Innovative methods for laboratory courses in physics degree programs:

the Slovenian experience

Gorazd Planinšič

Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

gorazd.planinsic@fmf.uni-lj.si

L’esperienza del PLS: guardando oltre, Roma, 11-12.5.2015

Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA

and PE students from University of Ljubljana Nejc Davidović Sergej Faletič Klemen Kelih Matej Gabrijelčič

This work has been developed in collaboration with:

Labs as a part of physics education in Slovenia

• Traditional teaching approaches • Cookbook labs (individual/group work)

• Physics is compulsory subject for at least 5 years (2 in PS + 3 in HS) • Relatively good achievements in TIMSS, PISA (upper third)

Primary Scholl (age 6-15) High School (age 15-19)

University, Physics majors, including future high-school physics teachers!

• Traditional teaching approaches (except few courses) • Cookbook labs (compulsory, individual work) • Project labs (optional, team work on open ended problems)

A student can finish university degree without ever working in a group on an open ended problem!

EU: Tuning Educational Structures in Europe (2003), guide for planning the Bologna proces and the platform for establishing communication between employers and universities

• among the first five generic competences ranked by physics graduates and employers are

– Problem solving,

– Capacity to apply knowledge in practice

– Teamwork

Recommendations

Recommendations

USA: Shaping the future (1996), “Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology,’’ NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources Review of Undergraduate Education

Document requests more scientific investigation, pedagogy that helps students develop skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking, and life long learning.

– Since 1999: optional course for 1st year & 2nd year students

– Enrolment: 25-35 students/semester (about 1/3 of active cohort)

– Load: 1/10 of total # of semester credits

– Grading: pass/fail

– Staff: 0.3 Prof + 1 TA

Project Lab – basic data

G Planinšič (2007), Eur. J. Phys.

•Students work in groups of 4-5. We leave students to form groups by themselves. •Students work through open ended experimental problems with minimal scaffolding. TAs only help them to think like scientists. • Every group gets a new project task (> 150 projects so far). • Students spend 3 x 3h/week in the lab and about 6 hours outside lab to complete the web-report. Students are given general structure of the web-report and list of typical mistakes. • Course leaders provide feedback on students’ web-reports by writing specific comments (can be a time consuming work). •At the end of the semester all groups present their work in a 5 min presentations.

Project lab - Course description (until fall 2014)

Project tasks types

• Design an experiment(s) to investigate a

phenomenon /determine a quantitiy ... [70%]

• Design an apparatus or procedure that meets the following requirements... [30%]

Example of project tasks Buzzing toothbrush Determine the vibrating frequency of electric toothbrush. Design and implement at least three methods and compare the results of your measurements.

Project instructions

Task description

Group organization

Title, date, TA…

Guidelines for preparing web-report

Technical guidelines

“I really liked the project tasks. They were all very interesting because they were related with the knowledge that we will need in our life or during studying physics.”

“I liked the freedom in achieving the goals of the project.”

“I liked team work and no pressure for grading”

Student responses (free responses to on-line questionnaire)

Course evaluations 2011/12

ScoreAVG

STDV N

1.Project Lab 2.52 0.85 21

2.Physics Practicum 2 2.45 0.89 73

3.Physics Practicum 1 2.44 0.90 72

4.Computational tools in Physics 2.32 1.24 38

Score AVG

STDV N

1.Computational tools in Physics 2.47 1.19 38

2.Physics Practicum 1 2.46 0.89 74

3.Project lab 2.43 0.90 21

4.Introductory Physics 1 2.38 1.14 74

Acquired knowledge, ability for understanding and solving problems

Acquired competencies: communicate results, using literature, work in a team

Out of 17

courses

Scores on a scale from

-3 to 3

ScoreAVG

STDV N

1.Project lab 2.47 0.88 19

2.Computational tools in physics 2.23 1.25 39

3.Physics Practicum 1 2.18 1.04 76

4.Physsics Practicum 2 2.09 1.00 77

ScoreAVG

STDV N

1.Computational tools in physics 2.40 1.20 40

2.Project lab 2.26 1.16 19

3.Physics practicum 1 2.23 1.02 78

4.Introd Physics 2 2.17 1.04 72

Acquired knowledge, ability for understanding and solving problems

Acquired competencies: communicate results, using literature, work in a team

Course evaluations 2012/13

Out of 17

courses

Scores on a scale from

-3 to 3

We are HERE

1st semester

2nd semester

Research based design/ course renovation 15 years of experiences

GIREP Seminar, Udine 2003

EJP (2007) special issue on labs

Timeline of course evolution

•How to engage students in thinking like physicists in more systematic and scaffolded ways? •How to help students reflect on their own learning and selfevalute their work? What can we learn from students’ reflections? •How to simplify the job of the instructor?

Guiding questions

Can we make it (even) better?

Changes in project tasks types

OBSERVATIONAL EXPERIMENT Hovercraft Simple hovercraft can be made of used CD, plastic stopper with a hole and the balloon (see figure). Investigate how relevant parameters affect hovercraft motion and time spent levitating.

Etkina et al., The role of experiments in physics instruction (2002)

• OBSERVATIONAL EXPERIMENTS • TESTING EXPERIMENTS • APPLICATION EXPERIMENTS

TESTING EXPERIMENT Disappearing water Romano in Ana observe how water slowly disappears from an open container. They notice that drying is faster in the presence of wind. Each of them proposes an explanation: Romano: fresh air from wind sucks water vapor by binding water molecules to air molecules. Ana: wind makes more space for water molecules so they can leave the liquid. Design experiments that will allow you to test the explanations and choose the one that explains the observed phenomenon best.

APPLICATION EXPERIMENT Energy stored in a battery Design two independent methods to determine energy stored in an AA battery and compare the results.

Changes in Project instructions

Task description

General about group work

Title, date, TA…

About rubrics

About the role of TAs

Technical guidelines

3 rubrics

* Etkina et al. (2006)

RUBRIC A: Ability to design & conduct an observational experiment * RUBRIC B: Ability to design & conduct an experiment to test a proposed explanation * RUBRIC C: Ability to design & conduct an application experiment * RUBRIC D: Ability to collect and analyze experimental data* RUBRIC E: Ability to communicate scientific ideas using a webpage

1

2

3

E5: Is able to use the web technology adequately

E6: Is aware of copyright laws

week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Groups receive project tasks including 3 rubrics

Experimental work (3h/week in the workshop)

2 weeks for producing web-report (V1)

Time for revisions* + reflection (rubric No 4)

Presentation of projects (5min/gr)

* Groups need to revise the webreports until they are scored as “adequate” on all items!

Timeline (spring 2015)

Students’ personal reflections

• Students have to submit personal reflections after sending the revision of the first version of the web-report . • Students get additional (fourth) rubric that help them write personal reflections. • Students need to revise the reflections until they are scored as “adequate”.

First version of the Rubric for reflection

What do students think about their learning? (preliminary results, normalized responses )

Work in a group

Science practices

Physics concepts

Webpage design

“Here we learned that you can’t prove a hypotheses, you can only reject them.”

Science practices – general statement

Science practices – specific statement

“I learned a lot about how to think about all the parameters such as control variables and experimental uncertainties and even more about how to think about them in general”

=> Revise the rubric to stimulate specific statements

“I learned how important is that a group works as one, is organized and makes group decisions.”

“In these sessions I learned how to state my idea as effective as possible. It is important that idea is understandable for all the group members, so you often have to try to put abstract ideas into a coherent unit that makes sense, so that your group members understand.”

Group work – general statement

Group work – specific statement

Revised version of the rubric for reflection

“I think that the concept of this course is very good, also the rubrics were carefully made and they helped us in our work. I wish more courses would follow the practice of this course, at least where possible.”

Student responses on rubrics

•Students work in groups of 4-5. Students propose groups but we adjust final groups to achieve productive gender balance. •Students work through open ended experimental problems with scaffolding provided by the rubrics. • Every group gets a new project task. Types of projects reflect roles of experiments in science practice (observational, testing, application). • Students spend 3 x 3h/week in the lab and about 6 hours outside lab to complete the web-report. Students are given project-specific rubrics that help them through the project and to prepare the web-report. • Course leaders provide feedback on students’ web-reports by refering to the rubrics’ items. •After the web-report is being accepted every student writes a personal reflection. At the end of the semester all groups present their work in a 5 min review presentation.

Project lab – spring 2015 Course description

Connecting Project Lab with teacher preparation

Graduate students in Physics Eeducation program • Work as TAs in Project Lab course • Propose new Project lab tasks, • Help to evaluate students’ reports using rubrics, • Make interviews, video recordings, transcriptions… • Conduct research

Summary

Project labs give first year students opportunities for using creatively their knowledge and skills, while developing key science competences. Project labs respond to the needs of the future and to the educational standards. They are also highly appreciated by students. In spite of this they are still a rare part of the undergraduate programs. We found Rutgers’ Scientific ability rubrics to be very helpful for students (seflevaluation, reflection) for instructors (reducing workload) and very useful for research-based approach to educational reforms.

Grazie!