An instructional challenge through problem solving for physics teacher candidates

The teaching of science, especially at pre-college and teacher education levels has undergone tremendous transformation over the years: from teacher-centred transmission to student-centred approaches rooted in constructivism. Whereas constructivism has been charged with all manner of shortfalls, it still can be of benefit to the way physics instructions are organized and implemented. In this paper, the importance of learners\u27 prior knowledge in understanding physics concepts is discussed. This study comprised a case of two cohorts of physics teacher candidates who had strong content knowledge of physics, but lacked pedagogical knowledge as demonstrated by their struggles to implement appropriate grade-level strategies in physics problem solving tasks (which are amenable to a variety of mathematical tool-choices). The case cohorts were used as exemplars to underscore the importance of learners\u27 prior mathematical knowledge. Thus, the paper is concluded by focusing on implications for pre-service teacher preparation, and the effects mathematical tool-choice can bear on their students\u27 conceptions

Connecting student self-regulation, metacognition and learning to analogical thinking in a physics problem-solving discourse

This paper reports on a study that employed a case study approach to investigate students’ science learning processes in a problem-solving discourse by focusing on the question: how are student selfefficacy, metacognition, learning and analogical communication related? The study engaged high school physics students in solving novel physics problems on a field trip to an amusement park. It demonstrated that those with high potential to engage the monitoring-planning-evaluation aspect of metacognition had the ability to infer meaning of the unknown from understanding of the similar in what is already known or easily understandable, and often understood and expressed their thoughts analogically. In other words, this category of students engaged the constructive connectivity aspect of learning. Thus, during the process of developing solutions to challenging novel problems, it was apparent that the students who were able to argue and express their ideas in analogical terms were also highly metacgnitive and succeeded in developing viable models for solutions to the novel problems