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Register a new userEnhancing Introductory Student Motivation with a Major-Managed Course Blog: A Pilot Study
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Enhancing motivation and learning attitudes in an introductory physics course is an important but difficult task that can be achieved through class blogging. We incorporated into an introductory course a blog operated by upper-level physics students. Using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), periodic in-class surveys, analysis of student blog comments, and post-instructional interviews, we evaluate how the blog combined with class instruction provided the students with a better sense of relevance and confidence and outline recommendations for future use of this strategy.
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In the Fall of 2013, Georgia Tech offered a flipped calculus-based introductory mechanics class as an alternative to the traditional large-enrollment lecture class. This class flipped instruction by introducing new material outside of the classroom through pre-recorded, lecture videos. Video lectures constituted students initial introduction to course material. We analyze how students engaged with online lecture videos via clickstream data, consisting of time-stamped interactions (plays, pauses, seeks, etc.) with the online video player. Analysis of these events has shown that students may be focusing on elements of the video that facilitate a correct solution.
Proficiency with calculating, reporting, and understanding measurement uncertainty is a nationally recognized learning outcome for undergraduate physics lab courses. The Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ) is a research-based assessment tool that measures such understanding. The PMQ was designed to characterize student reasoning into point or set paradigms, where the set paradigm is more aligned with expert reasoning. We analyzed over 500 student open-ended responses collected at the beginning and the end of a traditional introductory lab course at the University of Colorado Boulder. We discuss changes in students understanding over a semester by analyzing pre-post shifts in student responses regarding data collection, data analysis, and data comparison.
Laboratory courses are key components of most undergraduate physics programs. Lab courses often aim to achieve the following learning outcomes: developing students experimental skills, engaging students in authentic scientific practices, reinforcing concepts, and inspiring students interest and engagement in physics. Some of these outcomes can be measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS), a research-based assessment that measures students views about experimental physics. We used E-CLASS at the University of Colorado Boulder to measure learning outcomes during a course transformation process in which views about experimental physics were reflected in the learning goals. We collected over 600 student responses per semester from the large introductory laboratory course, both before and after implementing the course transformation. While we observed no statistically significant difference in overall post-instruction E-CLASS scores before and after the transformation, in the transformed course, student responses to three E-CLASS items that related to the goals of the transformation were more favorable than in the original course.
Covariational reasoning -- reasoning about how changes in one quantity relate to changes in another quantity -- has been examined extensively in mathematics education research. Little research has been done, however, on covariational reasoning in introductory physics contexts. We explore one aspect of covariational reasoning: ``goes like reasoning. ``Goes like reasoning refers to ways physicists relate two quantities through a simplified function. For example, physicists often say that ``the electric field goes like one over r squared. While this reasoning mode is used regularly by physicists and physics instructors, how students make sense of and use it remains unclear. We present evidence from reasoning inventory items which indicate that many students are sense making with tools from prior math instruction, that could be developed into expert ``goes like thinking with direct instruction. Recommendations for further work in characterizing student sense making as a foundation for future development of instruction are made.
We investigate students sense of ownership of multiweek final projects in an upper-division optics lab course. Using a multiple case study approach, we describe three student projects in detail. Within-case analyses focused on identifying key issues in each project, and constructing chronological descriptions of those events. Cross-case analysis focused on identifying emergent themes with respect to five dimensions of project ownership: student agency, instructor mentorship, peer collaboration, interest and value, and affective responses. Our within- and cross-case analyses yielded three major findings. First, coupling division of labor with collective brainstorming can help balance student agency, instructor mentorship, and peer collaboration. Second, students interest in the project and perceptions of its value can increase over time; initial student interest in the project topic is not a necessary condition for student ownership of the project. Third, student ownership is characterized by a wide range of emotions that fluctuate as students alternate between extended periods of struggle and moments of success while working on their projects. These findings not only extend the literature on student ownership into a new educational domain---namely, upper-division physics labs---they also have concrete implications for the design of experimental physics projects in courses for which student ownership is a desired learning outcome. We describe the course and projects in sufficient detail that others can adapt our results to their particular contexts.
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