Collaborative Research: University Student Conceptual Resources for Understanding Physics

本项目旨在帮助物理教师：(a)重视学生的直觉思维，(b)在学生直觉的基础上改进教学。该项目基于这样一个前提，即学生将关于物理世界的想法带入课堂，并且考虑到这些想法，无论多么非正式，都可以改善他们的学习。本项目将开发有关力、波和光学以及物质粒子性质的教材，利用学生的直觉思维。研究人员对学生的直觉知识持截然不同的立场。误解知识理论的立场是，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，大多是上下文独立的。因此，研究人员在学生思维中寻找常见的、不正确的模式，而教师则引出、面对并解决误解。或者，根据知识资源理论：1)学生的直觉理解是从他们对物理世界的经验中发展而来的；2)学生的知识是动态的和情境依赖的。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结于单一的知识理论，但误解研究对物理教育研究和教学的影响比资源研究更明显。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用来推理物理的常见、普遍的资源。然后，他们将开发教学材料，嵌入学生思维的资源导向，并以他们记录的资源为基础。PI团队也将测试这些教学材料在提高学生概念理解方面的有效性。出于公平和能动性的考虑，STEM教育界正在接受以资源为导向的教学。将学生的直觉物理想法框定为误解，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“富有成效的开端”——有可能扩大学生对物理的参与。

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.