Development and transfer of scientific abilities

1. Development and transfer of scientific abilities Eugenia Etkina Rutgers University Graduate School of Education http://islephysics.net http://paer.rutgers.edu/PT3 http://paer.rutgers.edu/scientificabilities

3. Outline What are our goals for instruction? What is ISLE? What are Scientific Abilities? Do students acquire them? Do students transfer them?

4. Goals of our introductory courses Workplace: Shift from an emphasis on manufacturing to an emphasis on the use of knowledge - instead of following instructions we need to solve problems working together. National Reports, accreditation of schools of engineering: Students should become skilled in the practice of science and engineering. Recent NRC report (K-12): Students should develop the ability to know and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world; generate and evaluate scientific evidence; understand the development of scientific knowledge; and learn to participate productively in scientific practices and discussions. Goals for Courses: Student learning in physics should be focused on developing science process abilities while acquiring and applying physics knowledge.

5.  Curriculum: Investigative Science Learning EnvironmentEtkina and Van Heuvelen (2001; 2007)

6. Do students learn physics? OSU/Rutgers/Chico data FCI normalized gains (post-pre)/(1-pre) Honors engineers 0.6 (OSU) Regular engineers 0.55 (UC Chico) At-risk engineers - 0.4 (Rutgers) (traditional instruction ~0.2; reformed instruction ~0.4-0.8, now we know that the gain strongly depends on a pre-test) CSEM post test results Honors engineers 69%-73% (2 year college professors score 77%) Regular engineers 68% 7 identical problems on the final exam, pre-meds, science majors Regular students 61%, ISLE students 76%. How can we assess whether the goals of ISLE are reached?

7. Do we achieve our goals? Develop a list of abilities that scientists and engineers use in the work. Develop tasks as a part of ISLE curriculum that will help students develop these abilities. Develop ways to assess student performance, provide useful feedback to them and revise instruction based on their work (AFL). Use the tasks and formative assessments (Black & Wiliam) in large enrollment introductory courses and study whether students indeed acquire scientific abilities.

8. Defining scientific abilities The ability to represent physical processes in multiple ways; The ability to design an experimental investigation; The ability to collect and analyze data ; The ability to devise and test a qualitative explanation (mechanism) or a quantitative relationship; The ability to modify an explanation (mechanism) or a quantitative relationship in light of new data; The ability to evaluate experimental predictions and outcomes, conceptual claims, problems solutions and models; The ability to communicate.

9. Assessing abilities: writing the rubrics to help students self-assess themselves Defining Sub-Abilities The ability to design an experiment to solve a problem: To be able to choose a productive mathematical procedure to solve the problem To identify the assumptions made in using the procedure To evaluate specifically the way in which the assumptions might affect the results To communicate the details of the experimental procedure clearly and completely.

10. Rubrics for guidelines, assessment and self-assessment

11. Using the rubrics

12. Lab design experiment

13. Lab design experiment

14. Scoring labs with rubrics

15. Third year

16. Transfer Dim PFL change textDim PFL change text

17. Transfer project

18. Lab experiments Lab comparisonLab comparison

19. Change beginning, reflecting on last lab, is not TA help, thus 16 minutes in the beginning is not TA helpChange beginning, reflecting on last lab, is not TA help, thus 16 minutes in the beginning is not TA help

21. The first three power-points is for the 193 Lab in the Fall of 2006. The first one is the average values of all of my observations of the labs weeks 1 through 10. The second is for Lab 11, in which both groups received this lab as practice for the practical. The values are the average of each of the 4 sections. The final slide is the lab practical and again is the average amount of time of the 4 groups in each category. The first three power-points is for the 193 Lab in the Fall of 2006. The first one is the average values of all of my observations of the labs weeks 1 through 10. The second is for Lab 11, in which both groups received this lab as practice for the practical. The values are the average of each of the 4 sections. The final slide is the lab practical and again is the average amount of time of the 4 groups in each category.

22. Exam data Add practicalAdd practical

32. Biology transfer taskDetermining plant transpiration rate a) Conduct two experiments to determine transpiration rate using stem cuttings from a single species of plant. Available equipment: water, beaker holding plant cuttings, parafilm, tubing, ring stand, graduated pipette, timers, humidity sensor, cup, cup with hole, scissors, and two droppers. b) What do you need to know more to be more successful? If you used additional resources please record what you used here. Resources available: Definitions of transpiration and humidity; table with saturated vapor density or water as a function of temperature. Unlimited use of the internet.

33. Time spent on lab activities

34. Scoring Students� Reports

35. Scientific Abilities Ability to identifying assumptions and evaluating their effects:

36. Scientific Abilities

37. Scientific Abilities

38. Scientific Abilities

39. Scientific Abilities

40. Summary of findings Design students spend more time on sense making and wrote much more sophisticated lab reports. Design students transferred abilities to Coordinate representations; Identify and evaluate assumptions; Identify evaluate and minimize uncertainties; Evaluate the result by the means of an independent method; Record, represent and analyze data; Communicate. These results seem to indicate that the design of experiments (using the rubrics for self assessment) promotes a more thoughtful approach toward laboratory investigations. This new approach promotes in turn the transfer of scientific abilities possibly because students understand their purpose.

41. Thank you! http://islephysics.net http://paer.rutgers.edu/PT3 http://paer.rutgers.edu/scientificabilities