Physics Education Research Conference
Cognitive Science and Physics Education Research

Workshops

Various Times & Rooms Listed Below
Workshop Presenters:  Please follow the instructions provided here.

Workshop: W-A

Cognitive Analysis of Student Learning Using LearnLab

Organizers:
    Brett van de Sande/Kurt VanLehn: University of Pittsburgh

Where:  Sheraton Hotel, Sand Piper

When:     8:15 - 9:45 a.m., Thursday, August 2

               3:45 - 5:15 p.m., Thursday, August 2

Theme:  LearnLab (www.learnlab.org) is a facility that researchers from around the world are using to test instructional innovations and various theories of learning. LearnLab facilitates the use of psychology laboratory methods (e.g., well-defined instructional manipulations, random assignment to conditions, control of variables) in realistic classroom settings. This is accomplished by embedding pre-tests, post-tests and instructional manipulations directly into the students' normal activities.

In these classes, students do most of their homework, and some classwork, on computer-based "model-tracing tutors:" a cognitive model is used to construct model solutions to a problem and each step of a student's solution is compared to these solutions. This comparison is used to determine the correctness of each step as well as any help given to the student. When solving a problem, students receive immediate feedback after each step, and they can ask for hints when they get stuck.

During LearnLab studies, instructional manipulations are introduced via these model-tracing tutors. In addition, the tutor logs each student action and the tutor's interpretation of that action in terms of the cognitive model. This fine-grained log data is sent to a repository called the DataShop, which allows open access to this data and offers a set of pre-defined analyses.

Goals:  This workshop has two purposes: to introduce participants to the research methodologies being developed in the LearnLab, and to expose participants to the log data collected in the DataShop and some of the analyses that can be performed on them. Analysis of this kind of log data is in its infancy. Our hope is that participants will be inspired to develop new and interesting analyses of the log data, or to run their own experiments using the LearnLab. The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC) provides seed funding for both activities.

Activities: The first portion of the workshop will consist of a description of the research methodologies being developed for use in the LearnLab, using physics as the primary example. This will be delivered as a lecture.

This will be followed by a question and answer period. The focus will be on what works well and what does not work so well with this style of research.

The second portion of the workshop will focus exclusively on log data generated by the physics model-tracing tutor (www.andes.pitt.edu). This will be conducted as a loosely-guided exploration. Participants will need a laptop computer with an Internet connection to access the DataShop. We will discuss the kind of data that is logged, and attachment of cognitive model steps to student actions. Then we will use the DataShop can to perform several analyses. In particular, we will generate learning curves and discuss what they can tell us.

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Workshop: W-B

Physics Learning in the Context of Scaffolded Diagnostic Tasks

Organizers:
    Edit Yerushalmi & Bat Sheva Eylon: Weizmann Institute of Science and Chandralekha Singh: University of Pittsburgh

Where:  Sheraton Hotel, Tide Water B

When:     8:15 - 9:45 a.m., Thursday, August 2

               1:45 - 3:15 p.m., Thursday, August 2

Theme:  For problem solving to serve as an effective learning opportunity it should involve deliberate reflection: planning and evaluating the solver's progress toward a solution, as well as self-diagnosing former steps while elaborating on conceptual understanding. Students indeed get an opportunity to review their solutions in multiple contexts, for example, before they hand in their homework, tests or lab reports, as well as when they get their graded work back. While expert problem solvers employ deliberate reflection, the novices (most introductory course students), fail to take full advantage of problem solving as a learning opportunity [Maloney, 1994]. In this workshop we will focus on self-diagnosis tasks: An instructional strategy to develop the attitudes and skills required to engage in reflective problem solving. In these tasks students are explicitly required to carry out self diagnosis activities after being given some feedback on the solution. We will present research related to students' reflection while they review their problem solutions, for example: 1. How well do students self-diagnose, if at all, their solutions? And what are the learning outcomes of these activities? 2. Can one improve the act of self-diagnosis and the resulting learning outcomes by scaffolding the activity?

Goals:  Our goal is for participants to become familiar with fundamental difficulties of physics students when reflecting on their problem solutions in order to learn from them, and with the role of different scaffolding components in helping them to do so. A further goal is to examine possible analysis tools to study students' performance on such tasks, in particular, in the context where students compare their own solutions to instructors' worked out examples. We hope to start a discussion on the relevance of such analysis tools as alternative assessment tools.

Activities:  The participants will experience first hand several self diagnostic tasks in the context of a common context rich problem: a) self-diagnosis with minimal guidance; b) strategic self-diagnosis by using a rubric explicating a prescribed problem-solving framework; c) self-diagnosis with a worked out example. Participants will discuss their expectations about the dependence of students' self diagnosis on the nature of the scaffolding embedded in the different self diagnostic tasks. We will present an experiment carried out in two sites, in Israel (11th grade physics students) and in The U.S.A (introductory algebra based physics class). The students in each site were assigned to four treatment groups. In each group, students engaged in self-correction or one of the self-diagnosis tasks varying in scaffolding. In a following activity participants will examine how well can students self-diagnose their solutions in the context of task c: comparison of students' own solutions with the instructor's worked out example.

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Workshop: W-C

Publishing & Refereeing Papers in PER

Organizers:
    Leon Hsu: University of Minnesota

Where:  Sheraton Hotel, Augusta A

When:    1:45 - 3:15 p.m., Thursday, August 2

               3:45 - 5:15 p.m., Thursday, August 2

Theme:  The theme of this workshop is not directly related to research in cognitive science and physics education, but is designed to help participants learn about different journals in PER and the types of articles each is looking for. In addition, the workshop will improve the structures surrounding the dissemination of PER research by helping potential referees learn to write reports that are useful to editors and authors.

Goals:  Participants will learn what types of research and publication are appropriate for several different publishing venues, including Physical Review Special Topics PER, the American Journal of Physics, the Journal of the Learning Science, and the PERC Proceedings. Participants will also learn what editors are looking for in a referee report and how to write a referee report that is useful to editors and authors. By knowing what editors do and don't want, participants will learn how to referee papers efficiently.

Activities:  After a brief presentation on general good practices of writing referee reports, editors from PER publishing venues such as PRST-PER, the PER section of AJP, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and the PERC proceedings will discuss features of a referee report they are looking for that are particular to their venue. Participants will see and discuss examples of useful and not-so-useful referee reports from different journals. The editors will then discuss the types of research and articles that are appropriate for each of their journals. The workshop will end with a question and answer session with the panel of editors.

Presenters: 

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