PERC 2012 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Students' comprehension of a research article adapted for an interdisciplinary high school program |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | We present a study of the introduction of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) as part of a high school course on soft matter. APL is a text genre that allows students to comprehend a scientific article, while maintaining the core features of the communication among scientists, thus representing an authentic scientific discourse. We describe the adaptation of a research paper by Nobel Laureate Paul Flory on phase equilibrium in polymer-solvent systems. The adaptation followed two design strategies: a) Making the interplay between the theory and experimental evidence explicit. b) Re-structuring the text to map the theory onto the students' prior knowledge. Specifically, we map the modeling of polymer-solvent system onto a model for binary mixtures of small molecules that was already studied in class. We then present findings regarding the students' comprehension of the APL and its purpose and discuss their ability to extract features of theoretical modeling embedded in it. |
| Abstract Type: | Symposium Talk |
| Targeted Session: | Reading of scientific texts as means of exposing students to authentic disciplinary practices |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Elon Langbeheim Weizmann Institute of Science |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Sam Safran and Edit Yerushalmi Weizmann Institute of Science |
