Project

Discipline

High School; Teaching; Formative Assessment; Physics

Lead
„Rechnen Sie noch oder verstehen Sie schon?“ Grundlegende Konzepte der Physik werden im Gymnasialen Unterricht von vielen Schülerinnen und Schülern nicht verstanden.
Lay summary
Zu Studienbeginn fehlt vielen Studierenden ein Verständnis elementarer physikalischer Konzepte. Mit Methoden der formativen Beurteilung soll das Konzeptlernen im Physikunterricht an Gymnasien gefördert werden. In Rahmen einer Vergleichsstudie wird untersucht, wie sich der Wissenszuwachs bei Schülerinnen und Schülern in Klassen mit und ohne formative Beurteilung verhält. Eine Beurteilung ist formative, wenn sie nicht der Leistungsmessung dient, sondern das Lern- und Lehrverhalten der beteiligten Personen formt. Es existieren verschiedenste Arten von formativer Beurteilung. Im vorliegenden Projekt werden interaktive Unterrichtssequenzen mit eingebetteten Konzeptfragen eingesetzt. Es wird erwartet, dass in Klassen welche mit diesen formativen Elementen unterrichtet werden, ein vertieftes Verständnis der grundlegenden Konzepte erreicht wird. Resultate der Untersuchung werden in die Lehrpersonenaus- und Weiterbildung einfliessen.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 25.04.2013

Active participation

Active participation

Self-organised

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

Formative assessment is among the most promising tools to improve learning at school. Within the proposed project we intend to introduce and evaluate elements of formative assessment to Swiss Gymnasiums (which we will also call high schools hereafter). Due to its broad definition formative assessment has to be developed and adapted for every school level and teaching situation. Within the proposed project we want to apply the peer instruction implementation process defined by Lasry et al. (Lasry N, Mazur E, Watkins J: Peer Instruction: From Harvard to the Two-Year college, Am. J. Phys. 76: 1066 - 1069, 2008) to the teaching of physics at Swiss high schools.Concepts in physics can often be counterintuitive on first sight so that students have to unlearn misconceptions and to learn new concepts at the same time. In order to bring students to actively think about the concepts of physics and to make their thoughts visible we plan to introduce two new elements to the high school teaching of physics. Concept questions used to engage effective peer as well as class room discussions represent the first element. These questions will be used in the setting described by Lasry (2008) and will be posed by using an electronic response system. The second element represents the application of diagnostic tools to evaluate students understanding of concepts. This instrument reveals the gap between student learning and learning goals on an individual basis. It also discloses teaching deficits and advises teachers where lessons have to be improved. The in class use of a diagnostic test is followed by a reflective lesson during which individual knowledge deficits can be cured. Concept questions and diagnostic tool are assisted by a monitoring instrument which helps students to evaluate their individual progress.We will develop and evaluate concept questions and diagnostic tools for teaching a basic mechanics course of 9 weeks. The learning outcome of classes taught with these instruments will then be compared to a control group in which conventional teaching is practiced. Although formative assessment focuses on peer instructions, self-assessment, classroom discussions and so on it will also increase the frequency of testing. Therefore we are going to compare the learning outcome of the formative assessment group not only with the traditional teaching group but also with a third group using frequent testing. Students from this group solve the same set of problems as the formative assessment group in a test setting rather than a formative activity setting.The project is based on an interdisciplinary collaboration between representatives from Physics, Physics Education, and Educational Psychology. It is planned to gauge students’ intelligence in order to find out whether the number of underachievers will decrease in classes with teachers practicing the described elements of formative assessment. Effects on changes in learning motivation and interest in physics will be investigated, too. Moreover, we intend to find out to what extent the training in practicing formative assessment will change teachers’ beliefs on learning physics. Therefore, their pedagogical content knowledge will be gauged by a well-tried questionnaire. In addition to investigating achievement growth as an effect of the planned intervention in a pre-post control group design, the study allows microgenetic longitudinal analyses on the process of conceptual change.