SMART EDUCATION: BLENDING SUBJECT EXPERTISE WITH THE CONCEPT OF ...

section detailed current physics education research initiatives that might inform and guide my
research. I articulated my interest to reconcile these with existing Colorado content
standards for science in the State. In this section, I briefly discussed two widely used
instructional design models. At the moment, students in the State are only assessed at the end
of Grade 8 in science. The States’ statistics for the 8th grade science results in CSAP is
summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: CSAP 2000-2002 Grade 8 Science State Summary
Yea
r
200
0
Number
Student
s
%
Unsatisfactor
y
%
Partially
proficient
%
Proficient
%
Advanced
%
Proficient
advanced
%
No
scores
reporte
d
53878 20 31 41 4 45 4
2001 54642 18 29 43 6 49 4
200
2
55421 19 27 43 7 50 4
Using these statistics, I would like to identify schools and school districts in which students’
performances have increased significantly between 2000 and 2002. Along with experiences
from my own practice, I would like to incorporate data from classroom observations of
teachers and students in these high performing schools for designing epistemic games.
Several questions come to my mind and I will list them elsewhere as my first research
proposal based on this reflection manuscript.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Narrative
What is the relationship between physics concepts and career development of students?
Unless students are helped in seeing benefits of studying physics or any other discipline in
terms of their long-term career goals, they will continue to be indifferent. Earlier, I quoted
studies mentioned by Elby (2001) that show high correlations between students’
epistemological beliefs, conceptual understanding, and academic performance. In the preface
to the first edition of How We Think (Dewey, 1933), the educationist compares the uncanny
resemblance of children’s, curiosity, imagination, and love for experimental inquiry with an
innate scientific mind. These same children when they move into middle and high school
often seem to occlude this “scientific mind” and become less inquisitive. Dewey (1933)
observed that this might be because “concepts were often presented that were so remote from
the understanding and experience of students” (p. 154). Career development provides an
opportunity for teachers to provide a contextual framework for learning. Dewey (1933) argues
that, when students study subjects that are removed from their own experience they become
“intellectually irresponsible” (p. 33).
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