Collaborative Research: University Student Conceptual Resources for Understanding Physics

这个项目旨在帮助物理教师：(A)重视学生的直觉思维，(B)通过建立学生的直觉来改进他们的教学。该项目的前提是，学生将关于物理世界的大量想法带到课堂上，考虑到这些想法，无论多么非正式，都可以改善他们的学习。这个项目将开发关于力、波和光学的教学材料，以及利用学生直观想法的物质的粒子性质。研究人员对学生的直觉知识采取了截然不同的立场。知识的错误概念理论认为，学生的直觉理解往往与科学共识不一致，因此除非得到解决，否则就是学习的障碍。从这个角度来看，学生的知识相对僵化，而且大多与背景无关。因此，研究人员寻找学生思维中常见的、不正确的模式，教师引出、对抗和解决错误的概念。或者，根据知识资源论：1)学生的直观理解是从他们对物理世界的经验中发展起来的；2)学生的知识是动态的和上下文相关的。因此，研究人员应该关注教师可以建立的富有成效和潜在有用的学生直觉。虽然教师和研究人员不需要归因于单一的知识论，但误解研究对物理教育研究和教学的影响比资源研究更显著。本项目的长期目标是促进教师采用第二种观点，即知识资源理论。研究人员将首先记录学生们用来对物理进行推理的常见、普遍的资源。然后，他们将开发教学材料，嵌入以学生思维为导向的资源，并以他们记录的资源为基础。PI小组还将测试这些教学材料在提高学生概念理解方面的有效性。出于公平和代理的原因，STEM教育界正在拥抱以资源为导向的教学。把学生直观的物理概念框定为误解，对来自不同文化、语言和社会经济群体的学生不利。相反，把学生的想法框定为资源--作为更复杂思维的“富有成效的开端”--有可能扩大对物理的参与。

This project aims to help physics instructors: (a) value student's intuitive thinking and (b) improve their instruction by building on those student intuitions. The project is grounded in the premises that students bring stores of ideas about the physical world to the classroom, and taking into account these ideas, however informal, can improve their learning. This project will develop instructional materials in forces, waves and optics, and the particle nature of matter that utilize students' intuitive ideas. Researchers have taken very different stances toward students' intuitive knowledge. The misconceptions theory of knowledge takes the stance that students' intuitive understandings are often inconsistent with the scientific consensus and thus are obstacles to learning unless addressed. From this perspective student knowledge is relatively rigid and mostly context-independent. Thus researchers search for common, incorrect patterns in student thinking, and instructors elicit, confront, and resolve misconceptions. Alternatively, according to the resources theory of knowledge: 1) students' intuitive understandings develop from their experiences of the physical world and 2) student knowledge is dynamic and context-dependent. Hence, researchers should attend to productive and potentially useful student intuitions on which instructors can build. While instructors and researchers need not ascribe to a single theory of knowledge, misconceptions research has had a more pronounced impact on physics education research and instruction than resources research. This project has the long-term goal of promoting instructor adoption of this second perspective, the resources theory of knowledge. Researchers will first document the common, prevalent resources that students marshal to reason about physics. Then they will develop instructional materials that embed a resources orientation toward student thinking and build on the resources they document. The PI team will also test the effectiveness of these instructional materials in improving students' conceptual understanding. The STEM education community is embracing resources-oriented instruction for reasons of equity and agency. Framing students' intuitive physics ideas as misconceptions disadvantages students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic communities. Conversely, framing student ideas as resources -- as "productive beginnings" of more sophisticated thinking -- has the potential to broaden participation in physics.