October 11, 2007
Demystifying physics: High school teachers learn inquiry method at UW’s summer program
Physics. The word itself can be daunting to students young and old. As a science its principles govern and help to explain other physical sciences, yet it has an aura of tortuous complexity, a feeling of the unfathomable.
But for three dozen elementary and secondary teachers returning to their classrooms this fall, “physics” is the answer when they are asked, “What did you do on your summer vacation?”
Lillian McDermott has spent much of her career as a UW physics professor not only countering the idea that physics is somehow unknowable but also working with teachers to make physics more understandable for young students. She and physics faculty colleagues Peter Shaffer and Paula Heron direct the Physics Education Group, which focuses on research, curriculum development and instruction to improve physics learning and teaching from early childhood through college.
The group’s work has proven so successful that last week it was awarded the Excellence in Education Award by the American Physical Society. The award is to recognize sustained commitment to excellence in physics education and has been given only once previously.
Part of that work is an annual Summer Institute in Physics and Physical Science for elementary and secondary school teachers. The institute for 30 years has successfully competed for National Science Foundation funding. It uses Physics by Inquiry, a curriculum developed by the group, to help teachers expand their understanding and sharpen their abilities to reason scientifically so they can teach more effectively.
“The institute has evolved over time to meet the needs of teachers. The focus is on topics that are generally taught at a pre-college level,” McDermott said.
The idea is to meld strong understanding of science principles with effective approaches to teaching, she said. Too often, teachers have solid classroom credentials but are weak on science or else are strong in science but have not mastered the ability to help students fully understand the material.
“What we’ve tried to do in teaching physics by inquiry is to provide them with the kind of background that allows them to understand the material at such a level that no matter what happens in the classroom they can manage,” McDermott said.
Institute participants come from across the United States and even from foreign countries — this year, three came from Singapore. Those from the United States receive a stipend and are not charged tuition. Most of the teachers have had some physics education previously, but they are at different levels in their understanding.
In the institute’s two classrooms, the teachers-turned-students collaborate in teams of two or three, working through carefully designed sequences of exercises devised from the physics group’s research. They use an array of simple equipment, ranging from battery-operated electrical circuits, beakers and finely tuned measuring devices to a variety of balls and buckets of water. They discover the best ways to find the solutions to problems, as well as the solutions themselves.
“They’re not given answers. They’re asked questions and given guidance, and then there are certain checkpoints when they call the instructor over and talk about what they’ve done and discuss their reasoning,” said Shaffer.
In essence, the teachers learn by doing, by examining various physics phenomena. As they come to understand certain topics, the stage is set for learning other concepts, Shaffer said. They can return to the Summer Institute for two additional years and many of them do, he said, because of a desire to change science education throughout their schools, not just in their own classrooms.
“We conduct research to identify the problems that students have after traditional instruction, and then we develop tutorial materials to address those problems,” he said.
Ronica Wilson, who teaches at Kamiakan Junior High School in Kirkland, took part in the institute for the first time this year. She had taken some physics previously but discovered that, like a number of other institute participants, she still had some misconceptions.
“It was humbling to have some of the same difficulties my students have,” she said.
Wilson and her teammate, Catherine Ambos, who teaches seventh grade life sciences in Somerville, N.J., worked on a problem to determine how the volume of water in a container is affected by dropping in various objects of the same mass but different shapes. As they worked through the discovery process, both came to understand how the same methods would work in their own classrooms.
“I am finding this helpful on so many different levels,” Ambos said. “I had never taken a formal class in physics and so I am internalizing a lot of principles that I had only read about. I am learning a phenomenal amount about inquiry teaching and how to spot misconceptions that students may be bringing forward.”
Ambos and Wilson both said what they learned would change how they teach, but they also hoped to spread some of the teaching methods they learned to their colleagues.
That’s a common theme among participants, said Donna Messina, a physics lecturer who originally took part in the institute when she was a teacher at Seattle Preparatory School in the mid-1990s and now is an instructor in the program. She and MacKenzie Stetzer, a physics research assistant professor, have led the institute for several years.
Messina marvels at the transformation she sees in those attending the institute.
“It is wonderful to see the teachers’ professional growth and their own applications of what they learn to their classrooms,” she said.
It is not unusual for the instructors to also visit the teachers in their own schools. Messina noted that many teachers don’t have much in the way of good science equipment, and often their classrooms are ill-suited for experiments. At the institute they learn how to incorporate simple materials into their lessons — using a bucket instead of a beaker, for example — and to adapt the space they have so that it works for their students.
“We really become partners with all of these teachers. When we visit their classrooms, we’re there as a partner,” she said.
