Realizing the Democratic Ideal:

Teacher Education at Illinois State University

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Spring Semester 2011

DROP DOWN TO COURSE OUTLINE

(Under development and subject to regular revision; last updated 1/30/2017)

PHYSICS 489.02 -- SPACE SCIENCE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS

Catalog Description: A laboratory-based astronomy content course that models exemplary teaching practices, while providing classroom ready activities. Emphasis placed on Earth, Moon, Sun and their interrelationships, light and telescopes, and fundamentals of stellar astronomy. Prerequisite: MSP middle school science teacher cohort only. 3 semester hours; spring semester only; 37.5 hours of integrated class/laboratory work. N.B. Outdoor nighttime observing sessions will be required. Includes planetarium field trip.

Instructor:

Meeting Dates/Times/Location:
 The regular class will meet on Wednesday from 4:30-7:20 p.m., January 12 - April 27, 2011. A final examination session will take place during finals week, on Tuesday, May 3, starting at 4:30 p.m. The course will be taught at Mark Bills Middle School, 6001 N. Frostwood Parkway, Peoria, IL. We will meet in the school's science laboratory, room 207; from time to time we will also use the second floor computer room. Classes begin at 4:30 p.m. sharp, so please arrive on time. In the event of inclement weather, classes will be postponed - not cancelled - if possible. Watch your email for postponement notices. Postponement notices will be sent out by 2:00 p.m. on the dates in question. You may phone me any time at the number above.

Course Overview: Teachers participate in contextualized and integrated science lessons that incorporate technology and model proven research-based teaching methods. The course serves to improve participants’ content knowledge, procedural skills, and scientific dispositions by providing access to the expertise of scientists, technologies, and resources. Teacher participants will develop the skills of inquiry and critical thinking, and become experienced in collecting, evaluating and interpreting data as part of the problem-solving process. In addition, class time will be used to develop an understanding of the nature of science. The goal will be to increase in-service teacher understanding and application of scientifically-based educational research pertinent to science teaching and learning. This course includes a planetarium field trip as well as one or more outdoor nighttime unaided eye and telescope viewing sessions.

Course Goals:
 While working through this course, in-service middle school science teachers will:

• utilize and integrate science knowledge obtained from previous content courses through activities requiring the use of inquiry and skepticism;

• come to know science as a process of inquiry rather than merely as a body of knowledge;

• encounter science at work in the context of common, real-life experiences;

• experience and learn about the use of exemplary science teaching practices such as inquiry learning, cooperative/collaborative learning, and problem-based learning;

• experience and learn about such curriculum emphases as unified science teaching, preconceptions/concept change/constructivism, and science/technology/society;

• come to understand student difficulties as they experience those same difficulties associated with hands-on, minds-on activities and though daily reflection upon their performance as both student and prospective teacher;

• experience through effective modeling the meaning of a positive learning environment which includes equitable participation of all students and the active engagement of students with different abilities and interests; and

• utilize a wide array of instructional and technological resources available in lab and in the wider community.

Course Outcomes:
 By the end of this course, each in-service teacher will have demonstrated the ability to:

• use scientific knowledge to explain the workings of selected everyday physical phenomena;

• demonstrate how the knowledge and processes of science can be taught using hands-on / minds-on age-appropriate science activities;

• reflect upon learning experiences as they relate to best practice and ISU Teacher Education's conceptual framework with the aim of improving instruction from the perspective of both student and teacher;

• cite from experience a number of ways that science teaching can be done in an engaging fashion that takes into account differences among and between students;

• list and explain a number of educational service providers and academic resources available in their classrooms and in the wider community;

• create valid and reliable assessment instruments that serve to raise expectations for students and provide a basis for meaningful grading;

• synthesize knowledge and utilize intellectual skills to the extent required for the successful completion of a number of classroom activities that require a demonstration of the following traits that characterize the scientifically literate individual:
(a) scientific knowledge (typically astronomy, physics, and geography), (b) scientific methods and critical analysis (induction, deduction, etc.), and
 (c) scientific dispositions (critical, skeptical, open minded, empirical, etc.); and

• utilize the intellectual and procedural skills appropriate to scientific inquiry in the creation of scientific knowledge including an ability to: (a) demonstrate the use of technology to collect data, and the use of simple mathematics 
(graphing, statistics, probability) to interpret that data,
(b) distinguish scientific ways of knowing from other ways of knowing, (c) distinguish belief from knowledge, and
(d) state underlying assumptions as appropriate.

Methodology: During this content course the instructor will introduce and model a wide range of "reformed" teaching practices that are consistent with the recommendations of the current science education reform movement. Teachers are encouraged to read information about each of the following practices as they are introduced in this course. These resources are taken from the ISU Physics Teacher Education program.

This course will have a learning environment that is student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. This course will be student centered to the extent that the teacher builds on knowledge students bring to the learning situations. This course will be knowledge centered to the extent that the teacher helps students develop an organized understanding of important concepts in the physics teaching discipline. This course will be assessment centered to the extent that the teacher makes students' thinking visible so that ideas can be presented and verified. This course will be community centered to the extent that the teacher establishes classroom norms that learning with understanding is valued and students feel free to explore what they do not understand.

It is not the intention of the instructor to have participating teachers complete each and every activity in the course outline. Rather, a sampling of activities will be completed in class with the remaining serving as resources. All activities are designed to be classroom ready. Each hyperlink leads to a MSWord .doc formatted file. These files may be downloaded and modified to meet each teacher's needs for in-service teaching. This course and its syllabus are works in progress. If teachers would like to have certain instructional materials developed, all they need do is speak with the course instructor.

Please note that the instructor is not attempting to provide a space science curriculum to class participants. Rather, it is the intention of the instructor to teach various aspects of space science using classroom ready materials.

Illinois Learning Standard (ILS): Course activities are designed so that they promote development of the ILS's Applications of Learning: solving problems, communicating, using technology, working on teams, and making connections. They are also designed to assist teachers achieve with their students specific ILS content standards for science:

Goal 11 - Inquiry and Design

Goal 12 - Concepts and Principles

Goal 13 - Science, Technology and Society

Course Outline:


Required Readings: 
In-service teachers will be assigned readings from a number of sources. There will be no textbook per se given the fact that course content will be learned directly through investigative processes – with the teachers working like scientists. Teachers will be expected to regularly refer to textbooks from previous content courses in the sciences as needed. Readings will be taken from resources listed in the course outline - all of which are available online.

Student Tasks/Assignments: 
Multiple assessment strategies will be used to determine the course grade of students. The assessment procedures are elaborated below. Along with the title is an indication of the relative weight each has in the determination of the final course grade.

1. Weekly Journaling (10%)
 Participants will be required to critically evaluate and assess the experiences of each class and to record these reflections in a weekly journal. Reflections will be from two perspectives -- that of student (e.g., What content knowledge did I acquire?) and that of teacher (e.g., How have I better learned to do my job as a teacher?). Teachers should prepare each component of weekly reflections separately and title them accordingly.
2. Unit and Mallard Quizzes (30%) Concluding each unit, participants will complete a short unit quiz. See course outline for dates. Participants might also be required to complete online quizzes associated with assigned some homework readings. Students must complete an online Technical Terms and Concepts Quiz. Login and password information for Mallard: login = university ULID (e-mail) name (e.g., cjwennin - do NOT include "@ilstu.edu"); password = university ID number (e.g., 812344375). Click on "Lessons Page" to get started. Then, click on the WebQuiz hyperlink to access the quiz. Once you have answered all questions, click on "Submit for grading" at the bottom of the page for immediate feedback. If you wish to improve your score, you may re-take another 20-question quiz but the questions will be different. When you have finished, click on "EXIT" at the bottom of the leftmost column on the page.
3. Midterm and Final Tests (30%)
 Participants will complete two equally-weighted tests. The midterm will address the first half of the course (approximately); the final will address the second half of the course (approximately).
4. Binder Check (10%) Participants will develop and organize a binder with completed worksheets from all class and homework activities.
5. Observing Notebook (0%)
 Participants will, following specific guidelines (to be provided at a later date) to observe and record a number of sky-related observations including sun, moon, planets, and stars.
6. Bad Astronomy Teacher Presentation (5%) Participants will study examples of "bad astronomy" and make in-class reports on the topics and how best to address particular misconceptions in the classroom using specific guidelines. A specialized peer-level Bad Astronomy Oral Presentation Scoring Rubric will be used to score each presentation.
7. Computer Simulation Worksheet(s) (10%) Using specific computer simulation guidelines, participants will create and refine (piloting with their students if possible) EITHER one long OR two short worksheets (each from a different simulation) for online sources as (but not restricted to) Voyager, Skygazer, Stellarium, PhET, and NAAP Simulation Labs (including any NAAP Animations). A long sample simulation worksheet is available for your inspection. A Computer Simulation Worksheet Scoring Rubric will be used to score the submitted project(s). If writing two worksheets, all requirements noted in the rubric must be met by the two worksheets in combination; that is, they will be scored as one.
8. Professional Self-Assessment (5%) Each participant will perform an evidence-based self-assessment of personal teaching practice in relation to a specific set of inquiry practice indicators. The purpose of this task is to allow in-service teachers to reflect on their own teaching practice, to identify problems associated with that teaching practice that originate from within the teacher and from within the institutional setting, and as a means of examining significant performance problems associated with the instruction.

Student Performance Evaluation: Tests of content knowledge will include standard objective tests. Tests of skills associated with complex tasks will be scored with the use of rubrics.

Grading Scale: Course grades will be based on the total points...

POLICIES:

Assessment-for-Learning: Emphasis will be placed on an Assessment-for-Learning Policy. That is, assessments of student performance will be used not only to assign grades, but to improve student performance. Unsatisfactory work will be returned to the student for reflection and improvement. A student's scores can be improved following appropriate revision and resubmission of "unsatisfactory" projects, so long as all conditions and deadlines are met. Consistent with the Assessment-as-Learning Policy, students are encouraged to write drafts of essays or other projects, submit them for review by the course instructor, and make revisions based upon the instructor's written comments. Please keep in mind the that very best papers/projects in this course typically have been produced by students who submit their papers/projects for review 2 to 3 times before submitting the final copy. Note: The Assessment-as-Learning policy does not apply to examinations and quizzes.

Electronic Submissions: Electronic email attachments are the preferred form of submission. MSWord (.doc or .docx) document (or, failing that, RTF) format is preferred as the instructor uses a Macintosh computer. Avoid submitting PDF versions of documents as these often cannot be easily edited without loss of formatting.

Academic Integrity: Students are expected to be honest in all academic work. A student's name on any in academic exercise shall be regarded as assurance that the work is the result of the student's own thought and study. Offenses involving academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to the following: cheating, computer dishonesty, plagiarism, grade falsification, and collusion. For more information about this important topic, visit the Student Dispute Resolution Web site.