Collaborative Research: University Student Conceptual Resources for Understanding Physics

本计画旨在协助物理教师：（a）重视学生的直觉思考;（B）以学生的直觉为基础，改善教学。 该项目的前提是，学生将关于物理世界的想法带到课堂上，考虑到这些想法，无论多么非正式，都可以改善他们的学习。本计画将利用学生的直觉概念，开发力、波、光学以及物质粒子性质的教材。研究者对学生的直觉知识采取了不同的立场。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，因此如果不加以解决，就会成为学习的障碍。从这个角度来看，学生的知识是相对僵化的，而且大多与上下文无关。因此，研究人员在学生的思维中寻找共同的，不正确的模式，教师引发，面对和解决误解。根据知识资源论，1）学生的直觉理解来自于他们对物理世界的经验; 2）学生的知识是动态的，依赖于上下文。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一个单一的知识理论，误解的研究有更明显的影响，物理教育研究和教学比资源的研究。本计画的长期目标是促进教师采用第二种观点，即知识资源论。研究人员将首先记录学生们用来推理物理学的常见、普遍的资源。然后，他们将开发教学材料，嵌入对学生思维的资源导向，并建立在他们记录的资源。PI团队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。STEM教育界出于公平和代理的原因，正在接受以资源为导向的教学。将学生直观的物理学概念框定为误解不利于来自不同文化，语言和社会经济社区的学生。相反，将学生的想法作为资源--作为更复杂思维的“富有成效的开始”--有可能扩大对物理学的参与。

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.