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Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) is a pedagogy for teaching with classroom response technology. Teacher Learning of TEFA is a five-year research project studying teacher change, in the context of an intensive professional development program designed to help science and mathematics teachers learn TEFA. First, we provide an overview of the project's participating teachers, its intervention (consisting of the technology, the pedagogy, and the professional development program), and its research design. Then, we present narratives describing the unfolding change process experienced by four teachers. Afterward, we present some preliminary findings of the research, describe a "model for the co-evolution of teacher and pedagogy" that we are developing, and identify general implications for professional development., Comment: Conference paper accompanying a special symposium presented at the 2008 Annual International Conference of the US National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Baltimore, MD, Apr 01

An invited plenary given at the founding meeting of the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics and Science Education in 1992., Comment: An invited talk given at the Workshop on Research in Science and Mathematics Education, January 20-24 1992, Winterton, South Africa

Traditional problem-based exams are not efficient instruments for assessing the "structure" of physics students' conceptual knowledge or for providing diagnostically detailed feedback to students and teachers. We present the Free Term Entry task, a candidate assessment instrument for exploring the connections between concepts in a student's understanding of a subject. In this task, a student is given a general topic area and asked to respond with as many terms from the topic area as possible in a given time; the "thinking time" between each term-entry event is recorded along with the response terms. The task was given to students from two different introductory physics classes. Response term thinking times were found to correlate with the strength of the association between two concepts. In addition, sets of thinking times from the task show distinct, characteristic patterns which might prove valuable for student assessment. We propose a quantitative dynamical model named the Matrix Walk Model which is able to match many aspects of the observed data. One particular feature of the data -- a distinct "spike" superimposed on the otherwise log-normal distribution of most thinking time sets -- has not been fit. The spike, other patterns observed in the data, and the proposed phenomenological model could all benefit from a grounding in cognitive theory., Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures

This paper presents a teaching strategy based on showing students a two-part demonstration then asking them to predict the outcome and explain their predictions. The teaching approach focuses on students developing an understanding of the value of analyzing a situation in terms of basic concepts. Students also learn the advantage of simple reasoning over manipulating equations. (Author/YDS)

An emerging technology, classroom communication systems (CCSs), has the potential to transform the way we teach science in large-lecture settings. CCSs can serve as catalysts for creating a more interactive, student-centered classroom in the lecture hall, thereby allowing students to become more actively involved in constructing and using knowledge. CCSs not only make it easier to engage students in learning activities during lecture, but also enhance the communication among students, and between the students and the instructor. This enhanced communication assists the students and the instructor in assessing understanding during class time, and affords the instructor the opportunity to devise instructional interventions that target students' needs as they arise. By facilitating a shift from a passive, teacher- centered (i.e., lecture-style) classroom, toward an interactive, student-centered classroom, a CCS helps to create a classroom environment that accommodates a wider variety of student learning styles, making the learning of science a much more positive experience for students. CCSs are unique tools that teachers can use for facilitating learning and for improving students' attitudes toward science. This article describes our experiences over the last seven years using a CCS called Classtalk to teach eight different introductory-level physics courses at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. This system has also been used in introductory courses in biology, economics, and sociology. (Contains 55 references.) (Author/MM)

This paper introduces integrated curriculum material for high school physics developed by the Physics Education Research Group (PERG) with the University of Massachusetts and high school teachers. This curriculum is based on an action-oriented constructivist approach. There are six types of materials in the curriculum: (1) student activities; (2) student reader; (3) answers and instructional aids for teachers; (4) assessment items; (5) supplements; and (6) answer sheets. (YDS)

The ASK-IT/Assessing-to-Learn (A2L) project is an attempt to bring a strategic approach to learning, instruction, and communication. ASK-IT/A2L seeks to integrate formative assessment and classroom response system use with physics instruction at both the high school and college levels. In this guide, we present a structure for discussing the new mindset students need in an ASK-IT/A2L classroom, consisting of twelve "habits of mind" for students to develop. To help teachers plan instruction, we present a model of five stages of cognitive development that most students need to follow to develop desirable knowledge and skills. We show how a typical lesson might be organized around "items," the smallest unit of ASK-IT/A2L lesson planning: questions, problems, or tasks given to students to work on individually or in groups. To help with item creation, we present our model-based design paradigm and suggest tips for avoiding common pitfalls and ways to match up cognitive goals with habits of mind. Finally, we apply the habits of mind to the metacognition of teachers and students., Comment: 28 pages. Unpublished but referenced technical report

Problem solving is central to physics instruction. Results from Physics Education Research (PER), however, demonstrate that traditional ways of teaching with problem solving are inefficient and ineffective for promoting true physics expertise. PER findings give rise to a perspective on physics expertise, learning, and problem solving that can illuminate the reasons why problem solving in traditional instruction fares poorly and suggest remedies. At the heart of the remedies lies a rethinking of the instructional model in which teachers focus less on presenting subject material and more on engineering learning experiences and guiding students' learning efforts, while students strive to become active, selfmonitoring constructors of knowledge., Comment: An invited talk at the 9th Common Conference of the Cyprus Physics Association and Greek Physics Association: Developments and Perspectives in Physics--New Technologies and Teaching of Science, Nicosia, Cyprus, Feb 4-6 2005

Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the interconnections within students' store of conceptual knowledge. The tasks have students respond spontaneously to a term or problem or topic area with a sequence of associated terms; the response terms and timeof- entry data are captured. The tasks were tried on introductory physics students, and preliminary investigations show that the tasks are capable of eliciting information about the stucture of their knowledge. Specifically, data gathered through the tasks is similar to that produced by a hand-drawn concept map task, has measures that correlate with inclass exam performance, and is sensitive to learning produced by topic coverage in class. Although the results are preliminary and only suggestive, the tasks warrant further study as student-knowledge assessment instruments and sources of experimental data for cognitive modeling efforts., Comment: 31 pages plus 2 tables and 8 figures

Classroom response systems (CRSs) can be potent tools for teaching physics. Their efficacy, however, depends strongly on the quality of the questions used. Creating effective questions is difficult, and differs from creating exam and homework problems. Every CRS question should have an explicit pedagogic purpose consisting of a content goal, a process goal, and a metacognitive goal. Questions can be engineered to fulfil their purpose through four complementary mechanisms: directing students' attention, stimulating specific cognitive processes, communicating information to instructor and students via CRS-tabulated answer counts, and facilitating the articulation and confrontation of ideas. We identify several tactics that help in the design of potent questions, and present four "makeovers" showing how these tactics can be used to convert traditional physics questions into more powerful CRS questions., Comment: 11 pages, including 6 figures and 2 tables. Submitted (and mostly approved) to the American Journal of Physics. Based on invited talk BL05 at the 2005 Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers (Albuquerque, NM)

Studies were conducted to identify critical barriers which could impede the progress of Hispanic undergraduates enrolled in science and engineering programs. The underlying theme in most studies was the interplay of language in various problem-solving tasks. Studies examined: (1) predictors of academic achievement (as measured by grade point average); (2) ability of students to translate word problems into appropriate mathematical equations, with an emphasis on identifying errors caused by misinterpretations of the problem statement as opposed to errors caused by mathematical deficiencies; (3) extent to which students' academic, motivational, and socioeconomic characteristics mediated their performance in various cognitive measures; and (4) the ability of students to solve logical reasoning problems containing multiple negations. Findings indicate that Hispanic students are underprepared in comparison to Anglo students. Areas in which Hispanics displayed underpreparation are algebraic skills, language skills, and problem-solving skills requiring substantial amounts of linguistic processing. Differences in socioeconomic status between Hispanics and Anglos were also found. In addition, findings indicate that various errors committed by the Hispanics in solving mathematics and logics problems are the result of semantic difficulties and not necessarily the result of difficulties in the content area. (JN)

Minorities have for some time faced underrepresentation in the technical professions. However, recent statistics indicate that many more minorities are enrolled in higher education than ever before. This report centers on identifying the particular difficulties that bilingual Hispanic students majoring in technical subjects have in performing mathematics and physics-related tasks. Further, the research aims at separating the difficulties into those deriving from language deficiencies and those from conceptual ones. The findings cited investigate the relationship between grade point average, language proficiency, and performance on various mathematical tasks for a group of 60 Hispanic bilingual undergraduates majoring in technical subjects. The results indicate that language proficiency is strongly correlated with mathematics performance as well as grade point. This suggests that courses that attempt to raise the level of language proficiency of those Hispanics possessing low skills may improve pupil performance in mathematics or decouple somewhat the interdependence between language proficiency and mathematics performance. (MP)

Minorities have for some time been underrepresented in the technical fields, such as engineering and computer science. This development is known to be caused by a variety of factors, but the primary purpose of this report is to help identify those factors that adversely affect the cognitive development of the technical bilingual student in terms of which are language related and which are not. The results of two projects aimed at elucidating the interconnection between linguistic and mathematical cognitive development are presented. The first is a study of translational mathematics skills among bilingual Hispanic engineering and science students. In the second study, an attempt is made to determine the dependence of algebraic performance upon verbal context. Data were obtained using both written exams and clinical interview techniques. Results indicated several mathematical misconceptions unique to Hispanic students that may originate in linguistic factors. Possible causes and remedies for these misconceptions are discussed. (MP)

Research findings that indicate the need for greater integration in the development of verbal and mathematical skills for college technical majors are presented in this paper. Although the project discussed was originally designed to isolate language-related difficulties that affect mathematical skills among bilingual Hispanic students, some problems shared by mainstream students were also uncovered. The tests used were designed to demonstrate the effect of verbal skills on logical ability and algebraic problem-solving ability. Patterns of thought manifested in the results of the written exams were then pursued further through clinical interviews. It is stressed that extant programs aimed at the preparation of minorities for technical education at college fall short by not including language skills as an integral part of the program. Such an integrated program, it is suggested, would enhance students' problem-solving performances. The tabulated results of the exams are appended. (RDN)

This document reports in detail an investigation of the cognitive processes and learning difficulties of ninth-grade students in Algebra I. A clinical interview approach was used with 14 students. A group of six Hispanic students and a group of five Anglo students were enrolled in the same algebra class; a group of three Hispanic students who had begun algebra one-half year earlier was also included. Probed were students' appreciation of algebra as an abstract logical system, command of the formal operations of algebra, ability to use algebra, and ability to solve problems. Performance in English vs. Spanish was compared, and students' teaching styles were analyzed as they taught peers. It was found that students preferred not to use algebraic techniques in solving problems, were poor at verbalizing definitions and procedures and at translating problem statements into equations, did not use their textbooks very much except as a place to find assigned problems, and treated algebra as a rule-based discipline, not as a concept-based one. Detailed descriptions of student performance are given, and findings are discussed in relation to textbooks, pedagogy, linguistics, and directions for future research. Nine recommendations for improved pedagogy and learning are also presented. Questions asked in eight interview sessions are appended, as is selected background information on student participants. (MNS)