Dr. Ronald Canterna has overseen the introduction into our curriculum of the methodologies of cooperative learning and interactive teaching. In cooperation with other science departments, a new three-room combination lecture and laboratory facility equipped with a wide range of electronic, audio-visual, and traditional instructional equipment for use by all levels of science classes has been put into almost continuous use.
We offer to graduate students who are particularly interested in teaching physics and related subjects the opportunity to learn about and use these new techniques and to take advantage of these new facilities through a Master's program with emphasis on physics education. Dr. Canterna directs the work of students who pursue this degree.
Examples of these Master's thesis are:
THE EFFECT OF STUDENT ATTITUDE TOWARD LABORATORY ACTIVITIES
ON THE ROLE OF THE LABORATORY IN INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS EDUCATION.
By Kelly Victoria Beck December, 1993
Introductory physics laboratory curricula are often ineffective
at helping students learn physics. The introductory physics
laboratories at the University of Wyoming are like most, and in
need of improvement. The goal is to define the role of the
laboratory in introductory physics at the University of Wyoming
and revise the laboratory curriculum to fill that role. The first
stage of definition, reviewed in this paper, is to identify student's
attitudes toward laboratory. Student attitudes toward laboratory
activities affect the definition of the role of the laboratory
in introductory physics education. Methods and activities
to which students have positive attitudes should be retained.
Those to which they have
negative attitudes should be eliminated. A revised from
of the Attitude Toward Laboratory Work Scale (Hofstein et al.,
1976) was used to measure attitude toward laboratory. It
was found that students have positive attitudes toward personal
discovery of concepts and the role laboratory plays in making
physics more interesting. They have negative attitudes toward
the intelligibility of laboratory.
"DON'T CONFUSE ME WITH FACTS MY MIND IS ALREADY MADE UP!"
By Andrew L. Barter May 1994
Over the past two decades, major changes have occurred in views
of the nature of the learning process; research questions
have changed from questions about factors external to the student
to questions about factors inside the mind of the student (Saunders,
1992). Among the advancements in the learning process are
the notions of constructivism and prediction-learning, and these
advancements have tremendous implications for the teaching and
learning of science. Constructivism includes the perception
that students respond to sensory experiences by building or constructing
in their minds schemes or cognitive structures which constitute
the meaning and understanding of their world. Prediction
learning is learning via the traditional learning cycle (Karplus,
1977) with an additional element of prediction. Prediction
learning utilizes the prior conceptions of a student in the learning
process. This paper outlines the philosophies of constructivism
and prediction learning with applicative examples for effective
methods of teaching science at the secondary and post-secondary
levels.
A GENERAL MODEL FOR ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATION BY COLLEGE PHYSICS STUDENTS.
By Teresa Marie Ciardi May, 1995
The stages of development with respect to how students construct
an abstract idea were studied and observed during the second semester
of an introductory, algebra-based, college physics course at the
University of Wyoming. A total of fifty students were monitored
in two laboratory sections. The focus of the study was to
determine how students construct the idea of a field, an abstract
concept. A Pre-Development and a Post-Development Survey
were administered at the beginning and end of the
course, respectively. The majority of the students participated
in these surveys. At mid-semester, eight one-on-one interviews
were conducted and the results of these interviews are included.
In addition, limited observations of students in two discussion
sections supplement the study.
This thesis contains two parts. First, a procedure for
carrying out the study was established and questions for the surveys
and the interviews were developed. The next step was the
interpretation of results. An analysis is presented for
the development of the procedures and questions, and for the responses
obtained via these procedures and questions. A model was
then constructed based upon students' responses. The responses
from students show a definite increase in the use of physics terms,
and a certain amount of gained understanding. It is also
evident that students' individual ideas became much more diversified
between the Pre-Development Survey and the Post-Development Survey.
In the
Pre-Development Survey, although the particular details of the
students' responses varied, general themes could be found; however,
in the Post-Development Survey the students' responses were varied
such that
general themes were difficult to find. Furthermore, students
supplied much more information on the Post-Development Survey
as they had acquired information during the semester. Although
students' confidence levels rose between the two surveys, students
continue to retain misconceptions. The inherent problem
is that students were not only more confident about correct answers,
but also about
incorrect answers. Original experiences obtained prior to
taking a physics class stay with students while they gain additional
knowledge. The new knowledge, however, is not necessarily
assimilated but is often simply "stacked" on top of
previous experience and knowledge. Thus a "stacking"
model was developed.
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE TEACHING NEEDS AND THE TEACHER TRAINING FOR GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING IN THE PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, CHEMISTRY, AND GEOLOGY DEPARTMENTS.
By Dale R. Brabec December, 1995
This study investigated the teaching needs and teacher training for graduate teaching assistants in three science departments at the University of Wyoming. In order to investigate these implications, a survey was developed and presented to all the graduate students in the three science departments. Upon grouping similar responses from the survey into categories and calculating these averages, there are three conclusions. The conclusions are that the graduate students need TA training before they begin to teach at UW; the TAs need a more extensive training program at UW; and information obtained from universities and other sources should be considered in the formation or expansion of TA training programs at UW.