Aps-ajp-11-1001-Book indb

Summary of  “Inquiry-based course in physics and chemistry for preservice 
K-8 teachers,” Michael E. Loverude, Barbara L. Gonzalez, and Roger Nanes, 
pp. 46–83.
This paper describes an inquiry-based course for preservice K-8 
teachers (Physics/Chemistry 102) developed at California State 
University, Fullerton (CSUF). CSUF is a regional comprehensive 
university in southern California, primarily serving students from 
Orange, Los Angeles, and neighboring counties. With 35,590 stu-
dents as of Fall 2010, CSUF has the largest enrollment of the 23 
campuses in the California State University (CSU) system. 
Physics/Chemistry 102 [Phys/Chem 102], “Physical 
Science for Future Elementary Teachers,” is taught jointly by 
the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry 
and Biochemistry. The course is one of three that were devel-
oped as part of an NSF-funded initiative to enhance the sci-
ence content understanding of prospective teachers; the other 
courses cover geology and biology. This structure was moti-
vated by the fact that general education requirements at CSUF 
as well as state content standards for teachers and K-12 stu-
dents are divided into three categories: physical science, earth/
astronomical science, and life science. In Phys/Chem 102, 
one instructor from each department is typically assigned to 
the course, although one or both may be a part-time lecturer.
Phys/Chem 102 is taught in a weekly six-hour laboratory 
format: either three hours twice a week, or two hours three 
times a week. There is typically no lecture; rather, students 
work in small groups on carefully structured learning activi-
ties. Because of the lab format, enrollment is limited to 26 
students per section. The course emphasizes learning sci-
ence in context, a focus that was infl uenced by the Physics in 
Context thread of the IUPP project
1
as well as the American 
Chemical Society’s Chemistry in Context curriculum.
2
The 
intention is that students will see science as an interconnected 
discipline with real-world implications, rather than a collec-
tion of facts and equations. The text used for the course is 
Inquiry Into Physical Science: A Contextual Approach, by 
Roger Nanes. The text is built around three contexts: Global 
Warming, centered on the physics and chemistry of climate 
change, including heat and temperature as well as the interac-
tion of light and matter; Kitchen Science, focusing on eve-
ryday aspects of chemistry and some additional topics from 
thermal physics, such as phase transitions and specifi c heat; 
and the Automobile, emphasizing kinematics, dynamics, and 
electricity and magnetism. Each topic is rich with diffi cult 
content, and could easily occupy a full semester or more, 
but the units are tightly focused on introductory science that 
meets the California content standards.
The last point is a crucial one; teaching in a contextual 
approach can involve very challenging content and may not 
demonstrably improve student understanding. This course 
focuses on activities and experiments that cover basic con-
cepts suitable for the target audience but rely on the context to 
stitch together these activities into a storyline. The individual 
activities are strongly infl uenced by published physics and 
chemical education research and research-based curricula, 
and in several cases our own research led to new activities 
and modifi cation of existing ones. Thus, the course functions 
on multiple levels: day to day, students work on activities not 
too different from those in comparable research-based courses 
for prospective teachers, but these activities are placed in the 
context of real-world applications to provide a more coherent 
learning experience.
In addition to the non-traditional course structure, the 
course assessments are designed to refl ect course goals and 
emphasize conceptual understanding and refl ective thinking.
In addition to conceptually-oriented homework and exams, 
students write one or two refl ective essays tracing how their 
own understanding of target topics has changed over the 
course of instruction. In-class performance tasks for each unit 
provide hands-on authentic assessment. 
Since the course was fi rst taught in Spring 1999, it has 
grown in enrollment to a peak of eight sections per academic 
year. The number of sections has been reduced to four per 
year in response to state budget diffi culties, and it should be 
noted that the course is expensive compared to more tradi-
tional offerings.
The article documents research on the course and the stu-
dent population. In particular it presents results from a study 
that compares the outcomes of the course to those obtained 
from the more traditional general education science offerings 
that teachers would take in the absence of Phys/Chem 102.
The research fi ndings include:
• Students entering Phys/Chem 102 often have diffi culty 
with written conceptual questions focusing on the physical 
science content that is included in K-12 content standards.
Topics for which data are presented include density, sinking 
and fl oating, energy, and the particulate model of matter.
• Students entering Phys/Chem 102 seem to have a weaker 
level of science preparation than their peers in traditional gen-
eral education physical science courses. Before instruction, 
students in the traditional courses were more likely to answer 
written problems correctly than students in Phys/Chem 102.
• Instruction in Phys/Chem 102 signifi cantly improves stu-
dent performance on written questions on the target topics.
However, work on sinking and fl oating in particular illus-
trates that attention to the details of the activities is essen-
tial; early versions of the curriculum made little difference 
in student responses, but revisions based on research on 
student understanding led to better results.
These fi ndings illustrate the importance of Phys/Chem 102 
for this student population. The prospective teachers enter-
ing the course have relatively weak science preparation, even 
compared to other non-science majors at the same university.
In the absence of Phys/Chem 102, many would be among the 
weaker students in a large survey lecture course, and in such a 
course they would have little opportunity to refl ect upon their 
learning or discuss the content with other students. The evi-
dence suggests that for these students, taking Phys/Chem 102 
makes a signifi cant impact on their learning.
1
R. diStefano, “Preliminary IUPP results: Student reactions to in-class dem-
onstrations and to the presentation of coherent themes,” Am. J. Phys. 64 (1), 
58–68 (1996).
2
L. Pryde Eubanks, C. H. Middlecamp, C. E. Heitzel, and S. W. Keller, 
Chemistry in Context, Sixth Edition (American Chemical Society, 2009).
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Summary: Otero, et al.
20 
Teacher Education in Physics