modeling assesments of innovative physics courses ‘modeling assessments of innovativephysics...

Modeling Assesments of Innovative Physics Courses

‘Modeling Assessments of

InnovativePhysics Courses’ Response by Frits L Gravenberch (

[email protected])

Setting the scene• About Frits

– 1965 – 1978 Physics Teacher in Secondary Science

(integrated practical work in groups)

– 1978 – 1983 PLON (UU)

(physics in themes)

– 1983 – 2001 National Institute for Curriculum

Development, SLO

(co-ordinated educational research)– Currently: Acting President of NVON (www.

nvon.nl)

(BOBO, OBO, Impresse)


A limited view

i.e. coming from

– Expertise in (Upper) Secondary Science (and not Tertiary)

– Expertise

• in curriculum development (not educational research or teacher training)

• based on information from the ‘grassroot level’

– A special interest in constraints for implementation


Science in context

• Fuller c.s. in: ‘Introduction’: ‘It was anticipated that the experimental physics

sections would help faculty and students focus on addressing ill-defined problems from the natural world.’

• PLON

– Motivation:“PLON materials indeed enhanced students’ interest in the new kind of teaching contexts and classroom activities”,

– Concept development“… efforts to establish a considerable improvement in students’ concept development –compared to ‘common physics education at the time’- were not too successful


Expanding the traditional curriculum with

• Fuller c.s. emphasized unique, diverse, and generalizable approaches to problem solving, e.g.:– ‘Electronic Resources’ : …… the experimental

activities were constructed so that students had opportunities to make maximum use of the CO-ROM's research potential and its capacity to aid unique, diverse, and generalizable approaches to problem solving

– ‘Curriculum Change’: …... activities that were designed to facilitate the development of broader professional skills grounded in critical thinking and problem solving.

• Our experiences to extend the traditional curriculum along similar lines illustrate that:

efforts to innovate the science curriculum in these ways are not necessarily non-realistic but mostly very difficult to accomplish


IT, Haarlemmer-oil for renovation of Science Ed.?

• Fuller c.s.: ‘Students' Perceptions of the Experimental Process:

o technology as a tool for studying physics added unwanted complexity’

o some student support for a practical, inquiry, activity-based, hands-on program declined

o From Dutch experiences in curriculum projects we could add :

o “Information techology skills” students did develop previously obviously

are not too long lasting,

o ‘simple’ IT-infrastructure is hard to establish within general IT school environment however, is a very important border condition for success


In summary

• This research work of Fuller c.s. illustrates many opportunities for IT also for secondary science teaching in the Netherlands

• IT however, is not the final solution for all problems in science teaching


EpilogueConstraints of curriculum renovation

• short vs. long term effects– Succesful pilots with well motivated teachers

who are assisted by educational researchers deliver mostly short term successes

– curriculum innovation in the long term is only noticeable with ‘common’ teachers and students who could benefit from a variety of supportive facilities over a rather long period of time

• danger of internal blow up of the curriculum – Mind the pitfall to develop a new program by

‘simply’ adding new content elements to the already overloaded existing collection of concepts, laws and formulas.

modeling assesments of innovative physics courses ‘modeling assessments of innovativephysics...

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