Conditions for building a community of practice in an advanced physics laboratory
CConditions for building a community of practice in an advanced physics laboratory
Paul W. Irving and Eleanor C. Sayre
Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506 (Dated: October 31, 2018)In this paper we explore the theory of communities of practice in the context of a physics collegecourse and in particular the classroom environment of an advanced laboratory. We introduce theidea of elements of a classroom community being able to provide students with the opportunityto have an accelerated trajectory towards being a more central participant of the community ofpractice of physicists. This opportunity is a result of structural features of the course and a primaryinstructional choice which result in the development of a learning community with several elementsthat encourage students to engage in more authentic practices of a physicist. A jump in accountabledisciplinary knowledge is also explored as a motivation for enculturation into the community ofpractice of physicists. In the advanced laboratory what students are being assessed on as countingas physics is significantly different and so they need to assimilate in order to succeed.
PACS numbers: 01.30.lb, 01.40.Fk, 01.40.Ha
I. INTRODUCTION
The development of a professional identity is a fun-damental part of student development . An appropri-ate subject-specific identity is a strong influence on stu-dents’ persistence in a discipline . There is a strongrelationship between the development of a professional,subject-specific identity and participation in a relatedcommunity ; in fact, professional identity and com-munity participation are inextricably and symbioticallylinked .Laboratory work in particular is generally seen as anopportunity for students to learn problem solving and de-velop their understanding of physics as well as to under-stand how the science community works and to eventu-ally be able to take part in the community themselves. .In this paper, we claim that structural and program-matic features of a junior-level Advanced Laboratorycourse (“AdLab”) at Kansas State University, supportedby instructor strategies, promote students’ encultura-tion into the physics community of practice by foster-ing a classroom learning community engaged in benchresearch. We support our claims with ethnographic in-terviews and with observations of AdLab students. II. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICEFRAMEWORK
We use a communities of practice framework to de-scribe how students develop a classroom community inAdLab. Communities of practice have three key charac-teristics: the individuals within form a group, either co-located or distributed ; the group has common goalsor shared enterprise ; the group shares and developsknowledge focused on a common practice . This finalcharacteristic can be extended to include the sharing ofmutually defined practices, beliefs, values and history.An individual participates in several, overlapping com-munities of practice. A physics student involved in a re- search group might also be the goalie on a sports team,for example. That same research group might be part ofa larger collaboration and, at the same time, members ofthe research group are also members of the physics de-partment. Because one individual participates in several,overlapping communities, it is important to study how“more expansive networks” affect individuals’ partic-ipation. Active participants in different communities ofpractice have opportunities to learn the knowledge, rit-uals, and histories valued within each community .Inasmuch as the different communities overlap, knowl-edge and practices learned in one community affectspractices in another . Conversely, when communi-ties have different values, individual members may havedifficulty importing practices from one community toanother .In this paper, we are primarily concerned with twooverlapping communities: the community which devel-ops within AdLab, and the generalized physics commu-nity to which students are aspiring members. These twocommunities share many goals and norms; AdLab is partof students’ training to become physicists; some (but notall) of the practices in AdLab are common to the pro-fessional practice of physics. Of course, the students inthese two communities are also members of other com-munities, but we do not focus on those aspects of theiridentity in this paper.
A. Duration
Frequently, communities of practice evolve and growfor extended periods and may involve many partici-pants over time. In these communities, new-comers aresocialized into the community of practice through mutualengagement with and support of old-timers. Throughlow-level but authentic practices, these peripheral partic-ipants are slowly inducted into the knowledge and skillsof a particular practice. Over time, they develop moreunderstanding, knowledge, and skills, becoming central a r X i v : . [ phy s i c s . e d - ph ] D ec participants and eventually mentoring their own periph-eral participants .Students in the process of moving from being a periph-eral participant to central participant are referred to ashaving a trajectory towards being a central member ofa community. Being on a trajectory within a commu-nity of practice is generally considered a slow inductionprocess . In the AdLab course students are exposed toa greater number of the authentic practices of membersof the community of practice of physicists. We believethat different classroom communities of practice providedifferent levels of authentic practice and therefore the op-portunity for students to accelerate their own trajectorytowards becoming a central member of a discipline basedcommunity.Other communities of practice have shorter duration,such as the length of a semester, and may have fewermembers. Classrooms as communities of practice arewell-studied . In these shorter-term, temporally-bounded communities , we discard the idea of new-comers and old-timers in favor of the more general idea ofperipheral and central participants. Legitimate periph-eral participants may sit on the outskirts of classroomdiscussion, learning discourse and norms as they grad-ually become enculturated . Conversely, central partici-pants may speak frequently in discussion, be more activein setting norms, or interact with more participants. B. Learning
Learning physics is a primary objective in a physicsclassroom. In a community of practice, learning canconceptualized using situated cognition , participa-tion theory , and socially constructed knowledge orunderstanding , or as a process of becoming a mem-ber of a community . Under these models, learn-ing physics is not merely about learning the contents ofphysics textbooks, but also about learning ways to partic-ipate in the cultural enterprise of professional physicists. C. Tension between scientist and classroompractices
If courses like AdLab are to prepare students to bephysicists – to become more central participants inthe physicist community of practice – then those stu-dents should engage in legitimate peripheral activitiesin the physicist community. Though physics classroomsand the larger physicist community share many of thesame norms and practices, they differ in several keyrespects . For example, traditional teaching labora-tories tend to emphasize reproducing prior results ratherthan creating new knowledge . Introductory physicsclasses tend to promote students solving many problemsweekly while professional physicists work in large teamsover multiple years to solve single problems. To counteract this disconnect between school sciencepractices and professional ones, the teacher can take onthe role of a broker, acting as a go-between the two com-munities and guiding the classroom community closer tothat of the practicing physics community. She can pro-mote classroom norms and allow activities that are legit-imate activities of physicists . More advanced course-work is more likely to enact norms and practices that aremore like those in the larger professional community, asmany faculty are more likely to treat advanced studentsas junior physicists. III. INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXT
At Kansas State University, AdLab is traditionallytaken by sophomores and juniors, both physics majorsand physics minors. It meets twice weekly for threehours each meeting; experiments usually take two tothree weeks to complete. Class time is almost entirelydevoted to laboratory work, with student presentationsonce during the semester. The students produce an indi-vidual laboratory report for each experiment. The exper-iments include common topics in modern physics such asthe Lifetime of the µ meson and Microwave Optics. Likemany upper-level laboratory classes, each experimentalset-up has only one set of equipment. Students rotatethrough the experiments, and each student will performa subset of the total number of experiments available.The advanced laboratory is described as the follow-ing in the course catalogue: “The completion of experi-ments of current and/or historical interest in contempo-rary physics. Students develop skills in and knowledge ofmeasurement techniques using digital and analog instru-ments. Various data analysis techniques are used.”There were 18 students enrolled in the lab at the begin-ning of the semester and 17 finished the semester; stu-dents were organized into six groups. Group membersstayed together for the first three experiments and thenswitched some members for the final three experiments. A. Structural and Instructional features
Within AdLab, there are several reasons for the devel-opment of a classroom community. We find four struc-tural features:
Paucity of instructor time:
There are six groupsworking on six different experiments, each of whichis complicated and prone to conceptual, experimen-tal, or equipment difficulties. There is one instruc-tor. She simply does not have enough time to spendwith each group. When students need help, theymust frequently turn to other sources.
All in the room together:
All groups work in thesame room at the same time. Because they arein close proximity to each other, there are morechances for interaction between groups.
Experiments long and hard:
The experiments lasttwo or three weeks, and involve many complicatedor finicky equipment, difficult error propagationtechniques, or conceptual complexity. This hastwo implications for community formation: stu-dents need to seek out resources to help with trou-bleshooting their own experiments, and (at anygiven time) they have time available to help theirpeers troubleshoot a different experiment.
Same experiments at different times:
Becausegroups cycle through experiments, pockets oflocalized expertise develop. When a new groupstarts on an experiment, the last group to performthat experiment has direct, localized expertiseabout performing it.Additionally, we find one primary instructional choicewhich supports the development of a community of prac-tice within AdLab. The instructor of the class, recog-nizing the structural constraints above, deliberately en-courages the sharing and developing of knowledge andunderstanding between lab groups.
B. Elements of classroom community
These four structural features, supported by the in-structional choice, work in concert to promote the de-velopment of a classroom community of practice. Thisclassroom community of practice has several elements asa result of the structural features and the instructionalchoice that are not typical of a classroom community. Wewill refer to these elements as enculturation elements asthese elements encourage some of the authentic practicesof physicists.
Classroom norms and expectations:
The studentshave a greater control over the norms that are ne-gotiated within the classroom. These norms arenegotiated over time but result in a more collab-orative learning environment and in norms thatare more similar to those of professional physicists.The same is true for expectations as students ex-pectations of what counts as physics changes overtime due to the jump in ADK.
Distributed expertise:
The students become expertsin different experiments which encourages collabo-ration when groups experience problems with spe-cific experiments.
Community involvement:
The students collaborateand socialize between groups a significant propor-tion of their time within the AdLab environment.
Many central players:
The socializing and collabora-tion is not focused on one particular group and is instead distributed throughout all the groups overthe length of the AdLab course.
Instructor is not sole mediator:
As the communitydeveloped the students began to perceive the in-structor as not the sole mediator of learning.We believe that all four of the structural features arenecessary for these enculturation elements to develop. Ifthere were enough instructor time, then students wouldbe more likely to turn to the instructor(s) for help, evenif the other three features were present. If the studentswere not working in the same room at the same time (ashappened in the previous laboratory course), the bar-riers to intergroup interaction would be larger becausestudents would have to seek each other out outside ofclass, and they would not have the equipment in frontof them as they discussed the experiments. If the ex-periments were too simple, the students would not needmuch help, and if the experiments were too short, theywould not have enough time to visit with their colleagues.Finally, if they all performed the same experiment at thesame time, they would all develop expertise at about thesame rate, so it would be more difficult for more local-ized pockets to develop. Also, if all groups work on thesame experiments at the same time, they are likely todevelop similar difficulties at similar times, encouragingthe instructors to do mini-lectures on specific kinds oftroubleshooting and discouraging inter-group discussion.
IV. METHODS
The research presented in this paper is part of a ongo-ing ethnographic research project on the identity devel-opment of undergraduate physics students.As a methodology, ethnography originates inanthropology and is commonly used to under-stand community life . Ethnography is generallyconcerned with the sociocultural features of an environ-ment, including how people interact and their discursivepractices . In educational settings, it is used toinvestigate “classroom culture”, characterizing variousrelationships and events . A. Data Sources
Ethnography typically draws its data from a numberof sources in order to get a more complete picture ofthe culture of the classroom but also in an attempt toovercome some of the weaknesses of subjectivity throughtriangulating multiple viewpoints . Our dataare drawn from diverse sources to triangulate multipleviewpoints on student experiences in Adlab.The primary data for this analysis comes from obser-vations of students participating in AdLab. Lab groupsof three students were observed twice a week for threehour class sessions. This paper focuses on data from the
InitialFinal Group A Group B Group C
Toby OliverLauraToby OliverLaura Sally DannyTomSally DannyJoe Larry MattBobLarry AbbeyRoy
FIG. 1: Group membership at the beginning and end of thesemester. first two weeks of the semester and the last two weeks ofthe semester. We follow three separate groups at bothtimes. One of the groups (Group A) remained the samefor the whole semester. Group B changed one member atthe halfway point. In Group C, only one group memberremaining the same. Figure 1 shows group membershipand changes over time .The secondary data for this paper comes from semi-structured interviews with students who were recruitedfrom upper-level physics courses in electromagnetism,mechanics, modern laboratory and AdLab as part of anongoing identity study. Only data from AdLab studentsare included in this analysis, including interviews frombefore, during, and after their time in the course. We de-veloped a 45 minute semi-structured interview protocoldrawing on identity formation, epistemological sophis-tication, and metacognition literature that also focusedon asking the students to describe their AdLab experi-ences. The interviews were video-taped and transcribedfor analysis.For supporting evidence, we conducted discussionswith the course instructor about her goals for the courseand how her instructional choices supported them. Wealso collected course artifacts such as instruction manualsand the syllabus. B. Analysis methods
Starting with a macro-level of analysis, we looked ateach class period and referred to our field notes in or-der to identify “activity segments”: all activities whetherwhole class, particular lab group or individual that oc-curred during each laboratory session . With this in-dex of activities we mapped the events of the classroomover time . This mapping process allowed for analy-sis both on a topical level and a sequential level and theidentification of thematic content.One theme that emerged from our data was that thedifferent student groups doing separate experiments be-gan to talk to each other more frequently and with higherquality interactions as the course progressed. Anothertheme that emerged was that both the students and the instructor felt that the physics material and scien-tific practices in AdLab were closer than previous lab-oratory classes to ongoing research of practicing physi-cists. (Other themes emerged; they are not the focus ofthis paper and will not be discussed here.) We selectedthese themes for further study and analysis to help usunderstand how community of practice develops in theadvanced laboratory community and how the AdLab ex-perience affects the professional development of studentsin the course.The micro-ethnographic analysis began by first identi-fying interactions between different groups of students.The geometry of the AdLab room helped us identifycross-group conversations: while working on a given ex-periment, a lab group tends to stay clustered aroundthe equipment. We point the camera at the equipment.When a student from another group chats with our groupof interest, he or she tends to physically visit the groupof interest.After all of the interactions had been identified, we be-gan to look at the context and content of the inter-groupinteractions. We considered the pre- and post-contextof the interaction, student discourse (content, tone ofvoice, volume of speech, and rhythm of turn taking),and body language of the interaction to interpret howthe participants frame the interaction. Framing refers tothe resources the students bring to bear for a particularinteraction .Once the different ways of framing inter-group interac-tions were identified, we then purposefully sampled spe-cific episodes which represented significant evidence ofeach type of frame. This analysis of interactions with thismicro-ethnographic approach allowed for a correlation tohow these interactions related to the development of acommunity of practice within the advanced laboratoryclassroom. In order to provide further evidence for ourclaim that a community of practice developed we alsoquantitatively assessed how the number of interactionsbetween groups changed over time and how the amountof time spent having interactions also changed over time.As we developed the themes and our observational evi-dence for it, we triangulated and refined the theme usingdata from the semi-structured interviews. Were studentsaware that a classroom community developed? We alsoconsulted with the instructor to investigate how her in-structional goals might shape the course. V. OBSERVATIONS OF COMMUNITYDEVELOPMENT
The following section focuses on the observational evi-dence of the community of practice developing in the Ad-Lab learning environment. Through ethnographic anal-ysis of the emerging theme of development of a commu-nity of practice we identified the following episodes whichhighlight either how the structural features or instructorchoices helped this community to form. The episodeswhere also interpreted to show how the community de-veloped over time from its initiation in the first week.These changes are indicated by the change in negotiatednorms and discourse that the students use within theAdLab learning environment.
1. Episode 1: Typical first experiment interaction (the briefme on the experiment interaction).
This episode occurs during the first week of the Ad-Lab course during each groups first experiment. It is thesecond day of Group C (Larry, Bob, Matt) working onthe “E/M Hoag” experiment. This is an experiment thatuses a cathode-ray tube to measure the charge to massratio for an electron by sending electrons down a tubewith a known magnetic field supplied by a solenoid. Thegroup struggled on the first day to get the experimentsuccessfully set-up to allow for the taking of experimen-tal data but by the time of this episode on the second daythey are just at the point where they are successfully tak-ing data. Carl from another group walks by Group C andspots them sitting closely together staring at a screen anddecides to ask them how their experiment is going. Thisepisode occurs due to the two of the four structural fea-tures being in place: all in the room together and sameexperiments at different times . Carl:
Whats going on over here?
Bob:
We’re just getting numbers now
Matt: (wearily) Lots of numbers
Bob: (sarcastic tone) Very technical
Carl:
Just looking at that thing, it looks ancient
Bob: (getting more excited) It’s funny sometimes thevoltage will drop by hundreds of volts and to fix ityou turn it off and turn it back on (makes a “canyou believe this” face) also this knob broke off sowe use a screwdriver to turn it, this knob doesn’teven exist anymore.
Carl:
Nice...I think I’ll avoid this oneThis was a very typical interaction at the start of thesemester as students took note of what other experimentsdifferent groups where doing and enquired as to the levelof difficulty that they involved. The students are awarethat they have to do one of the experiments in the roomnext and because they are all in the room together andare doing same experiments at different times it allowsthem the opportunity to discuss the different experimentswith their colleagues.The briefness of this exchange is also typical of the firstweek of the semester. The AdLab community of practicehad not fully negotiated the norm associated with theamount of time these enquires about experiments couldlast. In the first week these exchanges where all tentative and brief in nature and the students kept to their owngroup the majority of their time in lab as evidenced bythe results in Table 1.1.Another regularity of the beginning of the semester wasthe superficial nature in which the Bob talks about theproblems with the experiment. His problem is not withthe theory behind the experiment or the setting up of theequipment (both of which his group and him had signifi-cant trouble with). Instead his focus is on the machinerybeing dated and problematic. During the first experi-ment groups would often have intergroup conversationsabout the difficulty associated with particular experi-ments but did so superficially. This could be attributedto the development aspect of the bounded community ofpractice. The norm for how such conversations shouldoccur had not been fully negotiated yet.This episode indicates the need for the classroom struc-tural features of all in the room together and same ex-periments at different times to be present in order forintergroup interactions to occur. These interactions arevital to the development of a community of practice. Thisepisode also indicates that during the first experiment thedevelopment process was still occurring and the norms forthe community had not yet been negotiated.
2. Episode 2: The “brief me on the experiment” interactionin week 8.
This episode occurs in week 8 when Larry from GroupC has now changed groups and is currently working withAbbey and Roy on the Microwave Optics experiment. Itis the last day for all groups on their respective exper-iments and they are all in the process of deciding whatexperiment to do next. Liam from another group ap-proaches Larry and asks him about the “E/M Hoag”experiment which he completed as his first experiment.Essentially this is a repeat of the “whats going on overhere?” interaction that is described in episode 1.Although the types of interactions progressed from justasking how an experiment is, the “whats going on overhere?” interaction continued regularly but the qualityof the interaction increased over time. As before thisepisode occurs due to the structural features of all in theroom together and same experiments at different times but also experiments long and hard as students try topreempt troubleshooting before the experiment beginsby asking more detailed questions about the experimentto help with their decision making process.
Liam:
Did you do that one before? (pointing in thedirection of a laboratory bench)
Larry:
The rubidium? (pause) Oh, “E/M Hoag”, yeah
Liam:
How was that, like for, for theory?
Larry: (enthusiastically) Basically I combined the the-ory and derivation, I just talked about, so we’ve gotthis device, how can you get a measurement for Eover M for the solenoid, you know for the magneticfield and everything, so in talking about how thefield was created inside the solenoid and how thataffected the path of the electron I felt that coveredthe theory.Larry continues to answer several more questionsabout the experiment before Liam is satisfied withwhether he should recommend doing the experiment nextto his group.This episode indicates the change in quality of the in-tergroup interactions as the community norms have beennegotiated at this point in the semester. It is now a largepart of the community of practice to have long detaileddiscussions about the experiments and to that enquiryabout specific details of an experiment is okay and reveal-ing specific experiment based expertise to other groupmembers is also okay. The groups are becoming morecollaborative. This is evidence of the evolving nature ofthe community of practice as collaboration becomes morefrequent and constructive once the norms of the commu-nity have been negotiated.
3. Episode 3: Social interactions.
Episodes 1 and 2 focused on the “brief me on the ex-periment” interaction. This was not the only type ofinteraction that occurred in the AdLab community ofpractice. Social interactions were also infrequent to beginwith but as with the previous interactions became moreprevalent once the community had negotiated its normsthat related to what was acceptable as a social interac-tion in this community. These interactions ranged fromthe frivolity of cracking jokes to discussions about topicsthat would be considered off topic but often inspired bysome aspect of the experiment they are engaged in.In the following episode Matt and Larry are no longerworking in the same group but are, for their correspond-ing experiments, working in close proximity. It is week 9and Matt has just completed the experiment that Larryis now working on: “Microwave Optics”. In this experi-ment students are expected to demonstrate the wave na-ture of light in a number of interference, diffraction andreflection experiments using microwaves. Matt is cur-rently working on Scanning Tunneling Microscope withhis group. This episode demonstrates the camaraderieand social aspect of the community of practice thatevolved over time.
Matt: (concerned tone) Are the microwaves on?
Larry:
Well they are going this way (indicates the direc-tion he thinks the waves are going).
Matt:
They’re reflecting onto your crotch.
Larry: (laughs) Oh yeah your right, oops, I was like I’llmake sure that Percy and Matt are not in the line of fire, I forgot to make sure I wasn’t in the line offire....thanks for your concern about my crotch.
Matt: (smiling) Your welcome.This episode can be interpreted in two different ways.Firstly it has an obvious component of Matt playingLarry’s set-up of the experimental equipment for humorby referencing the rays reflecting on his crotch. Humorcan have a large effect on community building and is aform of discourse that can emphasize membership. Thegetting of a joke can illustrate that “you are one of us”,just as missing the humor behind a joke can result inalienation from a community. This is a joke situatedwithin the lab community and presence of such social in-teractions indicates the development of a community orpractice.The second interpretation is that because of the struc-tural features of the classroom all in the room together,experiments long and hard and same experiments at dif-ferent times this interaction is able to occur. If Matthad not completed the “Microwave Optics” lab previ-ously; was not in the room with Larry; had not built upthe content expertise and had the time to pay attentionto what Larry was doing then he may not have the abilityto say anything about Larry’s setup. Incidentally thereis also an affective element to this interaction as well,Matt is genuinely concerned that Larry is doing some-thing wrong that might have negative effects on Larry insome capacity, even though it is communicated throughhumor. It indicates an element of the affective natureof communities in that members will look out for theirfellow members.
4. Episode 4: Experiment Specific Experts.
This episode focuses on the experiments long and hard structural component. Oliver, Toby and Laura are work-ing on the “Millikan Oil Drop” experiment. For thisexperiment the students are attempting to measure thecharge on the electron by measuring the charge on smalloil droplets and relating this charge to being a multipleof some quantized charge unit. It is week 8 of the Ad-Lab class and this is the groups second day working onthe experiment. Toby has been inputting the results thegroup have been getting so far into his laptop and both heand Oliver are confused about how the equation relatedto the experiment needs to interpreted with their resultsand decides to ask for help from Tom who completed the“Millikan Oil Drop” experiment the previous week.
Oliver:
So which is the first plate? Is that the bottomhere?
Toby:
Lets ask someone, hey Tom, I have a question foryou (Tom walks over)
Tom:
This is d and this is the equation here (points ata point on Toby’s screen).Tom proceeds to spend at least the next 5 minutes ex-plaining his interpretation of their results so far.As the students began to have a history with exper-iments the amount of “can you help me” interactionsincreased dramatically as evidenced in both the observa-tional data and in the interviews. The students wouldmake reference to not being able to complete a given ex-periment if it was not for another group helping themout at a critical juncture. The helping of other studentsis a clear indication of a community developing with stu-dents building up experiment centric expertise and thensharing this expertise due to all of the highlighted struc-tural features of the learning environment but especially paucity of instructor time and experiments long and hard .At the beginning of the AdLab students would rely onthe instructor to help them out and this was often limitedto a sort of take a ticket for instructor time set-up. Bythe end of the AdLab students who had now developedexperiment centric expertise where now being asked forhelp and would freely oblige often spending upwards of30 minutes helping another group.
5. Episode 5: AdLab Based Discourse.
As mentioned in episode 3 and in the section on com-munity of practice a big part of being integrated into acommunity is to begin to appropriate the discourse of thecommunity. If the misinterpretation of jokes can lead toalienation so can the inability to communicate in the lan-guage of the community. The following episode occurs asSally, Danny and Mike are on their second day of work-ing with the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spec-trometer. The NMR has multiple possible experimentsdesigned for use with the equipment, some of which arereliant on obtaining the Free Induction Decays (FID) sig-nal on an oscilloscope. Oliver, Toby, and Laura had pre-viously completed the NMR experiment and are workingon the “Millikan Oil Drop” experiment, which is not lo-cated next to (but is within sight of) the NMR set-up.Laura had just borrowed an ruler off Sally. While sheis returning it, Laura relays a message from Oliver toSally’s group.
Laura:
Thanks Sally, Oliver says nice FID signal
Sally: (laughs) thanksAlthough brief, this example gives a great sense of thedevelopment of the AdLab community of practice as bythis time period of the community, experiment specificdiscourse has become ubiquitous amongst those who havecarried out certain experiments. It wasn’t just nice sig-nal, it was nice “FID” signal. The students began todevelop and appropriate the language of the communityand use it within the classroom.Another element of community development that is inevidence in this exchange is the fact that Oliver feelscomfortable to comment on another groups experiment and how well they are doing. The groups moved from abeginning point where they where insulated groups oc-casionally discussing how hard an experiment was to thepoint where they are freely discussing, socializing andevaluating each others work on a regular basis.
6. Episode 6: Instructional Choice.
The final episode focuses on the other crucial elementpresent for the AdLab community of practice to developand that is the instructional choice of the instructor.Toby, Oliver, and Laura are working on the “MillikanOil Drop” Experiment as described in episode 4. It isthe first session of the new experiment and the instruc-tor comes over to quiz them on how their first tentativesteps to setting up the experiment is going. In the “Mil-likan Oil Drop” experiment there is a choice of severaloil atomizers that can be employed in the setup of theexperiment and this is the focal point of the initial dis-cussions. The instructor due to the structural constraintsof the lab at this point in the semester is not aware ofwhich atomizer has been working best and invites over amember of the previous group that has carried out the ex-periment (Tom) to discuss with Toby, Oliver, and Laurathe expertise he has developed.
Instructor:
Did you guys do this last?
Tom:
My group did it last (volunteering quickly fromother end of room)
Instructor:
Good, do you have any tips for them?
Tom: (Tom walks over) Um, get used to taking it apartand cleaning it
Instructor:
Okay, keep cleaning it a lot
Tom:
Yeah do that a lot, if you get a build up, if thereis a big white blotch, the top which is actually thebottom of the T.V. screen
Instructor:
It’s labeled top but it says bottom becauseits inverted right?
Tom:
Yeah, if you get a big blotch there you can proba-bly, its a build up of oil, you have a little thing todab it out, dab and then dab it on a paper towel
Instructor:
Use this to dab it out?
Tom:
Yeah
Instructor:
Oh thats nice, so you don’t have to take itall apart?
Tom:
Yeah, yeah
Instructor:
Okay
Tom:
That’s an easier way of getting rid of some of theexcessive stuff
TABLE I: Inter-group interactions at the beginning and endof the semester. Numbers are percent of total time spent talk-ing to other groups in the second experiment of the semester(Initial) and penultimate lab of the semester (Final).Time Period of Semester Group A Group B Group CInitial 1.8% 0.9% 5.1%Final 12.4% 8.0% 17.3%
Instructor:
Okay thats a good tip
Tom:
Em, thats about it
Instructor:
Okay
Tom: (enthusiastically) It’s fun if you get it to workBy inviting Tom over the instructor is sublimely ne-gotiating the norm that it is okay to consult with othergroups especially those who have previously completedthe concerned experiment for help and advice. This en-couragement of the development and sharing of knowl-edge and resources is a deliberate choice by the instructordue to the structural features of AdLab learning environ-ment.Episodes 1-6 have been presented above to demon-strate how the structural features and a instructionalchoice on behalf of the instructor encouraged intergroupcooperation and collaboration that has helped to developa classroom community in the AdLab course with en-culturation elements. The episodes emphasize the im-portance of there structural features and how they areconnected to the development of specific elements of ourclassroom community of practice like the negotiation ofnorms or distributed expertise . The above episodes area tiny minority of episodes that could have been chosenas evidence of the development of a learning communitywith these enculturation elements. In the next section wepresent quantitative evidence of how often groups inter-acted as further evidence of the many central participantsand level of community involvement and collaboration el-ements of the learning community.
A. Quantitative analysis of community talk
Table I presents the percentage of laboratory time thatthe three groups observed spent interacting with anothergroup in the laboratory environment at two different timeperiods. “Initial” refers to each groups percentage inter-actions with other groups during their second experimentof the semester. An experiment typically lasted 4 class-room sessions over a two week period which would beapproximately 12 hours class time. The “final” is the per-centage interactions with other groups for their second-to-last experiment of the semester. By the penultimateexperiment of the semester group A has remained staticin its membership while group B and C have changed members after their third experiment as indicated in Fig-ure 1 An intergroup interaction was coded in one of threeways. The first was if a member of another group cameover to the group being observed and interacted withthem. The second was if a member of the group be-ing observed left that group to go interact with anothergroup. The third was if groups initiated a conversationor joined a conversation with another group while beingphysically adjacent to their experimental set-up. Thetotal time spent interacting with other groups by the 3previously described methods was combined to calculatethe total amount of time spent interacting with othergroups.The results indicate that the difference in time spentinteracting with other groups between the two time pe-riods “initial” and “final” for all three groups is signif-icantly different. The amount of interactions that eachgroup had with other groups at the start of the semesterare substantially less than the amount of interactions atthe end of the semester. The consistency in the differ-ence between amount time interacting with other groupsbetween the “initial” and “final” time periods across allgroups allows a claim that more classroom discourse wasoccurring between groups by the end of the semester.This is compelling argument that a community of prac-tice did develop over time in the advanced laboratorycommunity. There are differences between the increasein interactions between groups especially in the case ofgroup B which as a group did not increase in the amountthey interacted with other groups as greatly as the othertwo groups. Although group membership and person-ality may account for the difference it is worth notingthat group B’s final experiment was the NMR set-up.The NMR experiment was new to the advanced labora-tory learning environment and the groups that had com-pleted the experiment prior to group B all struggled withit. This resulted in the instructor spending more timewith the group than was typical and preempting prob-lems that the group may have sought solutions for fromprior groups. Overall though these results demonstratethat all 3 groups became further involved in the commu-nity as the semester progressed.
VI. INTERVIEW REFLECTIONS ONCOMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
As part of the longitudinal study examining howupper-level physics students develop an identity as aphysicist we conducted semi-structured interviews on aregular basis for the majority of this group of students.One of these sets of interviews was conducted at the 10week point into the AdLab semester. As part of this in-terview we enquired about the students experiences inthe AdLab. An important theme to emerge from theinterview data is that the students also noticed severalof the structural features that promote community de-velopment. In the following sections we discuss extractsfrom the interviews that pertain to specific structural orcommunity building factors.
1. Extract 1: Paucity if instructor time.
In extract 1 the interviewer asks Matt what he thoughtof the approach to instruction that was taken in the Ad-Lab environment. From observations by the investigatorsin AdLab sessions they noticed that in the beginning ofthe semester there was often a queue for the instructorsattention but that this became a less prominent feature ofthe classroom as time passed. We wanted to know if thestudents were aware of this and how did they feel abouta perhaps perceived lack of access to the instructor.
Matt:
It was pretty well taught but there was a lot ofpeople in there so we couldn’t get a lot of one onone time, when we needed help...so two of our ex-periments, the first two, we where the first groupdoing so we couldn’t ask anyone else about them,but the other ones, when we couldn’t consult with(Instructor) we went to the people that had alreadydone that experiment and they were usually ableto figure what it is we were missing or what wentwrong when we were setting up like that.Matt specifically references the amount of people inthe room and the lack of one on one time when help wasrequired. This is Matt noticing the structural feature of paucity of instructor time and indicating that this wassomething he found problematic at first. This was re-solved once the other groups in the lab and himself hadbuild up experiment specific expertise and began to con-sult with each other. The consulting with each other andexperiment specific expertise are further evidence of thestructural features all in the room together, experimentslong and hard and same experiments at different times although Matt is not being as explicit about the last 3features.
2. Extract 2: Experiments long and hard
Extract 2 covers all four of the structural features againbut Toby’s reflections refer more explicitly to the exper-iments long and hard aspect of the structure. Toby isanswering the same question as Matt did in extract 1 inregards to what he thought of the approach to instructionand describes spending time working with other students.The interviewer follows up by asking Toby specificallyabout collaboration and working with other students.
Int:
How did you collaborate with the other people andwhat did you get from the other people in advancedlab?
Toby:
If we ever had a problem, like we had a problem,with the Zeeman experiment. We couldn’t quite figure out how we where supposed to set it up, sowe went to Mike, asked him and he showed us howhe did it. For NMR (referring to the group cur-rently doing that experiment), they weren’t quitesure what they where doing so they had Oliver andme come over. Mainly Oliver but I helped a littlebit. We did the “E/M Hoag” [experiment]. Forthe “E/M Hoag” we had to derive the equation weneeded and we went to eh Larry and Roy and wewere able to look at their work and see what theydid and once we saw where they started it wasn’tparticularly hard to get it. So we basically drewon their experience, everyone seemed to draw onthe experience of the experiments everyone else hadwhen starting.Toby’s description of the give and take of assistancebetween groups over several experiments indicates thegrowth of a community of practice. The paucity of in-structor time is referenced in Toby’s description of goingto another group when a problem arose as opposed to theinstructor. The experiments long and hard is indicatedby Toby seeking out other groups to help with equipmentset or derivations and the other groups had both the ex-pertise and the time to help them out and reciprocallyToby had the time to help other groups when they hadsimilar problems. Doing the same experiments at dif-ferent times allows the experiment specific expertise todevelop.
3. Extract 3: Community Development
A portion of each interview was aimed at examininghow students perceived what they where getting out oftheir advanced laboratory experiences. For the most partthis involved students describing how the experience hadhelped them understand the material but some questionswhere directed at asking what they thought particularelements of the course design where for. In extract 3 theinterviewer asks Tom what he thought the purpose ofthe presentations that each student had to perform oncea semester where for.
Int:
So what do you think the point is behind the pre-sentations?
Tom:
So we have to present things in real life, we have totalk to people....it also strengthens our knowledgeof the experiments and builds a community in theclass, you get to talk to other people.Tom thinks that the presentations are a part of thecourse in order to foster real world experiences or inother words develop some authentic physicist practices.Students identifying aspects of the course that they per-ceived as contributing to their preparedness for futureendeavors in the interviews was common. It was alsocommon that students made reference to collaborating0or working with other groups as indicated in extract 2and 3 as Tom does by identifying explicitly that the goalof the presentation activity is community developmentdriven.
4. Extract 4: Development over time
As with extracts 1 and 2 part of the semi-structuredinterview focused on collaboration with other groups andstudents. In the description of bounded communities ofpractice earlier in the paper we described that they didnot just occur when you put a group of people together ina room. A development process has to occur and normshave to be negotiated. In extract 4, Tom reflects that hedid not ask other groups about labs in the beginning butthat this changed over time.
Int:
So did you ask other people about labs often?
Tom:
At the start not really. I kind of just kept to mygroup, except, well with the other groups that Iknew I made jokes with, I’d hear things and justmake jokes. I’m doing it more now, other peopleare talking to me as well about labsIt was indicated in section 5 that this process of iso-lated groups becoming more interactive over time wasobserved both in the quantitative and qualitative obser-vational results. Tom reflecting on the process is furtherevidence that the community developed over time. Thenext section will also reflect on interview data but willfocus on the other element of the AdLab being classifiedas a crucible course: the steep rise in ADK.All of the above extracts provide further evidence thatthe enculturation elements developed within the class-room community over time and that students whereaware of some of these elements.
A. Students’ descriptions of AdLab as a jump inaccountable disciplinary knowledge
Another feature of the AdLab learning environment isthat there is a quite observable jump in accountable dis-ciplinary knowledge (ADK) from the previous coursesthat the students would have taken. Accountable dis-ciplinary knowledge is “what counts” as doing physics:the kinds of activities, problems, and discourse that peo-ple engage in when they are participating in a physicscommunity of practice. For example, doing well at theintroductory physics level often entails solving 15 end-of-chapter problems weekly in a few hours alone and do-ing well at the upper-division undergraduate level entailssolving a few problems weekly in 15 hours with peers.This difference in “what counts” as doing physics wellconstitutes a jump in accountable disciplinary knowledge between introductory and upper-division physics. Evi-dence of an ADK jump in AdLab is very striking in stu-dents’ descriptions of the course after participating in itfor one semester. Tom:
The labs are more complex and more interesting.A lot less hand holding. There more enjoyable andthey are actually looking at phenomena that I aminterested in. . . its more about us discovering thephenomena. . . it feels like more of a professional set-ting than most of my other courses.
Matt: we have been investigating actual atomic struc-tures or how to find the mass of an elec-tron. . . previous labs would be a lot more cut anddry. Here’s the procedure. Follow it. You’ll get theresults, easily, these ones where more of, heres theprocedure. Most of it usually. Follow it and try andunderstand whats going on cause if you don’t youwon’t know if what your getting is any good. . . thereal feeling of being a physicist was trying to un-derstand all that stuff that we get from it.
Laura:
I really had to do a lot of work on my own and Iwasn’t really expecting that. . . I thought maybe thelab write ups would be a little bit more prescribedand not so quite, its kind of like, these are yourobjectives, this is how the machine works, do it,and thats good.
Toby:
Yeah the subject matter itself changed but thatsto be expected for a higher level class. . . obviouslythey are trying to get you to really think about thesubject matter. To understand the subject matterat a deeper level than just in EP labs. They wantyou to see it happen in advanced lab. They wantyou to see it happen and understand why its hap-pening, by figuring it out yourself rather than beingtold. I mean we don’t want to create people whocan just rattle of equations without understandingwhat those equations really mean. You want peo-ple who actually understand what those equationsreally mean. . . this time we have a lot more freedomin the time that it takes to do it. You know we havesome constraints because the other groups have touse the equipment as well but we can come in onour own and do it. The freedom was nice even if itwas the result of having more work.Several of the students perceive that a lot of whatthey were doing in the AdLab environment and how theyparticipated in it where more like authentic practices ofphysicists. The students also clearly perceived a jumpin the level of the material and what was expected ofthem in the AdLab classroom. Changes in expectationsare obvious from students noting that there was a lotmore freedom and the labs where more prescribed andthat they were expected to gain an understanding of thematerial and not just get a set of data.1
VII. RELATING COMMUNITIES OFPRACTICE TO ACCOUNTABLE DISCIPLINARYKNOWLEDGE: CRUCIBLE COURSES
The combination of quantitative and qualitative resultspresented in this paper clearly indicate that a classroomcommunity of practice developed in the AdLab learningenvironment with certain enculturation elements. It isalso obvious from the students reflections on the coursethat there was was a significant jump in ADK fromtheir previous experiences due to significant changes inthe structural and programmatic features of the AdLablearning environment. This combination of jump in ADKand enculturation elements of the course resulted in stu-dents being offered the opportunity to accelerate theirown trajectory to being more of a central participant ofthe physicists community of practice. This emphasis onenculturation from both ADK and structure has resultedus in labeling the AdLab course as a possible “cruciblecourse”.We describe crucible courses as the first courses inwhich students work on difficult physics problems sur-rounded primarily by other physics students, are treatedby their professors as junior physicists, and take on iden-tities as part of a community of physics students. In ourprior work, we have identified crucible courses: those as-sociated with large changes in ADK and developmentsof physics identity. Both students and researchers seem to know these courses “when they see them” .The courses are typically intermediate level (taken bysophomores or juniors) and are among the first coursespopulated predominately by physics majors and minors.They have smaller enrollments and foster a greater senseof community within the class. They may be theorycourses or laboratory courses, but in either case the ex-pectations of students and their perceptions of the stakesare substantially higher than in previous courses. This isa working definition and we intend to further investigatewhat are the key elements of a crucible course. We be-lieve an emphasis on enculturation is a key feature of acrucible course.To discuss further this enculturation process we mustfirst examine communities of practice and how we inter-pret they fit into the college environment. In alignmentwith previous researchers we believe it is appli-cable to view the classroom community as a communityof practice. If that is the case as a student you will oc-cupy many communities of practice concurrently withinthe college environment while also being a member of sev-eral other communities outside of the college context. Infact the majority of students waking hours during theirtime in college will not be spent in the classroom . Thecombination of these memberships to a variety of com-munities of practice will all have influences on each otherand can help in the development of a physics identityboth in obvious and less obvious ways.Students are on trajectories to developing an identityas a physicist when they enter a physics classroom. Once they enter a physics classroom they are developing arelationship with physics that may turn into a physicsidentity. They may not intend on becoming a physicist,it might not even be their major but when they entera physics classroom they engage in a variation of thepractices of becoming a physicist. That is the nature ofthe a classroom being a community of practice and so inessence any physics classroom is a sub-community of thecommunity of physicists. VIII. DISCUSSION
All classroom communities of practice are different andthese differences may be trivial or may be extensive. Dif-ferent classroom communities offer different levels of ex-posure to the authentic expectations, practices, contentknowledge and discourses of the discipline of physics.Therefore the differences between classroom communi-ties of practice can result in students moving along theirtrajectories to being a member of the physicists commu-nity of practice at different accelerations. To clarify theclassrooms would offer the opportunity but it is up to thestudents to participate either peripherally or centrally.The AdLab classroom is an example of a communityof practice that offers the opportunity to have an accel-erated trajectory towards being a central participant ofthe community of practice of physicists. It introducesstudents to the expectations, practices, content knowl-edge and discourses that more closely resemble those ofthe physicists community. This is achieved by having thestudents collaborating as a group and with other groupson long and hard physics experiments that are generallymore modern in setting in an environment that echoeswhat students might perceive as a research environment.Being a central participant in this environment will accel-erate ones trajectory to being a more central participantof the community or practice of physicists.We do not think that all classroom communities ofpractice should offer opportunities of accelerated trajec-tories. An accelerated trajectory classroom in intro-ductory physics would be inappropriate. It has beenindicated that there are already great shifts being ex-pected of students in introductory classes as teachers tryto move students away from being socialized to mem-orize, practice and recite and move towards being com-fortable with constructivist and social constructivist per-spectives. Also the norms of college can be very differentfrom the norms of school and again the norms of actualpractitioners of physics.We have argued that AdLab develops into this a com-munity of practice very effectively due the factors of:paucity of instructor time; all in the room together; ex-periments long and hard, do some of the same experi-ments at different times; instructor supports the develop-ment of a community of practice. Of the above claims allof them have been discussed extensively in the results ex-cept for All in the room together . This claim comes from2the assertion that in the previous semester some of thesame students took the modern laboratory course whichis set up so that each group of students attempted thesame experiment each week and so no community of prac-tice could develop except amongst each separate groupof 3 or 2 students. When asked in interviews whetherthey had discussed the laboratory they where trying tocomplete with other members of the modern laboratoryclass the answer was generally no, although they oftendid work with their group outside of class.As mentioned previously the development of a commu-nity in community of practice literature is not commonlydiscussed but to us is a key feature of bounded communi-ties of learning. A community of practice in a classroomdoes not form on the condition of putting students in aroom together although it may result in one eventually.In our case a classroom community of practice developedthat had several elements: classroom norms and expec-tations; distributed expertise; community involvement;many central players and the instructor is not sole medi-ator. We argue that these elements developed as a resultof the presence of all structural features of the classroompreviously mentioned and the instructors choice to em-phasize collaboration. We also argue that these elementsare an important part of the AdLab course offering theopportunity for a student to accelerate ones trajectorytowards being a more central participant of the physi-cists community of practice.The classroom community did not start with the en-culturation elements. Students’ ways of participatingchange as they learn the norms and practices of the class-room community of practice, which includes developinga shared discourse with their fellow community membersof students and instructors . The students also have tofigure out the boundary constraints of this new com-munity of practice due to it being a bounded community.Norming is one of the five stages of group development and although not necessarily relatable to the communi-ties of practice theory does indicate that a classroom hasto go through some development before it becomes the fi-nalized version of the learning community. We believe forthe AdLab classroom the features previously mentioned are the reason why it developed into a classroom commu-nity with several enculturation elements and the majority(if not all) of the students participating centrally.A big jump in ADK from course to course can be diffi-cult for students as often what they think doing physicsmeans has changed from what it has meant in the past.It could be argued that the community of practice devel-oping is a support mechanism for the students in orderto deal with the jump in ADK. A big jump in ADK with-out a community developing could result in greater lossesin retention and persistence as students struggle to dealwith the changes in norms and expectations. Added tothis is that cultural practices of professional scientists arealways adapted to fit the realities of the classroom and tosuit the teachers values/goals . When designing cur-ricula or courses careful consideration should be given tothe expectations, practices, content knowledge and dis-courses of the community of physicists that are being in-corporated into the design. A realization must be madethat what we ask of the students is not just different con-tent but a different level of content that attached to ithas a different set of norms and expectations.Adding structural and instructional features to acourse that encourages the development of an effectivecommunity of practice may be one way of equipping stu-dents to deal with such transitions. IX. CONCLUSION
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