Improving scientific reasoning and metacognition via a conceptual physics course

卡罗莱纳海岸大学的研究人员正在开发一种新的课程和教材，明确针对概念物理学背景下的科学推理和元认知。该项目的主要目标是：（1）提高科学推理能力，使非STEM学生成为有效的公民领导者，并将准备不足的物理专业学生培养成能够胜任高强度学习计划的科学学生;改变学生的科学观和知识建构观，从实证主义的观点，把科学看作是一种存在的知识体系，一个更建构主义为导向的观点，其中获取新知识是一个创造性的奋进，需要各种认识论资源。这个项目的一个新颖的和潜在的变革方面是关注学生学习的两个截然不同的（至少从表面上看）学生群体的问题-非STEM专业和第一学期的物理专业。研究人员在认识到这两个群体有相似的教育需求方面表现出了重要的洞察力;从这两个群体中吸取的教训，以及可能从群体之间的互动中吸取的教训，将对更大的物理学和科学界产生极大的兴趣。

Researchers at Carolina Coastal University are developing a new course and curricular materials that explicitly target scientific reasoning and metacognition within a conceptual physics context. The main goals of this project are: (1) to improve scientific reasoning, preparing non-STEM students to be effective citizen leaders and developing underprepared physics majors into reasonably competent science students ready for the rigors of an intense program of study; and (2) to change student's views about science and knowledge construction from a positivist-oriented view, where they regard science as an existing body of knowledge, to a more constructivist-oriented view, where acquisition of new knowledge is a creative endeavor requiring a variety of epistemological resources. One novel and potentially transformative aspect of this project is the attention paid to issues surrounding student learning for two wildly disparate (at least by surface appearances) groups of students---the non-STEM major and the first-semester physics major. The investigators have shown significant insight in recognizing that these two groups have similar educational needs; lessons learned from both groups, and perhaps from interactions between the groups, will be of great interest to the larger physics and scientific community.