PERC 2012 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Challenging Traditional Assumptions of Secondary Science through the PET Curriculum |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | This physics education research examines the impact of changing the classroom power structure on high school students' participation, positioning, and views of themselves in relation to physics learning. Two classes of students traditionally underrepresented in physics were observed and interviewed in an urban high school using the Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum. In the PET classroom, students collect and analyze data to produce, and come to consensus on, the ideas that are the targets for instruction. Findings indicate that students came to value and positively identify with the activities of physics through instruction that fosters a more dignified student experience than traditional approaches. Specifically, this experience was characterized by the valuing of students' naïve and developing understandings, the affordance of academically productive student talk and consensus building, and shifting the authority for validating science knowledge from the instructor to available laboratory evidence and social consensus. |
| Abstract Type: | Contributed Poster Presentation |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Mike Ross University of Colorado at Boulder 1907 Lotus Ct. Longmont, 80504 Phone: 3037097105 |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Shelly Belleau Valerie Otero |
Contributed Poster | |
| Contributed Poster: | Download the Contributed Poster |
