Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in PER

Tamia Williams, 2017 ▬ Characterizing the Role of Arts Education on the Physics Identity of Black Individuals

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Tamia Williams, 2017 ▬ Characterizing the Role of Arts Education on the Physics Identity of Black Individuals Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/17/2017 - 00:00

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Lisa Goodhew, 2012—What representations teach us about student reasoning

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Lisa Goodhew, 2012—What representations teach us about student reasoning Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/01/2012 - 00:00

(Link) The importance of informal science education to the field of Physics Education Research includes extending to a broader range of ages and environments than formal science and focusing on broader goals such as participants' identities as scientists. This paper describes 3 aspects of informal science education: programming, research, and curriculum development. A summer camp was run through JILA's PISEC (Partnerships of Informal Science in the Community) program. Participants' use of representations, in particular drawings, in response to different types of prompting was analyzed in both lab notebooks and stop-motion videos made by the participants. In light of the results of this study, a new curriculum was developed for use in the fall 2012 semester of the PISEC program.

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Danny Rehn, 2011 ▬ Heuristics for incorporating simulations into assignments

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Danny Rehn, 2011 ▬ Heuristics for incorporating simulations into assignments Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2011 - 00:00

(Link) The use of simulations in educational environments is a topic of growing interest, particularly in science education. While much research has been done to understand simulation use in interview settings, less has been done in the environments in which the majority of simulation use arises. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a framework for how simulations can be used in these natural environments, and analyze what can be done to promote effective use of simulations in these settings. We propose a list of heuristics or strategies that can be used when writing assignments to incorporate simulations, and additionally, provide a tentative theoretical view of how to implement these heuristics and why they work. This is done through a series of case studies that make use of the heuristics, as we first give an analysis of the heuristics that were used, and then provide a tentative theoretical view of how the heuristics were implemented, and why they work.

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Alex Fout, 2009—The Role of Contextual Framing: Assessments, Classroom Practice, and Student Perceptions

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Alex Fout, 2009—The Role of Contextual Framing: Assessments, Classroom Practice, and Student Perceptions Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 08/01/2009 - 00:00

(Link) Contextual framing in physics problems has been shown to generally affect student performance on assessments. This study seeks to identify some of the main influences of this effect, and to characterize how contextual framing may vary within a classroom. Students in summer introductory physics courses (algebra based and calculus based) are administered surveys that assess performance on problems that are contextually rich (more “real world”) vs. contextually bland (more abstract, “laboratory” descriptions). Initially females perform worse than do males on the contextually rich versions of the assessments when performance was equal on the contextually bland versions of the test. However further assessment reveals no clear trend how explicit contextual framing influences male and females differently. Students were polled on Attitudes and beliefs regarding the use of different kinds of context in the classroom, and the researcher’s observations of instructor practice correlated well with students’ opinions. Other roles of problem contextualization are identified, including the triggering of intuition and reasoning, albeit sometimes incorrect.

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