Lillian C. McDermott
7
History
3/15/10
My first teaching assignment was the course for prospective high school teachers.
Although some students were inspired by
The Various Language
, others had trouble with
the eloquent prose and missed important concepts and reasoning.
Starting from Arnold’s
book, I began to write worksheets that had a simpler sentence structure and gave more
guidance through step-by-step questions.
11
This was the first stage in the development of
Physics by Inquiry
.
12
Not intended to be read like a text,
PbI
consists of laboratory-based
modules that contain carefully structured experiments, exercises, and questions.
I
designed a set of activities based on batteries and bulbs to help students construct a
conceptual model for current.
13
This was the beginning of the
Electric Circuits
module in
PbI
.
Arnold’s sabbatical during 1973-1974 left me in charge of the Summer Institute and
the administration of the NSF grant under unexpectedly difficult circumstances.
14
Helping students develop a deep understanding of physics through inquiry is best
accomplished when there is a relatively low ratio of students to instructors (preferably
between 6 and 10 to 1).
I therefore invited students who had done well and were
supportive of their classmates to help in the next year’s class as peer instructors.
Each
week, as we worked through the material that they would help teach, the peer instructors
deepened their own understanding.
An additional benefit for those who would become
teachers was the opportunity to practice teaching science by inquiry.
Although my experience in working with Arnold to prepare K-12 teachers had
probably been an asset in the competition with other candidates, I knew that I needed to
build a research record. I was too far removed from experimental nuclear physics (my
area of research in graduate school) to do independent work in that field.
Besides, I had
not gotten the faculty position because of my work in nuclear physics.
Some faculty at
other universities considered the development of interesting lectures and innovative
laboratory experiments as research.
15
This was not the view of the Physics Department,
nor was it mine.
However, neither Arnold nor anyone else had any specific suggestions
11
Emily van Zee (now at Oregon State, then a member of our group) joined me in this task.
12
L.C. McDermott and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington
,
Physics by Inquiry
(John Wiley & Sons, NY, 1996).
13
Arons had used batteries and bulbs for the same purpose
in The Various Language.
See Ref. 6.
14
See II.a. in the Endnotes.
15
A.B. Arons, “Research in physics education: The early years,”
1998 Physics Education Research Conf.
Proceedings
, T.C. Koch & R. G. Fuller (University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 1998), pp.7-14.
Lillian C. McDermott
8
History
3/15/10
about what I could do.
It was up to me to think of something that would be a good fit with
my faculty position, include graduate students, and be acceptable to the Department.
By this time, I had gotten to know three of the Department’s graduate students.
David (Dave) Trowbridge, Mark Rosenquist, and James (Jim) Evans.
They had met all
requirements for admission to the Ph.D. program but had chosen instead to obtain a new
Doctor of Arts (D.A.) degree intended as preparation for teaching.
I had assumed that
Arnold would be their advisor but, to my surprise, they asked to work with me.
A.
Beginning of Research in Physics Education at UW
While I was trying to determine a direction for my research during 1973-1974, it
occurred to me that it might be interesting to repeat with older students the motion tasks
that Jean Piaget (a Swiss psychologist) had administered during the “clinical interviews”
that he conducted with young students (
≤
16 years of age).
16
I suggested to Dave
Trowbridge that he ask university students the same questions.
Physics education research
(PER) began in our Department at this time.
(In 1973 there were no Ph.D. programs in
physics education research in physics departments.)
When the Piagetian tasks proved
easy, even for poorly prepared college students, I asked David to try to design more
appropriate ones.
He successfully met the challenge.
The primary method used in David’s research, as well as in most of our other early
studies, was the “individual demonstration interview,” in which the student is confronted
with a simple physical situation and asked to respond to a specified sequence of questions.
Because of its focus on real objects and events, we found this technique to be particularly
effective for examining the ability of students to make connections between the physical
world and its algebraic and graphical representations.
A typical interview begins with a simple demonstration that serves as the basis for
a set of tasks to be performed by the student.
The questions become part of a dialogue in
which the investigator attempts to probe the meaning the student ascribes to a particular
concept or relation.
In addition to those that are prescribed in advance, the investigator
may ask additional questions to clarify a reply or follow up on a comment.
The student’s
16
J. Piaget,
The Child’s Conception of Movement and Speed
(Ballantine Books, NY, 1971).
