written by David T. Brookes and Eugenia Etkina

Traditionally, the goals of physics courses focused more on helping our students master the normative physics knowledge and not so much the process through which this knowledge is constructed. We argue that the process itself is the heart of physics and cannot be separated from the outcome. In this paper, we suggest not only to rethink the goals of the courses but also to rethink the traditional paper and pencil tests. Specifically, we would like to show how the traditional summative assessments could be transformed to match our new learning goals. The work described in the paper is done in the context of ISLE - Investigative Science Learning Environment whose main goal is to connect the process of physics to the final knowledge by engaging students in the activities that mirror scientific practices while they are learning new normative knowledge.

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Published February 6, 2012
Last Modified April 23, 2012

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