AAPT Logo
AJP Logo
 
   
 

You are not logged in You are not logged into this journal. Log In

American Journal of Physics -- July 2009 -- Volume 77, Issue 7, pp. 629

Reinventing college physics for biologists: Explicating an epistemological curriculum

Edward F. Redish and David Hammer

Departments of Physics and Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111

Full Text: Read Online (HTML) | Download PDF | Buy PDF (US$30) | View Cart
The University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group has done a five-year project to rethink, observe, and reform introductory algebra-based (college) physics, which primarily serves life-science majors. We refocused the class on helping the students learn to think scientifically—to build coherence, think in terms of mechanisms, and to follow the implications of assumptions. We designed the course to tap into students’ productive conceptual and epistemological resources, based on a theoretical framework from research on learning. The reformed class retains its traditional structure in terms of time and instructional personnel, but we modified existing best-practices curricular materials. We provided class-controlled spaces for student collaboration, which allowed us to observe and record students learning directly. We also scanned all written homework and examinations and administered pre-post conceptual and epistemological surveys. The reformed class enhanced the strong gains on pre-post conceptual tests produced by the best-practices materials while obtaining unprecedented pre-post gains on epistemological surveys instead of the traditional losses.

© 2009 American Association of Physics Teachers

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

algebra, physics education

PACS

  • 01.40.Fk

    Research in physics education

RELATED DATABASES

To view database links for this article, you need to log in.
History
Received Jul 2008
Accepted Mar 2009
Online Jun 2009

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN:

0002-9505 (print)  

Publisher:

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Association of Physics Teachers

ARTICLE DATA

Permalink
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3119150

For access to fully linked references, you need to log in.

For access to citing articles, you need to log in.


Supplemental Files (EPAPS)



Close

Your Recent History Recent History Help

Recently Viewed

  1. Reinventing college physics for biologists: Explicating an epistemological curriculum

AAPT on:

close