Concepts and practices surrounding measurement uncertainty are vital knowledge for physicists and are often emphasized in undergraduate physics laboratory courses. We have previously developed a research-based assessment instrument--the Survey of Physics Reasoning on Uncertainty Concepts in Experiments (SPRUCE)--to examine student proficiency with…

Computational thinking (CT) skills are essential with the rapid advancement of technology. Developing CT attitudes in students is also required for improving CT skills. On the other hand, science process skills are also emphasized in high school physics classes. This study aims to design and implement collaborative modeling-based learning for high…

A large-enrollment, introductory physics laboratory course at the University of Colorado Boulder has undergone a recent transformation to help students' develop lab skills and better align students' views and beliefs about experimental physics with those of expert experimental physicists through engagement with authentic scientific practices. We…

The development of scientifically literate citizens begins in the elementary school. Yet elementary school teachers are ill prepared to teach science (Trygstad, Smith, Banilower, Nelson, & Horizon Research, Inc., 2013). The research base on teacher preparation finds that programs designed to prepare elementary teachers are inadequate in…

For the past two years, the Foundations in Physics and Mathematics (FPM) summer program has been held at Indiana University in order to fulfill two goals: provide additional physics and mathematics instruction at the high school level, and provide physics graduate students with experience and autonomy in designing curricula and teaching courses.…

Despite the growing popularity of robotics competitions such as FIRST LEGO League, robotics activities are typically not found in regular K-12 classrooms. We speculate that, among other reasons, limited adoption is due to the lack of empirical evidence demonstrating the effect of robotics activities on curricular goals. This paper presents a mixed…

In January 2005, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was awarded a three-year ITEST grant (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) through the National Science Foundation (award #04-23417). This "AMNH-ITEST High School Science Research Program" aimed to target 120 urban high school youth, grades 10-12, from…

In a recent study we showed that physics students' problem-solving performance can depend strongly on problem representation, and that giving students a choice of problem representation can have a significant impact on their performance [ P. B. Kohl and N. D. Finklestein, Phys. Rev. ST. Phys. Educ. Res. 1, 010104 (2005) ] In this paper, we…