PHY500: an Online Graduate Course in Physics Education for HS Teachers

1. PHY500: an Online Graduate Course in Physics Education for HS Teachers Daniel MacIsaac and Luanna Gomez Physics SUNY College at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14222 <macisadl@buffalostate.edu>

2. Abstract PHY500: Physics Education Seminar (online) is designed to lay a foundation of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in high school Physics Teaching scholarship, to engage high school Physics Teachers as practical consumers of physics and science education scholarship, and to foster critical reflection on their own teaching practices. We describe purpose, content, activity, and lessons learned from offering PHY500 to 78 middle and high school physics teachers since 2002.

3. An expectation of a secondary teacher program is to be able to lead the student to understand the importance of thinking critically about what and how they will teach in the physics high school classroom (Arons, 1997, Grossman, 2005; McDermott & DeWater, 2000).

4. Other Goals

5. Student population and context • 1500+ students† • Urban, suburban, and rural school districts • NYS Regents exam in physics & physical science • The secondary physics exam is administered during the spring term in grade 12 (N = 4500+ students) † includes secondary, intermediate, and elementary students.

6. Regents’ examination background • The exam‡: • is aligned with New York State core curriculum¶; • has been administered since 1979; and • contains 3 sections: • multiple choice, • constructed response (e.g. requires a short answer or calculation), and • extended constructed (e.g. requires a written passage or multi-step calculation) ‡See, for example, http://www.nysedregents.org/testing/scires/regentsphys.html ¶The NYS core curriculum may be viewed at http:///www.nysed.gov

7. Item 1 Major learning goal: To be able to discern that measured quantities can be classified as either a vector or a scalar. Difficulty: 0.80 Correct: 80% Concept multiple-choice question The speedometer in a car does not measure the car’s velocity because velocity is a vector quantity and has magnitude and direction (correct). vector quantity and does not have a direction associated with it. scalar quantity and has a direction associated with it. scalar quantity and does not have and does not have a direction associated with it. June 2008 secondary-level student data (Item 1)

8. Item 2 Major learning goals: To recognize that an object or system has a kinetic energy associated with its velocity, and that its gravitational potential energy depends solely on the relative positions of the objects in that system. Difficulty: 0.48 Correct: 47% Concept multiple-choice question A car travels from point A to point B at constant speed up a hill. As the car travels its gravitation potential energy increases and its kinetic energy decreases. increases and its kinetic energy remains the same (correct). remains the same and its kinetic energy decreases. remains the same and its kinetic energy remains the same. June 2008 secondary-level student data (Item 2)

9. Item 3 Major learning goals: To recognize that an object or system has a kinetic energy associated with its velocity, and that its gravitational potential energy depends solely on the relative positions of the objects in that system. Difficulty: 0.75 Correct: 68% Short calculation item A 65kg pole vaulter wishes to vault at a height of 5.5m. Calculate the minimum amount of kinetic energy the vaulter needs to reach the height if air friction is neglected and all the vaulting energy is derived from kinetic energy. [Show all work, including the equation and substitution with units.] Correct answer: KE = 3500 J (rounded to 2 significant figures) June 2008 secondary-level student data (Item 3)

10. Major learning goal: Interpretation of graphs Item 4 Difficulty: 0.97 Correct: 97% Item 5 Difficulty: 0.93 Correct: 93% Item 6 Difficulty: 0.45 Correct: 27% Multi-step calculation item Item 4: Plot the data points for the dart’s maximum vertical displacement versus spring compression. [Use the information in the data table (not shown).] Item 5: Draw the line or curve of best fit. Item 6: Using information from your graph, calculate the energy provided by the compressed spring that causes the dart to achieve a maximum vertical displacement of 3.50m. [Show all your work, including equation and substitution with units.] June 2008 secondary-level student data (Items 4-6)

11. Teacher data collection (preliminary) Individual teacher interviews (N ~ 3) Teachers were asked whether they believed computation-based (i.e., formula-driven) problems were more or less challenging for students than concept-based (i.e., qualitative) problems on the Regents’ exam in physics/physical science—they believed that the calculation problems were more difficult than conceptual ones!

12. Tentative conclusion Conceptual items may be more difficult than most calculation-driven ones Teachers may not appreciate the value of concept questions and dismiss the results because they are perceived as “trick” questions. More time may be spent preparing students for the Regents exam in physics with equations rather than concepts. [Teacher quotes go here]

13. Implications [Teachers’ attitudes] [Instruction] [Motivation for further inquiry]

14. Acknowledgements SUNY Buffalo State College Kathleen Falconer, Elementary Education and Reading Western New York Regional Information Center Timothy Johnson, Erie 1 BOCES