以实验室为重点的考试问题。终结性评估包括期末考试、FCI或CSEM和班级。这项评估为实验室教学的未来迭代提供了信息，并为科学教育界以实验室为基础的教育战略提供了重要的见解。更广泛的影响：这个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。由于实验室讲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中行为的更多数据，这些数据可用于构建实验室结构，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，并可以促进对实验室设计、实施和评估的理解。智力价值：该项目深深植根于STEM教育的当前研究。最近在实验室环境下对学生学习的研究表明，教学策略至关重要。STEM社区刚刚开始建立一个理解这些因素的凝聚力框架，而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做什么以及他们是如何思考的唯一机会。如果没有有效的实验室教学，学生可能会在离开课程时对科学的看法含糊其辞，成为课堂外知识较少的科学研究消费者。通过帮助教师发展不仅影响未来科学家的实验室，而且帮助发展公众的科学内容知识和能力，该项目可以导致一个更具科学素养的社会，能够做出涉及科学数据的理性决策。

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.