Projects
David
Hammer,
University of Maryland at College Park
Current projects are:
1) Learning Progressions in Scientific Inquiry (NSF DRL 0732233,
1/08-6/12)
Fred Goldberg
at the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San
Diego State is the principal investigator of this project, which is to
study teachers' and students' learning progressions in scientific
inquiry. We're working with a team of teachers, grades 3-6, in
summer workshops and throughout the year.
2)
Improving
students' mathematical sense-making in engineering: Research and
development (NSF EEC 0835880)
Andy Elby is the
principal investigator of this project, which is to study how
engineering students' mathematical sense-making: How do they
understand and work with mathematical expressions and
calculations? We'd like it to be a meaningful part of their
learning, but it isn't always.
3) What influences teachers'
modifications
of
curriculum? (NSF ESI 0455711, 6/05 - 5/08; extended with
supplement to 5/10)
We're in the end stages of this one,
with a supplement to support Dan Levin in developing a set of case
studies for use in secondary professional development, along the lines
of our
previous
work
for K-8.
4) Developing Conceptual and Teaching
Expertise in Physics Graduate Students: An Integrated Approach (NSF REC
0529482, 1/06 - 7/08)
Rachel Scherr is
the
principal investigator of this project, which is to (1) create and
teach a professional development seminar designed to help graduate
students develop sophisticated teaching practices and “learning
theories” they apply both to their teaching and to their own
learning; and (2) study the ways in which taking the seminar and
teaching in a reformed introductory physics course bring about
changes in TAs’ approaches to teaching, their conceptual
expertise, and their epistemologies – their views about the nature of
knowledge and learning.
Previous projects:
Toward a New Conceptualization of What
Constitutes
Progress in Learning Physics, K-16: Resources, Framing, and
Networks (NSF REC 0440113, 4/05 - 3/08)
The core idea was that students of all
ages have a rich
variety of cognitive resources for reasoning about the physical world,
resources they use in different ways depending on the
circumstances. We're interested to understand how students extend
and refine these resources and how they use them.
Helping students learn how to
learn:
Open-source physics worksheets
integrated with TA development resources (NSF DUE 0341447, 6/04 - 5/06,
extended to 6/08)
Andy Elby was the
principal investigator of this project, which is to develop curriculum
materials for use in introductory physics instruction that (1) allow
for local customization and (2) embed professional development for
instructors. Customization is possible because the materials are
in electronic format. The professional development is in the form
of explanations about the design of the worksheets and annotated video
snippets of students using them.
Case studies of elementary student
inquiry in physical science (NSF ESI 9986846)
 |
We worked for three years
with a team
of K-8 teachers to collect video snippets of student inquiry from their
classes and develop them into case studies as materials for
professional development.
The
book with DVD was published last year by Heinemann.
The book presents
a view of scientific inquiry and six case studies of student inquiry,
at grades 1-8, written by their teachers. Five of these cases
come with video of the class discussion(s), which we provide on the
DVD. Each case study includes detailed notes to guide
conversation about the video and the case study in workshops or
seminars.
|
Learning how
to learn science:
Physics for bioscience majors. (NSF REC 0087519)
Joe Redish was the
principal investigator of this project. Our focus was on
students' expectations and epistemologies: What do they think
learning in physics entails? What do they think constitutes
understanding? We'd seen that in small classes, we could
help students take more productive approaches toward knowledge and
learning; we were interested to find out what we could accomplish in
large-lecture contexts. We found that by coordinating all aspects
of the course -- lectures, labs, homework and tutorials (adapting
materials
developed at the University of Washington, Seattle) -- we could
make a substantial difference.