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Teacher Education at Illinois State University

PHYSICS 302 -- COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Autumn Semester 2008

(Under revision; last updated 5/16/2008)

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Catalog Description:

1 hr of PHY 270 req.
Applications of computers in teaching of high school physics.

Instructor:

Name: Dr. Carl J. Wenning, Coordinator
Physics Teacher Education Program
Office Location: Moulton Hall, Room 322
Office Hours: drop in or by appointment
Telephones: (309) 438-2957 (office) or 454-4164 (home) or 830-4085 (cell)
e-mail address: CWenning@IllinoisState.edu

Meeting Days/Times/Location:

During the autumn semester of 2007 we will meet on Thursdays, from 3:00 to 5:20 p.m. beginning August 23rd (assuming no formal breaks) in Moulton Hall, room 307B. Due to the nature of this laboratory course, students can expect to spend about 37.5 hours in lab doing the required work, but regular attendance at scheduled lab sessions should provide you most of the lab time needed. Students are responsible for scheduling additional independent work times with the instructor or in the lab as needed.

Methodology:

The focus in this course is on the use of the laboratory experience as a pedagogical tool for demonstrating the experimental nature of science. Teacher candidates encounter the computer as an adjunct in the lab setting. In this course students become familiar with a variety of commonly used computer applications for teaching high school physics. The course concludes with capstone and research symposium projects that allow students to demonstrate that they understand the experimental nature of science. PHY 302 is a web-based course. Project guidelines, examples, and scoring rubrics can be found hyperlinked to this course syllabus.

This course is best thought of as a process of creative problem solving. Students will be confronted routinely with problems to be solved in relation to use of computer hardware and software. This sometimes leads to a certain level of frustration, but that is to be expected. Teacher candidates must deal effectively with the frustration and learn to resolve problems associated with the use of instructional technology by seeking out appropriate material and human resources.

Many class/lab sessions will commence with the instructor providing an orientation to important background information or a computer application. It is imperative that students arrive on time for lab for scheduled orientations and be prepared to start at the beginning of the period. Following these orientations, students will complete associated projects often working in small groups. Students are permitted to work together to accomplish the various tasks in this course (including all assignments with the exception of the capstone and symposium experiences). Each student must turn in his or her own unique reports and/or projects. Reports with multiple names on the sheet are not acceptable, and neither are separate identical reports.

This lab course is divided into two grading periods.

In this course, as in other Physics Teacher Education courses, emphasis will be placed on an Assessment-for-Learning Policy. That is, assessments of student performance will be used not only to assign grades, but to improve student performance. Unsatisfactory work will be returned to the student for improvement. A student's score can be improved by appropriate revision and resubmission, so long as all deadlines are met. Each and every task in this course must be completed successfully (an 82% or above score) as a prerequisite for admission to student teaching. This constitutes a de facto course grade requirement of a "B" or better.

Grading Periods:

This course has two grading periods. Each grading period contributes roughly equally to the final grade in this course. The end of each grading period constitutes an absolute deadline for turning in required work; missing or late work scores zero.

Course Goals: This course has been designed with the aim of assisting physics teacher candidates to develop a working familiarity with inquiry-oriented lab procedures, including guided, bounded, and free inquiry. The goal is to prepare teacher candidates who can: assess, utilize, and troubleshoot computers and associated software and hardware to teach physics using inquiry-oriented lab practices. create and implement inquiry-oriented labs in their own high school classrooms using standard procedures and computer-based technology. It is not the intention of this course to make students experts in the use of all available computer-based applications and technology encountered in the most advanced physics classrooms. Rather, the goal is to familiarize students with the basic operations of computer hardware and software so they might adapt to any of a wide array of instructional technology they might encounter as teachers in their own classrooms.

Performance Objectives for All Undergraduates:

Course Outline:

Requirements and Specific Criteria:

302A: Worksheets (SLH) and Reading Quizzes (5% of course grade)

Students must complete a number of take-home quizzes based on assigned readings, as well as a number of worksheets and projects as part of class work. Take-home quizzes will assume that the teacher candidate has not only read the material, but attempted to understand it through class participation and independent study. Take-home quizzes are not reading quizzes; they are comprehension quizzes.

302B: Web Page (ITPS Competency D) and Database Management (ITPS Competency I) Tasks (10% of course grade)

Students must independently design and upload to an Internet server an html-based web page, and a develop and demonstrate the utilization of a database management system. (Both competencies are part of the Instructional Technology Passport System.) Each competency has its own required elements and scoring rubric specialized for PHY 302: (a) web page development required elements and scoring rubric, and (b) database management required elements and scoring rubric. (See an example of another useful database design.) Successful completion of both assignments is required for passing through the University's "Admission to Student Teaching" gateway. For the database management project you may use DBApp, an online database manager, or FileMaker Pro if you have access to it.

302C: Excel Project (5% of course grade)

Students must complete a number of Excel-based exercises that deal with the use of descriptive statistics, data analysis, statistical testing, simulations, and graphing. See the Excel Project for specific guidelines.

302D: Experimentation Tests (20% of course grade)

Students must take and pass at a "satisfactory" level (82% or above) each of five take-home tests dealing with data collection, analysis, and design of experimentation. These five take-home tests are based upon chapters of the book Experimentation: An Introduction to Measurement Theory and Experiment Design (3rd edition) by D. C. Baird. (1995) plus supplemental readings and addenda & errata. These five tests must be successfully completed prior to the beginning of the bounded and free Inquiry projects.

302E: Guided Inquiry Lab Guidelines Project (15% of course grade)

Students must convert a standard "cookbook" lab into a high school level guided inquiry lab using provided resources and specific guidelines. The differences between cookbook and inquiry labs are numerous; make certain that you know the differences before you begin your project. Student must actually have another students implement the lab in class. The writer will then revise the guidelines on the basis of this experience before submitting the assignment. The quality of the written lab guidelines will be assessed using a Authentic Inquiry Lab Scoring Rubric.

302F: Guided Inquiry Lab Projects (20% of course grade)

Students must complete four (4) in-class guided inquiry labs. Labs 1 and 2 total 5% of the final grade; labs 3 and 4 are each worth 5% of the course grade.

302G: Bounded Inquiry Lab - Capstone Experience (25% of course grade)

Students must design and conduct a bounded-inquiry capstone experiment and complete an extensive and highly detailed report. Information from Baird (Chapter 7, Writing Scientific Reports and Appendix 4, Specimen Experiment) will be used to complete the write up of the Capstone Project. See the Capstone Project Guidelines, Lab Report Requirements, and Capstone Project Scoring Rubrics for details. Note: This is an NSTA-mandated student performance assessment. Failure to adequately demonstrate the required competency at a mastery level (82% or above) will result in the teacher candidate being barred from student teaching.

Assessment Scores:

You may view your latest assessment scores online by going to the Mallard website for this course.

Grading:

Click here for an important note dealing with student academic behaviors and their relationship to course grades.

The final course grade will be determined on the percentage of the total score points earned according to the following schedule:

The above grading scale might seem a bit high to the student, but it assumes that students will maximize both learning and accomplishments by taking regular advantage of the instructor's Assessment-for-Learning Policy.

Academic Integrity:

As you work your way through the the course projects, you will encounter a large amount of proprietary software. This means that the software that you will be using is the intellectual property of someone else. This software is copyrighted, and may be used only after the appropriate fees have been paid and agreements consented to. ISU has obtained a license for each of the programs that you will encounter in this course. It is expected that students will comply with both legal and ethical obligations while using this software. This implies that students will not make unauthorized copies of or disseminate proprietary software. It is expected that all students will have completed the first ITPS requirement - Ethical Use of Technology, prior to beginning this course. Students are expected to comply fully with the directives addressed in this requirement.

Students are expected to be honest in all academic work. A student's name on any in academic exercise shall be regarded as assurance that the work is the result of the student's own thought and study. Offenses involving academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to the following: cheating, computer dishonesty, plagiarism, grade falsification, and collusion. For more information about this important topic, visit the Student Dispute Resolution Web site.

Resources used in this course (applications, books, CD's, sensors, calculators, computer interfaces, etc.) should not be removed from the MLT 307B under any circumstances without the instructor's permission. Course materials are limited, and a number of students have need for these materials at various times outside of the usual and ordinary lab hours. These resources must remain available to all students at all times.

Text and Other Readings:

The only text used regularly in this course will be Experimentation: An Introduction to Measurement Theory and Experiment Design (3rd edition) written by D. C. Baird. (1995). Students will be loaned a copy of this book on a semester-long basis. The book must be returned in good condition before final grade will be posted for this course. Please note that an Errata and Addenda sheet has been prepared for D. C. Baird's book; students are also responsible for this content.

Important Caveats:

Please make a habit of regularly backing up your computer work -- e.g. make multiple copies. Missing computer files or crashed hard drives are not legitimate excuses for lost work or missed deadlines. Backup, Backup, Backup! When updating versions of work, avoid overwriting earlier versions. The later version might be flawed in some significant way. When making updated versions, label successive projects Job1, Job2, Job3, Job4, etc. You can throw away the very earliest versions if you run out of memory, but be certain to retain the latest two versions at a bare minimum. Make backups of diskettes or flash memories that you will be carrying around. A little bit of effort at the right time now can save a lot of extra effort later (and even a poor grade). Please back up regularly! There is no excuse for doing otherwise.

Also, consider bringing a flash memory to every lab session for backing up course work. If you don't have one, you might want to purchase one. Alternatively, be prepared to save you files to a remote server or copy onto a 100 Meg ZIP disk or similar. Contact your course instructor for a ZIP disk if you would like to borrow one.

Caution: Keep in mind as you progress toward student teaching that as a student teacher your students will have an interest in finding out about you. This will lead them to Internet searches. Don't put anything on a web page, uTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc., that you wouldn't want students, parents, teachers or administrators to see.

Important Note: NOW is the time to learn more about both the Physics Teacher Education and Professional Studies programs at Illinois State University. Be certain to visit the PTE home page and follow all important links.

Disposition Concerns: The College of Education, in an effort to ensure top quality graduates, provides faculty members and interested others with the opportunity to provide input into the teacher preparation process. One of these inputs is in the area of disposition concerns. Education faculty, in particular, are encouraged to bring to attention of CECP any significant problems associated with the following major areas. If three or more filed dispositions concerns have not been resolved, the teacher candidate will be blocked from advancing in Professional Studies.

• Collaboration Issues: The ability to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.
• Honesty/Integrity: The ability to demonstrate truthfulness to oneself and to others; demonstrate moral excellence and trustworthiness.
• Respect: The ability to honor, value, and demonstrate consideration and regard for oneself and others.
• Reverence for Learning: Respect and seriousness of intent to acquire knowledge.
• Emotional Maturity: The ability to adjust one’s emotional state to suitable level of intensity in order to remain engaged with one’s surroundings.
• Reflection: The ability to review, analyze, and evaluate the success of past decisions in an effort to make better decisions in the future.
• Flexibility: The willingness to accept and adapt to change.
• Responsibility: The ability to act independently, demonstrating accountability, reliability and sound judgment.

SAAMEE: A Model for Academic Success

Click here for latest listing of Teacher Education Requirements.

Continuing Education/Professional Development for Teacher Candidates:

• Science News

• Discover Magazine

• Education Week

• Teacher Magazine

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