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NATURAL SCIENCE 412 Fall 2006 Mon-Wed
9:00 -11:20 COURSE
INFORMATION: |
PhysicAL Science AND EVERYDAY THINKING (PSET)
INSTRUCTOR:
Fred
Goldberg; Office: 6475 Alvarado Rd, Suite 128;
594-6609;
<fgoldberg@sciences.sdsu.edu>;
Office hours, Mon and Wed, in the classroom (PA119) half hour before
class and after class.
Assistant
Instructor: Nephi Thompson
<nephi_thompson@hotmail.com>
STRUCTURE OF
THE PSET COURSE:
This
is an activity-based and discussion-oriented course with four major goals:
(1) Physical Science Content: To help you
develop a deep understanding of physics and chemistry ideas that can be used to
explain interesting phenomena, and are related to the ideas included in the
elementary school science curriculum;
(2) Nature of Science:
To help you practice and develop an understanding of how knowledge is developed
within a scientific community: that doing science involves using evidence and
creative thinking, that knowledge is established through collaboration and consensus,
and that science knowledge can change over time;
(3) Elementary
Students’ Ideas: To help you
understand the thinking of elementary school children by observing (via video)
and analyzing their discourse when they are in the process of learning science.
(4) Learning about learning: To help you
become more aware of how your own science ideas change and develop over time,
and how the structure of the learning environment and curriculum facilitate
these changes.
There
will be very little formal lecturing in this course. Indeed, all class sessions
will take place in the lab. The basic aim of the PSET format is to allow you to
take charge of your own learning, with the instructor as a guide. During class
you will spend most of your time performing experiments, working occasionally
with computers, and discussing ideas with your classmates. We expect you to continue your learning at
home through a series of carefully designed homework assignments, many
involving use of the web. We hope you will find many of our teaching and
learning strategies valuable and appropriate for you to use when you begin your
teaching career.
The
PSET curriculum is divided into the following five cycles:
Cycle 1: Interactions and Energy
Cycle 2: Interactions and Forces
Cycle 3: Interactions and Systems
Cycle 4: Behavior of Gases and the
Small Particle Model
Cycle 5: Physical Changes and the Small
Particle Model
The
goal of each cycle is to have you develop a set of ideas that can be used to
help explain phenomena that will be explored within that cycle, as well as to
consider issues of learning science. There are three types of activities and
homeworks within each cycle. The first
several activities are called Developing
Ideas activities. During these
activities you will perform experiments to collect evidence in support of ideas
that you will develop. The final activity in a Cycle is an Applying Ideas activity. In
that activity you will compare your ideas with those developed by scientists,
then apply the ideas to explain interesting phenomena. Sprinkled throughout the curriculum are a
series of Learning About Learning activities, some done during class, most done
for homework. During these LAL
activities you are asked to think about your own learning, the learning of
children and/or the learning of scientists (namely, how they develop scientific
knowledge).
STRUCTURE
OF THE PSET ACTIVITIES
Each
individual activity consists of several sections with slightly different aims.
Purpose
A
short introduction describing the aims of the activity and how it ties in to
the topic. It also poses the key
question(s) for the activity.
Initial Ideas
Questions
that give you a chance to express your own initial ideas on the topic of the
activity, before you do any experiments. These initial ideas are important, as
they will form the basis on which you build further understanding.
Collecting and
Interpreting Evidence
Here’s
where you do the experiments and record your predictions, observations and data
that provide the evidence to support or refute your ideas.
Summarizing
Questions
Working
together, the whole class will try to summarize what they have learned in the
activity by answering a few questions.
Throughout
the activities you will be writing answers to questions on the activity sheets
themselves. Three types of questions will be identified by small icons:
Prediction
Question. A chance for you to use your current thinking to anticipate what you
think will happen. In each case, your prediction should be justified in terms
of your current idea(s). This is a vital step in your learning and should not
be “glossed over”. If the results of an experiment do not agree with your
prediction DO NOT go back and change it – this is valuable evidence of how your
ideas are evolving.
Observation
Question: A place for you to record the results
of experiments. These results may take several forms, including describing
observations, sketching diagrams, or recording numerical values in a table.
Making Sense
Question. This is where you get to interpret
the results of experiments in terms of your ideas. Do the results agree with
your predictions, or not? If so, they provide evidence to support your ideas.
If not, maybe your ideas need to be modified.
REQUIRED
MATERIALS:
The
set of Physical Science and Everyday Thinking materials are available
from Aztec Shops. The author is
Goldberg. A PSET Student Resources CD is
included as part of the materials. On this
CD are Microsoft WordÔcopies of all
the homework assignments, including videos (and transcripts) of children
engaged in learning science. Other
course materials will be distributed to you as needed during the course.
It
is strongly recommend that you purchase a 3-ring binder to hold the PSET curriculum
materials.
ATTENDANCE AND
PARTICIPATION:
You
will be primarily responsible for your own learning in this class. By engaging in meaningful discussions with
your group members, by actively participating in whole class discussions, and
by performing interesting experiments, you will develop with your classmates a
set of ideas. Similar to the way in which scientists develop ideas, your ideas
will be based on evidence gathered from the experiments you do. At appropriate
times, you will be able to compare your ideas with those developed by
scientists. It is expected that except
for some special jargon, the ideas you develop with the class should be quite
similar to the scientists’ ideas.
Because
you will play such an important role in your own learning, and especially the
learning of your classmates, you are expected to come to class on time every
class period and participate throughout the period. Class
will begin sharply at 9:00 AM. You
will receive one participation point for each class fully attended. If you are absent or more than 15 minutes
late for class, you will not receive the participation credit for that day.
HOMEWORK:
Homework will
be assigned almost every class period and, unless otherwise stated, will be due
at the beginning of the following class period. Each regular assignment is
worth (usually) 2 points and will be graded according to two criteria:
(1) Completeness
(you made a good effort to answer all
the questions); and
(2) Correctness
(where appropriate). If you are unsure what would be considered a “correct”
response to homework questions, you should check with the instructor.
For certain
homework assignments you will be watching video and analyzing children’s
thinking. Each of these assignments will
be worth 8 points. The grading will be
based mainly on how you support claims you make about the children’s
ideas. You need to cite appropriate
sections from the transcript and clearly explain how the transcript evidence
supports your claims.
Part of the
assigned homework will be gone over and discussed during class. Late homework
will generally not be accepted for
credit. If you miss class you are
responsible for finding out (either from the instructor or a student in your
group) what activities were performed in class and what homework was
assigned. You should go through the
activities as best you can, and should send an electronic copy of the homework
(available on the PSET Student Resources CD) to fgoldberg@sciences.sdsu.edu before the start of the class period
when it is due.
GRADING
CRITERIA AND TENTATIVE DATES:
|
Course
component |
Point value |
Approximate Dates |
|
Cycle
1 Test |
40
points |
Mon
Sept 25 |
|
Cycle
2 Test |
40
points |
Wed
Oct 11 |
|
Cycle
3 Test |
40
points |
Mon
Oct 30 |
|
Cycle
4 Test |
40
points |
Wed
Nov 15 |
|
Cycles
4 and 5 Test |
50
points |
Fri
Dec 15 8-10 AM |
|
Regular
Homework (due on time) |
50
points |
|
|
32
points |
|
|
|
Class
participation (1 point per class) |
29
points |
|
Total points =
|
321
points |
|
TENTATIVE
GRADING SCALE:
|
Usual
cut |
|
92 % A |
90% A- |
|
off
for |
88 % B+ |
82 % B |
80 % B- |
|
a
given |
78 % C+ |
72 % C |
70 % C- |
|
grade: |
|
60 % D |
|