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[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Common models of curricular development in physics education research (PER) have typically involved a hierarchical relationship between researchers and students, where researchers lead the design and testing of curriculum for students. We draw from work in students as partners and related fields in order to codesign curriculum in partnership with students. Such work has the potential to disrupt typical hierarchical relationships and interactions between students and faculty by involving students in the process of making curricular decisions. We invited undergraduate students to participate in a partnership to codesign a set of curricular materials for topics in quantum mechanics that students often struggle with. Four undergraduate students, one PER graduate student, and one PER faculty member met for a series of codesign meetings. We collected videotapes of the meetings, written artifacts, and meeting reflections. This paper presents a fine-grained analysis of one interaction in which researchers attempted to create space for students to contribute to decision making about how the collaboration should proceed. Through analyzing the complex dynamics of how participants negotiated decision-making space, including characterizing the types of decisions that were made, we describe how access to those decisions were opened up or cut off, and how those decisions contested or reaffirmed participants' roles. Working towards partnership is a complex and messy process: attempts to open up space for some forms of decision making closed off access to other forms of decision making. In some ways, the interactions between the participants also reified the traditional student and faculty roles that the partnership had intended to disrupt. Through closely analyzing these dynamics, we aim to self-critically reflect on the challenges and tensions that emerge in codesign partnerships. We discuss our own areas for growth and speak to implications for more responsible partnerships.

Much research in engineering and physics education has focused on improving students' problem-solving skills. This research has led to the development of step-by-step problem-solving strategies and grading rubrics to assess a student's expertise in solving problems using these strategies. These rubrics value "communication" between the student's qualitative description of the physical situation and the student's formal mathematical descriptions (usually equations) at two points: when initially setting up the equations, and when evaluating the final mathematical answer for meaning and plausibility. We argue that (i) neither the rubrics nor the associated problem-solving strategies explicitly value this kind of communication "during" mathematical manipulations of the chosen equations, and (ii) such communication is an aspect of problem-solving expertise. To make this argument, we present a case study of two students, Alex and Pat, solving the same kinematics problem in clinical interviews. We argue that Pat's solution, which connects manipulation of equations to their physical interpretation, is more expert-like than Alex's solution, which uses equations more algorithmically. We then show that the types of problem-solving rubrics currently available do not discriminate between these two types of solutions. We conclude that problem-solving rubrics should be revised or repurposed to more accurately assess problem-solving expertise. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 4 footnotes.)

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' difficulties with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology. Students' beliefs about knowledge and learning can hinder the activation and integration of productive knowledge they have. Such explanations, however, risk falling into a "deficit trap"--substituting a concepts/skills deficit with an epistemological one. Our interview-based case study of a freshman engineering major, "Jim," explains his difficulty solving a physics problem (on hydrostatic pressure) in terms of his epistemology, but avoids a deficit trap by modeling the dynamics of his epistemological stabilities and shifts in terms of fine-grained cognitive elements that include the seeds of epistemological expertise. Specifically, during a problem-solving episode in the interview, Jim reaches and sticks with an incorrect answer that violates common sense. We show that Jim has all the mathematical skills and physics knowledge he would need to resolve the contradiction. We argue that his difficulty doing so stems in part from his epistemological views that (i) physics equations are much more trustworthy than everyday reasoning, and (ii) physics equations do not express meaning that tractably connects to common sense. For these reasons, he does not view reconciling between common sense and formalism as either necessary or plausible to accomplish. But Jim's in-the-moment shift to a more sophisticated epistemological stance highlights the seeds of epistemological expertise that were present all along: he does see common sense as connected to formalism (though not always tractably so), and in some circumstances, this connection is both salient and valued. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 3 notes.)

In a series of well-known papers, Chi and Slotta (M. T. H. Chi, 1992, 2005; M. T. H. Chi & J. D. Slotta, 1993; M. T. H. Chi, J. D. Slotta, & N. de Leeuw, 1994; J. Slotta & M. T. H. Chi, 2006; J. D. Slotta, M. T. H. Chi, & E. Joram, 1995) have contended that a reason for students' difficulties in learning physics is that students think about concepts as "things" rather than as "processes" and that there is a significant barrier between these 2 ontological categories. We contest this view, arguing that expert and novice reasoning often and productively traverses ontological categories. We cite examples from everyday, classroom, and professional contexts to illustrate this. We agree with Chi and Slotta that instruction should attend to learners' ontologies, but we find that these ontologies are better understood as dynamic and context dependent rather than as static constraints. To promote 1 ontological description in physics instruction, as suggested by Slotta and Chi, could undermine novices' access to productive cognitive resources that they bring to their studies and inhibit their transition to the dynamic ontological flexibility required of experts. (Contains 15 footnotes.)