There are still openings for the NSF Chautauqua Short Course,
ìBuilding Students' Physics Knowledge on Experimental Evidenceî on June
14-16, 2004 at Rutgers University. This course is for undergraduate
college faculty, graduate students and a limited number of high school
teachers.
The course is led by Professors Eugenia Etkina and Alan Van
Heuvelen at Rutgers. They have developed and tested the
epistemological approach to teaching introductory physics that
replicates the scientific process by using active-learning strategies
to help students improve their abilities to reason qualitatively and
quantitatively about real physical process.
In this workshop participants will learn how to use
Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) to bring the practice
of science into their introductory physics courses. ISLE students learn
physics by repeatedly using the processes that physicists use to
construct, and evaluate, and apply knowledge. The first feature of ISLE
is that students learn physics through a scientific investigation cycle
that they follow for each conceptual unit: students construct concepts
to explain results of carefully selected observational experiments and
test the concepts themselves using hypothetic-deductive reasoning to
predict the outcomes of new testing experiments. The second feature of
ISLE is that students master the concepts that they devised using
various thinking and learning strategies such as multiple
representations, reflection, evaluation.
Participants of the workshop will learn how to select
experiments for initial observations to help students construct a
concept, and how to prepare for possible testing experiments. They will
learn how to use different multiple representations to help students
strengthen their conceptual understanding and connect concepts to
mathematical descriptions of the processes. The participants will learn
how to use videotaped video experiments to collect data and to test
physics models. Each participant will receive a CD with more than 100
experiments and curriculum materials for mechanics and electricity.
To register, contact Nicholas Eror (eror@pitt.edu), Chautauqua
Program, 274 Benedum Hall, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
15261 (Phone 412.624.9761). Applications are available online at
www.chautauqua.pitt.edu (Course #29).
Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics, SUNY-Buffalo State College
222SCIE BSC, 1300 Elmwood Ave , Buffalo NY 14222 USA 716-878-3802
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu> <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu>