The “Research Physics Project” – Learning Progressions (2-5 units) and Training Program for Research Advisors

Leading team

Project members

Summary

The physics group in the Department of Science Teaching has been authorized by the Physics teaching national committee to operate a two-year program to train teachers as research facilitators (240 hrs.), And to develop a learning sequence for both these programs:

“Project in Research Physics” is an additional elective subject for physics students that extends from 10th to 12th grade in parallel with the regular physics track.

“Physics in an exploratory approach” is an elective framework that replaces 45% of the standard curriculum in physics. The purpose of these frameworks is to provide students with practices of research and modeling of an unfamiliar phenomenon while self-managing the learning and the inquiry process.

The “Physics in an exploratory approach” program is designed for teachers who choose to deepen inquiry practices with all their students. It consists of a portfolio of inquiry activities, ranging from limited activities lasting 2-4 lessons that support the acquisition of specific practices, to a mini project lasting about 20-30 hours. The “Research physics” program includes an introductory stage, containing activities from the exploratory approach program, followed by a long-term research project. The project lasts a year and a half and requires independent learning of topics beyond the curriculum. In both frameworks students work in teams and are guided by teachers qualified as research facilitators. The innovative framework calls for pedagogical challenges in both curriculum design and professional development of teachers.

Curriculum design: Between 2016-2020, the department collaborated with the Davidson Institute to operate three cycles of a three-year regional class of Research-physics. The extended time frame made it possible to build a learning progression in inquiry: from the introductory stage of imparting the foundations of scientific investigation to the novice student to dealing with a long-term project. Booklets were developed for the research supervisors (both a booklet for a 10th grade supervisor, and a booklet for evaluation of student products), and booklets for expanding computational knowledge for research supervisors (“Computational Research Activities in the Physics Lab – From a two-particle system to a multi-particle system”):

In this context, two Research Papers and Reports were conducted:

  • • David Perl’s master’s thesis, supervised by Edit Yerushalmi, examined the contribution of the introductory stage (10th grade) to the project stage (11th-12th grades).
  • • Michal Sigron’s doctoral dissertation examined the development in students’ perceptions and research practices during their 3 years of study.

Professional development: The regional class served as an ‘Internship class’ for the professional development of teachers as project instructors. Each teacher guided a pair of students from the regional class, reflecting upon the dilemmas arising from the project and the process of accompanying the students during Professional Development sessions. Booklets have been developed for leaders of Professional Development (for introductory as well as advanced stage), and characterization reports for the introductory and advanced stages of the Professional Development training).

A study by Dr. Dorothy Langley and Prof. Edit Yerushalmi dealt with the characterization of perceptions and practices of teachers participating in the Professional Development program.

Administration

Rina Kimchi

Links for further reading

Materials for the inquiry instructor – providing inquiry foundations:

  1. Booklet for the inquiry instructor – 10th grade activities 2018.
  2. Booklet for the inquiry instructor – collaborative evaluation of student products in research physics 2019.

Materials for the inquiry instructor – “Research Physics”:

  1. Booklet for the inquiry instructor – computational modeling activities in the physics laboratory 2015.
  2. Booklet for the inquiry instructor – expanding knowledge in computational modeling 2019.

Materials for the leader of Professional Development programs for inquiry instructors:

  1. Booklet for the leader of training of inquiry instructors – introductory training 2016.
  2. Booklet for the leader of training of inquiry instructors – advanced training 2017.

Characterization reports for the Professional Development training program:

  1. Characterization report for the Introductory training Professional Development program for inquiry instructors 2016.
  2. Characterization report – issues and dilemmas in Professional Development training for inquiry long term project instructors 2017.

Research Papers and Reports:

  1. Smadar Levy, Dorothy Langley and Edit Yerushalmi – Integrating Experimental Research Practices: Teachers’ Professional Development in Significantly Different Educational Settings, to be published in “Research & Development in Science Education: What Have We Learned?” Sense Publishers, Rotterdam Netherlands.
  2. PhD thesis, Michal Sigron – Abstract 2021.
  3. MSc thesis, David Perl – Abstract 2019.