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Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mapping E-Commerce Locally And Beyond: Citt K12 Special Investigation Project, Thomas O’Brien, Deanna Matsumoto
Mapping E-Commerce Locally And Beyond: Citt K12 Special Investigation Project, Thomas O’Brien, Deanna Matsumoto
Mineta Transportation Institute
As all aspects of the American workplace become automated or digitally enhanced to some degree, K12 educators have an increasing responsibility to help their students acquire the technical skills necessary to organize and interpret information. Increasingly, this is done through Geographic Information Systems (GIS), especially in careers related to transportation and logistics. The Center for International Trade & Transportation (CITT) at CSU Long Beach has developed this K12 Special Investigation Project to introduce ArcGIS StoryMaps, an engaging, accessible and sophisticated web-based GIS application. The lessons center on e-commerce and its accompanying environmental and economic impact. Still, the activities can be …
Peer Motivation: Getting Through Math Together, Jessica Mean, Wes Maciejewski
Peer Motivation: Getting Through Math Together, Jessica Mean, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Students have a complex relationship with mathematics. Some love it, but more often than not, the feelings are less favorable. These feelings can lead to decreased motivation which makes it difficult for students to engage with the subject as the semester progresses. Instructors also have difficulty addressing this waning motivation. In this paper, we claim peers are better able to connect with the students and this can be leveraged to better motivate students. We present an approach to having peers motivate their students. These peer interactions integrated with a mandatory mathematics course might improve students’ motivation.
Relative Impacts Of Different Grade Scales On Student Success In Introductory Physics, David J. Webb, Cassandra A. Paul, Mary A. Chessey
Relative Impacts Of Different Grade Scales On Student Success In Introductory Physics, David J. Webb, Cassandra A. Paul, Mary A. Chessey
Faculty Publications
In deciding on a student’s grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point scale (where each whole number 0–4 corresponds to a letter grade) and the percent scale (where letter grades A through D are uniformly distributed in the top 40% of the scale). This paper uses grading data from a single series of courses offered over a period of 10 years to show that the grade distributions emerging from these two grade scales differed in many …
Observing Change In Students’ Attitudes Towards Mathematics: Contrasting Quantitative And Qualitative Approaches, Wes Maciejewski
Observing Change In Students’ Attitudes Towards Mathematics: Contrasting Quantitative And Qualitative Approaches, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
A student’s attitude towards mathematics affects how they learn and perform in mathematics. What exactly is meant by attitude and how this interacts with mathematics education is a current debate in the mathematics education research community. Regardless, practitioners often acknowledge a consideration of improving students’ attitudes towards mathematics in their course design. This creates an impetus to study attitudes towards mathematics in a way that lends itself to observing changes over a course in mathematics. The current study draws on two approaches to observing and measuring attitudes towards mathematics in an effort to contrast disparate approaches and deepen an investigation …
Changes In Attitudes Revealed Through Students’ Writing About Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Changes In Attitudes Revealed Through Students’ Writing About Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
The ways in which a student relates to mathematics is known to affect how they learn and perform in mathematics: anxiety may be compensated with avoidance; enjoyment with engagement. Therefore, there is a need to understand students’ relationships with mathematics and to see how these are affected by mathematics education. This paper presents results from the early stages of a mixed-methods study aimed at assessing changes in students’ attitudes towards mathematics as revealed in their writings about mathematics. In contrast to existing survey instruments on attitudes towards mathematics, the methods and discussion presented here have the potential to inform the …
Using The Real-Time Instructor Observing Tool (Riot) For Reflection On Teaching Practice, Cassandra Paul, Emily West
Using The Real-Time Instructor Observing Tool (Riot) For Reflection On Teaching Practice, Cassandra Paul, Emily West
Faculty Publications
As physics educators, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our practice. There are many different kinds of professional development opportunities that have been shown to help us with this endeavor. We can seek assistance from professionals, like mentor teachers or centers for faculty development, we can attend workshops to learn new curricula or pedagogical skills, and we can engage in learning communities to develop shared visions and become more reflective educators.1However, when these activities end, what can we do on our own to continue to improve? How can we track our improvement? And perhaps even most …
Mathematical Knowledge As Memories Of Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Mathematical Knowledge As Memories Of Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
I propose that an understanding of a mathematical concept is comprised of both a conceptual understanding of, and recollections of working with that concept. That is, a mathematical concept may not be immediately distilled in its abstract form from lived experience, didactical or otherwise, and this milleu is brought along in subsequent recollections of the concept. In an effort to balance pedagogical recommendations for increased conceptual teaching/understanding, I propose that memories of encountering a mathematical concept improve its utility in novel problem situations. I support this claim by drawing on the literature on episodic future thinking and on our developing …
Equity Of Success In Clasp Courses At Uc Davis, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Mary Chessey, Wendell Potter
Equity Of Success In Clasp Courses At Uc Davis, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Mary Chessey, Wendell Potter
Faculty Publications
We have recently described the reformed introductory physics course, Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-Making in Physics (CLASP), for bioscience students at UC Davis and argued that the course was more successful than its predecessor (Physics 5) by several measures. Now we examine the effects of these courses for different student ethnic groups. We find that, compared to Physics 5, students of most ethnic backgrounds were more successful in CLASP. We also find that students from ethnic groups underrepresented in STEM who took the CLASP course were more likely to graduate as STEM majors. We discuss possible features of CLASP that …
Why Teach Science? Helping Teacher Candidates Frame Instructional Decision Making From Moral And Ethical Perspectives, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin
Why Teach Science? Helping Teacher Candidates Frame Instructional Decision Making From Moral And Ethical Perspectives, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin
Faculty Publications
This qualitative research project’s overarching goal was to explore ways to help primary grade teacher candidates (re)kindle a conception of teaching as a moral enterprise involving ethical choices and enactment of one’s values. In the context of a science methods course, we explored the research question: What happens to the commitments toward science instruction of pre-service elementary teachers when we help them view science instruction as an act of caring? Our findings suggest that for many, this approach helped students take a moral stance, articulate an ethical position regarding educational issues, and use these perspectives to inform decision-making at the …
Episodic Future Thinking In Mathematical Situations, Wes Maciejewski, Reece Roberts, Donna Rose Addis
Episodic Future Thinking In Mathematical Situations, Wes Maciejewski, Reece Roberts, Donna Rose Addis
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Episodic future thinking is a process of mentally projecting one's self into a future event, allowing the event to be experienced before it actually occurs (Atance & O'Neill, 2001). The current study explores the possibility that students engage in episodic future thinking while solving mathematical tasks. Participating students were given mathematical situations and verbalized thoughts that emerged as they planned resolutions to the situations. All participants exhibited episodic future thinking and we present a categorization of these thoughts. Given extant results on the positive influence episodic future thinking has on general problem-solving ability, we propose that a similar influence might …
Research Mathematicians & Mathematics Educators: Collaborations For Change, Greg Oates, Wes Maciejewski
Research Mathematicians & Mathematics Educators: Collaborations For Change, Greg Oates, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
No abstract provided.
The Promise Of An Energy Tracker Curriculum For Promoting Home-School Connections And Youth Agency In Climate Action, Elizabeth M. Walsh, Derek Jenkins, Eugene Cordero
The Promise Of An Energy Tracker Curriculum For Promoting Home-School Connections And Youth Agency In Climate Action, Elizabeth M. Walsh, Derek Jenkins, Eugene Cordero
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Formal classroom learning experiences that support sustainable behaviors outside the classroom necessarily must bridge students’ home and school lives, as knowledge and practice learned in the classroom is implemented outside of school. To this end, we study the impact of the Green Ninja Energy Tracker curriculum, which uses students’ home energy data in the classroom to promote engagement in climate change and conservation behaviors. Data is drawn from class observations, a focus group, and pre- and post- surveys of a pilot implementation of this curriculum in a diverse 12th-grade Earth Science classroom at an alternative school. We investigate what factors …
Energy Tracking Diagrams, Rachel Scherr, Benedikt Harrer, Hunter Close, Abigail Daane, Lezlie Dewater, Amy Robertson, Lane Seeley, Stamatis Vokos
Energy Tracking Diagrams, Rachel Scherr, Benedikt Harrer, Hunter Close, Abigail Daane, Lezlie Dewater, Amy Robertson, Lane Seeley, Stamatis Vokos
Faculty Publications
Energy is a crosscutting concept in science and features prominently in national science education documents. In the Next Generation Science Standards, the primary conceptual learning goal is for learners to conserve energy as they track the transfers and transformations of energy within, into, or out of the system of interest in complex physical processes. As part of tracking energy transfers among objects, learners should (i) distinguish energy from matter, including recognizing that energy flow does not uniformly align with the movement of matter, and should (ii) identify specific mechanisms by which energy is transferred among objects, such as mechanical work …
Instructors' Perceptions Of Their Students' Conceptions: The Case In Undergraduate Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Instructors' Perceptions Of Their Students' Conceptions: The Case In Undergraduate Mathematics, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
How a student conceives the nature of a subject they study affects the approach they take to that study and ultimately their learning outcome. This conception is shaped by prior experience with the subject and has a lasting impact on the student's learning. For subsequent education to be effective, an instructor must link the current topic to the student's prior knowledge. Short of assessing their students, an instructor relies on their subjective experience, intuitions, and perceptions about this prior knowledge. These perceptions shape the educational experience. The current study explores, in the context of undergraduate mathematics, the alignment of instructors' …
The Real-Time Instructor Observing Tool For Future Teachers, Cassandra Paul
The Real-Time Instructor Observing Tool For Future Teachers, Cassandra Paul
Faculty Publications
Current educational research shows that students achieve higher learning gains in science classrooms when interactive techniques are used. As a result, we are seeing more high schools and institutions of higher education adopt interactive courses. Unfortunately, it's difficult for future teachers to envision interactive science courses because their experience as students has been dominated by traditional lecture. New educators need to know what interactive science classrooms look like, so that they can model this experience in their own classrooms. The Real-time Instructor Observing Tool (RIOT), a computer application that allows an observer to quickly categorize classroom interactions, can help with …
Grading By Response Category: A Simple Method For Providing Students With Meaningful Feedback On Exams In Large Courses, Cassandra Paul, Wendell Potter, Brenda Weiss
Grading By Response Category: A Simple Method For Providing Students With Meaningful Feedback On Exams In Large Courses, Cassandra Paul, Wendell Potter, Brenda Weiss
Faculty Publications
As instructors, we want our students to develop a deep understanding of course material, and feedback is essential in their sense-making process. Providing effective individualized feedback to students in large courses is especially difficult. While researcherssuggest,1 and many instructors of large courses are,2,3incorporating interactive techniques that allow peer feedback, studies have shown that it's important for students to also have direct feedback from the instructor.4 Since the requirement for individualized feedback is difficult to meet during class time in large courses, providing effective feedback on exams and quizzes takes on added importance. Some instructors choose to …
Variation Of Instructor-Student Interactions In An Introductory Interactive Physics Course, Emily West, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Wendell Potter
Variation Of Instructor-Student Interactions In An Introductory Interactive Physics Course, Emily West, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Wendell Potter
Faculty Publications
The physics instruction at UC Davis for life science majors takes place in a long-standing reformed large-enrollment physics course in which the discussion or laboratory instructors (primarily graduate student teaching assistants) implement the interactive-engagement (IE) elements of the course. Because so many different instructors participate in disseminating the IE course elements, we find it essential to the instructors’ professional development to observe and document the student-instructor interactions within the classroom. Out of this effort, we have developed a computerized real-time instructor observation tool (RIOT) to take data of student-instructor interactions. We use the RIOT to observe 29 different instructors for …
Students Talk About Energy In Project- Based Inquiry Science, Benedikt W. Harrer, Virginia J. Flood, Michael C. Wittmann
Students Talk About Energy In Project- Based Inquiry Science, Benedikt W. Harrer, Virginia J. Flood, Michael C. Wittmann
Faculty Publications
We examine the types of emergent language eighth grade students in rural Maine middle schools use when they discuss energy in their first experiences with Project-Based Inquiry Science: Energy, a research-based curriculum that uses a specific language for talking about energy. By comparative analysis of the language used by the curriculum materials to students’ language, we find that students’ talk is at times more aligned with a Stores and Transfer model of energy than the Forms model supported by the curriculum.
Productive Resources In Students’ Ideas About Energy: An Alternative Analysis Of Watts’ Original Interview Transcripts, Benedikt W. Harrer, Virginia J. Flood, Michael C. Wittmann
Productive Resources In Students’ Ideas About Energy: An Alternative Analysis Of Watts’ Original Interview Transcripts, Benedikt W. Harrer, Virginia J. Flood, Michael C. Wittmann
Faculty Publications
For over 30 years, researchers have investigated students’ ideas about energy with the intent of reforming instructional practice. In this pursuit, Watts contributed an influential study with his 1983 paper “Some alternative views of energy” [Phys. Educ. 18, 213 (1983)]. Watts’ “alternative frameworks” continue to be used for categorizing students’ non-normative ideas about energy. Using a resources framework, we propose an alternate analysis of student responses from Watts’ interviews. In our analysis, we show how students’ activated resources about energy are disciplinarily productive. We suggest that fostering seeds of scientific understandings in students’ ideas about energy may play an important …
A College-Level Foundational Mathematics Course: Evaluation, Challenges, And Future Directions, Wes Maciejewski
A College-Level Foundational Mathematics Course: Evaluation, Challenges, And Future Directions, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Recently in Ontario, Canada, the College Math Project brought to light startling data on the achievement of students in Ontario's College of Applied Arts and Technology System related to their performance in first-year mathematics courses: one-third of the students had failed their first-year mathematics course or were at risk of not completing their program because of their performance in such a course. Here I present the results of an attempt to address the findings of the College Math Project. A foundational mathematics course, based on the JUMP Math program, was designed and implemented at a college in Toronto, Ontario. Although …
Elements Of Proximal Formative Assessment In Learners’ Discourse About Energy, Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, Brian W. Frank
Elements Of Proximal Formative Assessment In Learners’ Discourse About Energy, Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, Brian W. Frank
Faculty Publications
Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students' ideas that informs ongoing instruction, is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer …
Making Connections Between Science And Equity: A Motivation To Teach Science In Elementary Grades, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin
Making Connections Between Science And Equity: A Motivation To Teach Science In Elementary Grades, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin
Faculty Publications
Teacher quality is among the strongest correlates of student outcomes. However, only about a quarter of the nation’s elementary teachers consider themselves qualified to teach science. In this descriptive and exploratory study, we investigated whether helping pre-service teacher candidates explore connections between science and issues of equity, particularly around sustainability issues, could help them see the importance of teaching science to their students more often. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 59 students enrolled in revised science methods courses at a large public university. Our findings suggest that positioning science instruction thusly was perceived as a strong motivator to …
Multiple Visions Of Teachers' Understandings Of Mathematics, Ann Kajander, Ralph Mason, Peter Taylor, Edward Doolittle, Tom Boland, Dan Jarvis, Wes Maciejewski
Multiple Visions Of Teachers' Understandings Of Mathematics, Ann Kajander, Ralph Mason, Peter Taylor, Edward Doolittle, Tom Boland, Dan Jarvis, Wes Maciejewski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
In this dialog, the notion of mathematical understanding as might be needed by classroom teachers is critically examined by mathematics educators, mathematicians, and a classroom teacher, based on the outcomes of recent work with expert classroom teachers. Terminology, assumptions and examples are discussed and analysed from a number of points of view. Ultimately, the goal is to construct common ground from which appropriate mathematics courses for future teachers might be developed and taught. The need for common terminology and a unifying framework from which to work becomes apparent as multiple interpretations and visions are discussed.
"Be Not Afraid", Juana Acrivos
"Be Not Afraid", Juana Acrivos
Faculty Publications, Chemistry
If l asked what am I doing here? the answer should be that I am here to recount the experience of a condensed matter scientist teaching frontier chemical physics at a so called "Undergraduate Institution with ≈47% Minorities" But should one distinguish undergraduate from graduate ability, minority from non-minority ability to do frontier science that shall benefit everyone? I hope to convince you the answer is no; the title of my address was borrowed from Pope John Paul's recent best seller in order to have the courage to do the job. This attitude is probably no different from anyone else …