Chini, Carmichael, Rebello, Puntambekar: AAPT Summer 2009 (Talk)

Interview Room versus Classroom: How Do the Data Compare*?

Jacquelyn J. Chini, Adrian Carmichael, N. Sanjay Rebello
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506; USA

Sadhana Puntambekar
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; USA

In our research, we often use data collected during teaching/learning interviews [1] to investigate student learning. While the teaching/learning interview is intended to model a natural learning environment, it is different than an actual classroom learning atmosphere. A teaching/learning interview typically involves one to four students working with one researcher/facilitator in an interview room. The interaction is audio and video recorded. These differences may potentially cause students to act differently than they would in their actual class. To investigate this possibility, we used the same instructional materials in a teaching interview and laboratory setting. The instructional materials were from the CoMPASS curriculum that integrates hypertext based concept maps with design-based activities [2]. All participants were enrolled in introductory concept-based physics. We will describe how the data collected in these two settings compare.

[1] Engelhardt, P.V., et al. The Teaching Experiment - What it is and what it isn't. in Physics Education Research Conference, 2003. 2003. Madison, WI.
[2] Puntambekar, S., A. Stylianou, and R. Hübscher, “Improving navigation and learning in hypertext environments with navigable concept maps.” Human-Computer Interaction, 2003. 18: p. 395-428.

*This work is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Award # R305A080507

Zollman, Murphy Adrian,Stevens,Christel, AAPT Winter2009

Pathway –24/7 Online Pedagogical Assistance for Teachers of Physics

Dean Zollman & Brian Adrian
Kansas State University, 116 Cardwell Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506; 785-532-1824; fax 785-532-6806;


Scott Stevens, & Michael Christel Carnegie Mellon University

The Physics Teaching Web Advisory (Pathway) is a research and development effort to demonstrate the ability to address issues of many physics teachers via the Web. Pathway’s “Synthetic Interviews” are a unique way to engage inexperienced teachers in a natural language dialog about effective teaching of physics. These virtual conversations and related video materials are now providing pre-service and out-of-field in-service teachers with much needed professional development, and well-prepared teachers with new perspectives on teaching physics. In effect Pathway is a dynamic digital library and goes beyond creating a collection of teaching and learning materials. It provides continuously improving assistance and expertise for teachers, all of which is related to the results of contemporary physics education research. The database is a growing digital library and now contains about 6,000 different recorded answers and over 10,000 question/answer pairs. Pathway is available at http://www.physicspathway.org

Supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants 0455772 & 0455813.

Zollman, AAPT Summer 2009 Invited

Interactions between the Art & Science of Physics Learning-Teaching
Dean Zollman


“Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it,…”* Long before physics education research began studying how students learn physics, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) expressed much of the goals of physics education research. Teaching is the art of realizing our students are not us and understanding how they learn topics which came easy to us. Some “natural” teachers seem to do this automatically and we can learn from how they do it. At the same time, research on the teaching-learning process can go a long way toward helping all of us understand how the student understands physics. This interplay between the art (what some teachers do naturally) and the science (physics education research) is the foundation for the continual improvement of physics education.

* Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author , 1848 English translation, Princeton University Press, 1998, available on Google Books.

Zollman, Murphy, Stevens, Christel: GIREP-EPEC Plenary 2009

Web-based Pedagogical Assistance for Under-prepared Teachers of Physics Slides Paper

Dean Zollman & Sytil Murphy
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506; USA

Scott Stevens, & Michael Christel, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 152319 USA

Recently President Obama noted a serious concern about secondary science education in the United States. “Yet in high schools, more than 20 percent of students in math and more than 60 percent of students in chemistry and physics are taught by teachers without expertise in these fields.“ This problem is not new, so several years ago we begin a Web-based effort to address it. The Physics Teaching Web Advisory (Pathway) is an effort to demonstrate the ability to address pedagogical issues of many physics teachers via the Web. Pathway’s “Synthetic Interviews” are a unique way to engage inexperienced teachers in a natural language dialog about effective teaching of physics. These virtual conversations and related video materials are now providing pre-service and out-of-field in-service teachers with much needed professional development, and well-prepared teachers with new perspectives on teaching physics. The database is a growing digital library and now contains about 6,000 different recorded answers and over 10,000 question/answer pairs. An additional component is a collection of videos which can be used directly in the classroom. This collection includes both professional and teacher-produced videos. Unlike YouTube they are screened for usefulness before posting, but also will soon take advantage of the vast resources on YouTube and other similar sites. Pathway is available at http://www.physicspathway.org

Supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grants 0455772 & 0455813.