Physics (13) Intellectual merit. The intent of this project is to increase students'' abilities to listen, speak, write, and read while they are learning science. The context is a laboratory-centered physics course for prospective elementary and middle school teachers. The project involves collaboration among the Department of Physics and Department of Science and Mathematics Education in the College of Science and the Department of Teacher Education in the College of Education.
The primary research questions are: How do prospective teachers learn how to inquire into physical phenomena? How do prospective teachers learn how to speak and write coherently as well as to listen and read with comprehension about physical phenomena? How does experiencing integrated science learning and literacy learning impact prospective teachers'' confidence in teaching science as inquiry? Participants include 24 prospective teachers who enroll in the inquiry-based physics course for each year of the project. Data sources include video and audio tapes of class sessions, copies of student written work, interviews, focus groups, email messages, postings on the class electronic bulletin board, and websites that the prospective teachers develop to document their own learning. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis are being used in a mixed-method design.
Products include materials and strategies that physics instructors can adapt in courses for prospective elementary and middle school teachers. These include readings written by elementary and middle school teachers who provide examples of inquiry-based science instruction that enhances literacy learning, handouts that can supplement the regular curriculum, assessments such as diagnostic questions to document initial and developing knowledge, instructor notes that describe strategies to enhance literacy learning during inquiries into physical phenomena, and a website documenting prospective teachers'' science and literacy learning.
Impact. This project advances the knowledge base by broadening the focus on learning in undergraduate physics courses to include ways to foster literacy skills in listening, speaking, writing and reading in the context of learning physics. The project also contributes the perspective of physicists to research on literacy learning in science contexts, much of which has been conducted by reading specialists rather than scientists. Physics instructors may choose to use the materials and strategies with science majors enrolled in the standard introductory physics courses. Thus the results of this project have the potential to improve instruction for all introductory physics students. Increased awareness of literacy issues may be particularly important for instructors of students from populations underrepresented in the field, for whom listening, speaking, writing and reading in English may be problematic.
The project also includes forming an electronic network among instructors at other institutions who are teaching physics courses for prospective teachers. Participants in the network are sharing insights about fostering literacy and science learning. Research findings and pilot materials are being made accessible on the World Wide Web to maximize dissemination to a wide audience as well as reported at conferences and in refereed publications. The anticipated benefits to society include improved instruction in two critical domains: science and literacy.
