Helen Georgiou

Does using active learning in thermodynamics lectures improve students? conceptual understanding and learning experiences?

Encouraging ?active learning? in the large lecture theatre emerges as a credible recommendation for improving university courses, with reports often showing significant improvements in learning outcomes. However, the recommendations are based predominantly on studies undertaken in mechanics. We set out to examine those claims in the thermodynamics module of a large first year physics course with an established technique, called interactive lecture demonstrations (ILDs). The study took place at The University of Sydney, where four parallel streams of the thermodynamics module were divided into two streams that experienced the ILDs and two streams that did not. The programme was first implemented in 2011 to gain experience and refine logistical matters and repeated in 2012 with approximately 500 students. A validated survey, the thermal concepts survey, was used as pre-test and post-test to measure learning gains while surveys and interviews provided insights into what the ?active learning? meant from student experiences. We analysed lecture recordings to capture the time devoted to different activities in a lecture, including interactivity. The learning gains were in the ?high gain? range for the ILD streams and ?medium gain? for the other streams. The analysis of the lecture recordings showed that the ILD streams devoted significantly more time to interactivity while surveys and interviews showed that students in the ILD streams were thinking in deep ways. Our study shows that ILDs can make a difference in students? conceptual understanding as well as their experiences, demonstrating the potential value-add that can be provided by investing in active learning to enhance lectures.

Recovering knowledge for science education research: Exploring the "Icarus effect" in student work

Science education research has built a strong body of work on students’ understandings but largely overlooked the nature of science knowledge itself. Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), a rapidly growing approach to education, offers a way of analyzing the organizing principles of knowledge practices and their effects on science education. This article focuses on one specific concept from LCT—semantic gravity—that conceptualizes differences in context dependence. The article uses this concept to qualitatively analyze tertiary student responses to a thermal physics question. One result, that legitimate answers must reside within a specific range of context dependence, illustrates how a focus on the organizing principles of knowledge offers a way forward for science education.RésuméLa recherche en enseignement des sciences a produit de nombreuses études sur la compréhension des étudiants, mais a souvent ignoré la nature du savoir scientifique lui-même. La théorie de la légitimation du code (TLC), une approche de plus en plus importante en enseignement, propose une façon d’analyser les principes structurels des pratiques du savoir et leurs effets sur l’enseignement des sciences. Cet article est centré sur un concept en particulier tiré de la TLC—la gravité sémantique—qui conceptualise les différences comme étant dépendantes du contexte. L’article se sert de ce concept pour faire une analyse qualitative des réponses tertiaires des étudiants à une question de physique thermique. L’un des résultats, selon lequel les réponses légitimes doivent se situer dans un certain rayon de dépendance contextuelle, illustre comment le fait de mettre l’accent sur les principes structurels du savoir ouvre une avenue prometteuse pour l’enseignement des sciences.

Peer review of teaching: What features matter? A case study within STEM faculties

Abstract Peer Review of Teaching (PRT) programmes have been implemented in the Higher Education context to ensure teaching is a collaborative, evolving and inspiring activity in an era of ever shrinking resources. These programmes are reported to have many benefits but are notoriously difficult to implement and even more difficult to sustain, with research implicating the mechanics and specific characteristics featured in the programmes as vital to their ultimate success. This paper addresses this issue through first, detailing one version of a PRT programme implemented at one institution and second, by reporting on how the participants of this programme viewed its specific characteristics. Data from participant interviews and forms provide both confirmation of the efficacy of certain features, such as receiving feedback and having the opportunity to observe others and also provide more detail on some lesser researched features, such as the relevance of discipline and number of observations.