Related papers: Making expert processes visible: how and why theor…
Pre-college mathematics modeling instruction often frames mathematics as being separated from reasoning about the real world -- and commonly treats reasoning mathematically and reasoning about the real-world context as separate stages of a…
In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and…
In a recent report, the American Association of Physics Teachers has developed an updated set of recommendations for curriculum of undergraduate physics labs.1 This document focuses on six major themes: constructing knowledge, modeling,…
Current conceptions of expert problem solving depict physical/conceptual reasoning and formal mathematical reasoning as separate steps: a good problem solver first translates a physical Current conceptions of quantitative problem-solving…
Troubleshooting systems is integral to experimental physics in both research and instructional laboratory settings. The recently adopted AAPT Lab Guidelines identify troubleshooting as an important learning outcome of the undergraduate…
The ability to make decisions based on data, with its inherent uncertainties and variability, is a complex and vital skill in the modern world. The need for such quantitative critical thinking occurs in many different contexts, and while it…
Learning physics requires understanding the applicability of fundamental principles in a variety of contexts that share deep features. One way to help students learn physics is via analogical reasoning. Students can be taught to make an…
Assessments are usually thought of as ways for instructors to get information from students. In this work, we flip this perspective and explore how assessments communicate information to students. Specifically, we consider how assessments…
Many undergraduate students of engineering and the exact sciences have difficulty with their mathematics courses due to insufficient proficiency in what we in this paper have termed clear thinking. We believe that this lack of proficiency…
This systematic mapping study consisted of tracking the scientific literature that addresses the issue of analogies as a didactic strategy in science teaching. An analogy can be understood as comparing an existing knowledge with a new…
Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to…
Analogical reasoning plays a critical role in human cognition, enabling us to understand new concepts by associating them with familiar ones. Previous research in the AI community has mainly focused on identifying and generating analogies…
Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations…
Developing and making sense of quantitative models is a core practice of physics. Covariational reasoning -- considering how the changes in one quantity affect changes in another, related quantity -- is an essential part of modeling…
This paper introduces a theory about the role of language in learning physics. The theory is developed in the context of physics students' and physicists' talking and writing about the subject of quantum mechanics. We found that physicists'…
In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental…
Helping students learn to think like a physicist is an important goal of many introductory physics courses. One characteristic distinguishing more experienced physicists from novice students is that they make better use of problem solving…
Relating two quantities to describe a physical system or process is at the heart of "doing physics" for novices and experts alike. In this paper, we explore the ways in which experts use covariational reasoning when solving introductory…
As part of a larger study to understand instructors' considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding…