From 1948 to 1962 he published 50 research papers in physics, mostly in QED, but also ..... most use to college faculty
PHYSICS CURRICULUM REFORM: HOW CAN WE DO IT? Robert G.Fuller, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska -Lincoln, USA The physics community in the United States of American is facing a crisis. This crisis has been described in presentations and papers at professional meetings in various ways. Let me introduce you to the crisis faced by the physics community by discussing three different published papers that present views of this crisis. First is the paper by David Goodstein, Provost of the California Institute of Technology and a physicist who co-authored The Mechanical Universe television series and textbook. According to Provost Goodstein "The Big Crunch" occurred in the 1970s which was the end of 100 years of exponential growth of science in the USA. No longer was increase financial support and national interest in science guaranteed. Our educational institutions are poorly adapted to deal with a different future. In the USA science education has produced the Paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. We have a small cadre of exceptional scientists and a broad population of scientific illiterate people. The model for science education in the USA has been described as a leaky pipeline. This is the wrong. Mining and Sorting is a better metaphor for science education in the USA. The purpose of the education enterprise has been to sort out the student unworthy of a professional degree in science. It reaches its culmination in graduate school. Research professors obtain external funding, independent of the needs of the institution, to run their research programs. In the steady state each professor needs to turn out ONE Professor for the next generation. In the golden era of physics, research professors would turn out one PhD per year! The profession of teaching physics in the USA today has only two purposes: to turn out physicists and to act as a gate keeper We must turn the problem around. Physics has tremendous assets. Physics is a vast body of human knowledge. In some ways, physics is the central triumph of human intelligence. Physics has paved the way of civilization to our victory over mystery and ignorance. The methods of inquiry and analysis used in physics that have produced that body of knowledge. The reasoning patterns used and developed in the study of physics are the keystone of scientific reasoning. Hence, an undergraduate physics major program must become the essence of a liberal education for the 21st century. Unfortunately, everything about the way we teach physics today is useless for this vision and I do not know the first step in that direction. How do we teach physics for all citizens rather than just a scientific elite? I believe the key to teaching anything is to remember what it was like not to understand the thing. Provost Goodstein ends his paper by pointing us in a direction for physics education for the next generation [1]. The next paper I want to discuss is a paper by Sheila Tobias. Ms. Tobias is not a physicist. She was trained in the humanities and first became noted for her famous book on mathematics anxiety. {Sheila Tobias first wrote Overcoming Math Anxiety in 1978. In her updated version, published by W. W. Norton in 1994, she enlarges on her analysis of the attitude and approach variables that interfere with students' performance in college-level mathematics.} In her paper published in the American Journal of Physics in 2000, Ms. Tobias raises several questions about various aspects of physics education in the USA. Many of the most prestigious secondary schools in the USA, offer advanced placement (AP) physics courses. These AP courses are a second year of physics intended for an elite corps of secondary school students. How useful is AP physics? There is a national movement in the USA towards standardized testing and in-class examinations. Yet examinations can constrain educational innovation.
There are a variety of national rankings of physics departments. How do we figure teaching into a department's rank? In fact, if you look at the descriptions of the interests of physics faculty members at major universities you will almost find none who express a professional interest in physics education! We must start a national movement to require high school physics for entrance into college. This means that we must develop courses in "Science for all"...not just an option for some. Physics departments must cultivate their "clients." They need to establish permanent liaisons with the engineering and life science communities who require their students to take physics courses. Universities need to revisiting the issue of class size. Is class size a meaningful arena for change? Finally, Ms. Tobias urged physics departments to examine and transform the physics major for undergraduates. It needs to become, not just a path for physics elites who intend to go to graduate school in physics, the physics major must become attractive for students with undecided career goals [2]. The third paper I want to discuss is the paper by Professors Ruth Howes and Robert Hilborn, both former presidents of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). Their paper was also published in the American Journal of Physics in 2000. Professors Howes and Hilbom assert that Physics departments may not have changed much in the past few decades but the educational, but the scientific and social environments in the USA have changed considerably. Physics has expanded and spun off numerous subfields. The educated public views the frontiers of science as in the life sciences and physics is no longer where the action is. The educational environment has changed. The students are more diverse. Client disciplines have begun to consider teaching introductory physics themselves. The number of undergraduate physics majors has sunk to below pre-Sputnik levels while the total number of undergraduates has doubled. Four principles need to guide our response: 1 A wide spectrum of physicists recognize the need for change, but many still do not. 2.The fundamental unit of change is the department. 3.An undergraduate physics program is more than just the curriculum. 4. Every physics department is different. The new environment is unlikely to return to its state of 30-some years ago. It will probably take sustained efforts on many fronts before we see substantial results [3]. Taken in toto these three papers are an urgent plea of major reforms in the physics curricula used in the USA. I want to suggest a direction for such curriculum reform efforts by looking back at the work of a famous physicist and physics educator and try to draw from his work guidelines for national physics curriculum reform efforts. Basing Physics Curriculum Reform On the Second Career of Robert Karplus Let me begin by telling you about the first career of Robert Karplus. He was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. His family moved to the USA when he was 10 years old. His first career was in theoretical and experimental physics. He obtained a double degree from Harvard University in physics and chemistry in 1945 and one year later got a masters degree in chemistry, also from Harvard University. He completed his Ph. D. in chemical physics at Harvard in 1948. His thesis research included both experimental and theoretical work on microwaves for Professor E. Bright Wilson, Jr. He moved from Harvard to the Institute for Advanced Studies, directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, at Princeton University in 1948. He married Elizabeth Fraizer in December of 1948. He began to work in quantum electrodynamics (QED). In 1950 Karplus and Kroll published the first detailed calculations of a physics observable based on QED [4].
In 1950 Dr. Karplus returned to Harvard University where he served as an assistant professor of physics from 1950 until 1954. In 1954 he moved to the University of California, Berkeley where he was an Associate Professor of physics from 1954 until 1958 when he was promoted to full professor. From 1948 to 1962 he published 50 research papers in physics, mostly in QED, but also on the Hall effect and Van Allen radiation. He was the senior or only author of the first 19 papers. He published with 32 different scientists, including 2 Nobel prize winners. More than 90% of his co-authors are now fellows of the American Physical Society. Professor Karplus made his first visit to his daughter's elementary school class in 1959-60. He probably did an electrostatics demonstration with a Windhurst machine1. Some thing happened to his intellectual curiosity in those visits to his daughter's class and he became more and more interested in the kind and quality of science being taught to children in elementary schools in the USA. He joined in an elementary school project with some other University of California Berkeley faculty in 1959. He published his first education paper with J. M. Atkin in 1962, "Discovery or Invention?" in The Science Teacher periodical [5]. Karplus and Herb Thier started the Science Curriculum Improvement Study(SCIS) in 1961 with financial support from the National Science Foundation. Over the next several years they and their coworkers developed a complete K-6 science curriculum, (for children ages 5 through 11) the SCIS curriculum, that is still in use today. 1
He and Betty were the parents of seven children bom between 1950 and 1962, three daughters and four sons.
Robert Karplus was president of the AAPT in 1977 and he received the Oersted Medal in 1980. He suffered a cardiac arrest while jogging in June of 1982 which ended his professional career . He died in 1990. As a part of faculty development leave in 1999, I collected a sample of his publications in science education and based on those works I want to lift up for your consideration the enduring contributions the work of Robert Karplus has made to science education [6]. Robert Karplus's enduring contributions to science education: 1) He took Piaget's work seriously. Robert Karplus was one of the first educators in the USA to see the relevance of the work of Jean Piaget to curriculum development. Based on his study of Piaget's work he came to believe that new knowledge must be constructed by the mind of the learner and not simply transmitted by the teacher. In this sense, then Karplus was one of the first constructivists. Therefore, I think a start toward understanding the impact of the work of Robert Karplus in science education is to do a brief review of the life and work of Jean Piaget.
Professor Jean Piaget (1895-1980) lived and worked most of his life in Geneva, Switzerland. His work can be described by three different periods. His first period (1922-29) began in Binet's laboratory in Paris, France. He began his style of semi-clinical interviews, placing simple apparatus in front of children and asking them to explore and explain its behavior. He discovered and described children's philosophies, such as their belief that the sun followed them, a property of children's thinking that he called egocentrism. The second period of the work of Piaget (1929-40) was when he studied his own three children. He traced the origins of a child's spontaneous mental growth and realted it to infant behavior. He postulated a variety of conservation reasoning patterns whereby the child comes to believe that certain
properties of a system remain the same even though the appearance of the system may change dramatically, as in the game of Peek-a-Boo. In the third period of his work (1940-80) Piaget concentrated on the development of logical thought in children and adolescents. He observed how a child constructs one's world. A child's mind is not a passive mirror. At first a child can reason about things but not about propositions. Based on his own observations, Piaget developed his concept of the stages of cognitive develop as summarized in the table below: Logical Knowledge Stages of Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget) Stage
Characteristics
Sensory-Motor Pre-operational
Pre-verbal Reasoning No cause-and-effect Uses verbal symbols, simple classifications, but lacks conservation reasoning 8-? Reasoning is logical, But concrete rather than abstract Hypotheticaldeductive 11 - ? reasoning
Concrete Operational Formal Operational
Approximate Age Range (Years) birth -2 1-8
According to Piaget, cognitive development explains learning. Development occurs by four main factors: Maturation Experience - the effect of the physical environment on the mental structures of intelligence Social, or education, transmission Equilibration or Self-regulation-the fundamental one Professor Karplus wrote his summary of major ideas of Piaget's work for educators as a part of the Workshop on Physics Teaching and the Development of Reasoning that he developed for the AAPT. Major Ideas from Piaget's Work (by Karplus, 1975) 1. Piaget's theory describes two major stages of logical, operational reasoning in human intellectual development, the stage of concrete reasoning and the stage of formal reasoning. Earlier stages identifiable in the behavior of young children may be called pre-operational. 2. Each of these two major stages is characterized by certain reasoning patterns, used by individuals to classify observations, interpret data, draw conclusions, and make predictions. Characteristics of concrete and formal reasoning Concrete Reasoning
Individuals(a) Need reference to familiar actions, objects, and observable properties. (b) Use classification, conservation, and seriation reasoning patterns in relation to concrete items a) above. Have limited and intuitive understanding of formal reasoning patterns. (c) Need step-by-step instructions in a lengthy procedure.
(d) Are not aware of their own reasoning, or inconsistencies among various statements they make, or contradictions with other known facts. Formal Reasoning
Individuals(a) Can reason with concepts, relationships, abstract properties, axioms, and theories; use symbols to express ideas. (b) Apply classification, conservation, seriation, combinatorial, proportional, probabilistic, correlational, and controlling variables reasoning in abstract items (a) above. (c) Can plan a lengthy procedure given certain overall goals and resources. (d) Are aware and critical of their own reasoning, actively seek checks on the validity of their conclusions by appealing to other known information. 3. The formal stage is an idealization in that most persons after age twelve use formal reasoning patterns under some conditions and concrete reasoning patterns under others. The latter is likely to occur whenever the subject matter is unfamiliar, as is the case for a student beginning work in a new area. The former is likely to be the case for an experienced worker in the field. 4. The process of self-regulation plays a vital role when an individual advances from the use of concrete reasoning patterns to the use of formal reasoning patterns. Self-regulation begins with one's awareness that the concrete reasoning patterns are inadequate. It proceeds through direct experience with phenomena supplemented by the introduction of related organizing principles and major concepts. 5. A person who uses only concrete reasoning patterns is likely to proceed through self-regulation in a new subject much more slowly than a person who reasons formally in connection with other studies. The latter individual benefits from the possibility of transferring formal reasoning patterns to the new area, especially if the new and old are closely related as is the case with mathematics and physics. 6. Some students who are required to learn formal-level material in a subject in which they so far have only used concrete reasoning may go through self-regulation spontaneously. Other students, with less experience or self-awareness, are not likely to experience the necessary self-regulation; instead, they will memorize certain prominent words, phrases, formulas, and procedures, but will apply these with little understanding unless the teaching program takes their specific needs into account. 7. Tests should be designed to evaluate the students' reasoning and also help them engage in selfregulation. 8. The Learning Cycle can be an effective strategy in classes where some students display concrete reasoning patterns and some formal reasoning patterns [7]. Robert Karplus's enduring contributions to science education (continued): 2) Professor Karplus focused on student reasoning. Based on his understanding of the work of Piaget, he developed a series of paper and pencil tasks that he could use with students to reveal the reasoning patterns they used. He published this work in a number of articles about reasoning beyond elementary school. The first puzzle he used by the Mr. Short-Mr. Tall Puzzle [8], as follows: The Mr. Short - Mr. Tall Puzzle
The figure below is called Mr. Short. We used large round buttons laid side-by-side. To measure Mr. Short's height, starting from the floor between his feet and going to the top of his head. His height was four buttons. Then we took a similar figure called Mr. Tall, and measured it in the same way with the same bottom. Mr. Tall was six buttons high.
1. Measure the height of Mr. Short using paper clips in a chain provided. The height is 2. Predict the height of Mr. Tall if he were measured with the same paper clips.3. Explain how you figured out your prediction. (You may use diagrams, words or calculations. Please explain your steps carefully.)
Professor Karplus collected a number of student responses to the Mr. Short/Mr. Tall task and then he developed a classification system for these responses. Finally, he organized the classification system into a sequence of reasoning patterns based on the stages of cognitive development postulated by Piaget. Student Responses to the Mr. Short/Mr. Tall Task:
Category N: no explanation or statement, "I can't explain." Category I (intuition): An explanation referring to estimates, guesses, appearances, or extraneous factors without using the data. Examples of the predictions and related explanations are: 9 1/2-The big man just looks that much bigger than the little man. 9 -Because that's what I think it is. 9 1/2-You use a ratio factor, but I don't remember how, so I guessed 10-A guess. Category IC (intuitive computation) : The subject makes use of data haphazardly and in an illogical way. Examples are: 16-By multiplying. 10-I figured out that if he had bigger paper clips, you add 6 with the other 4 and you have 10. 12 1/2-Half of 12 is 6, so you'd take the paper dips and measure him twice because he's longer than Mr. Short, so naturally it would be 121/2. 10 3/4- Since it took 4 biggies for Mr. Short and 6 1/4 smallies, there is 2 1/4 difference, and it tool, 6 biggies for Mr. Tall, 2 more than for Mr. Short, so I added 2 1/4 + 2 1/4 together and got 4 1/2 and added that to 6 1/4 and got 10 3/4 for an answer. Category A (addition) : An explanation using all of the data, but applying, the difference rather than the ratio at measurements. Examples are: 8-The little man was 4 of his and 6 of mine so I added 2. 8 1/2 -When you did it, the large man was 2 big paper clips bigger than your small man. So mine must be 8-if 6 smallies equal 4 biggies, then 6 biggies must equal 8 smallies.
Category S (scaling) : The subject makes a change of scale when he predicts. He does not relate this operation to the scale inherent in the data, thereby failing to see the whole problem. He expresses a tentative attitude toward his estimate. Examples are: 12-The large man is two times bigger than the little man; the little man is 6, so I think it is 12. 12-I think, it is twelve because in biggies it is six, and small ones are about half that size, and so I thinl, it is about 12. Category AS (addition and scaling) : The subject focuses on the excess height of Mr. Tall, but scales up the excess number of jumbo paper clips by a factor of two to compensate for the size difference; An example is: 10-1 think, two smllies are as big as one biggie, so I added four smallies for the two extra Category P (proportional reasoning): The subject uses proportionality and makes clear how the ratio is derived from the measurements on the two figures. He may or may not use the word "ratio." Examples are: 9 -There is a mathematical problem in 4 big, and 6 big, 4 is 2/3 of 6, so it should be 9. 9 -6 ÷ 4 = 1 1/2, 6 x 1 1/2 = 9. 9 -The ratio of the biggies is 2:3, so you figure the small paper clips would also have the ratio 2:3. 9.75 -It was a direct ratio and proportion, small to large, small to large. 9 -Set up a ratio, 6/4= x/6 9 6/4 =x/6, x = 9 The results Professor Karplus obtained for students from ages 9 (4th grade) to 17(12 th grade) are shown in the bar graph below:
Another task that Professor Karplus developed by the island puzzle [9], see below: The Islands puzzle
The puzzle is about Islands A, B, C, and D in the ocean. People have been traveling among these islands by boat for many years, but recently an air-line started in business. Carefully read the clues about Possible plane trips at present. The trips may be direct or include stops and plane changes on an island. When a trip is Possible, it can be made in either direction between the islands. you may make notes or marks on the map to help use the clues. First Clue: People can go by plane between Islands C and D. Second Clue: People cannot go by plane between Islands A and B, even indirectly. Use these two clues to answer Question 1. Do not read the next clue yet. Question 1: Can people go by plane between Island B and D? Yes No Can't tell from the two clues Please explain your answer. Third Clue (do not change your answer to Question I now!): People can go by plane between Island B and D. Use all three clues to answer Question 2 and 3. Question 2: Can people go by plane between Island B and C? Yes No Can't tell from the two clues Please explain your answer. Question 3 :Can people go by plane between Islands A and C? Yes No Can't tell from the two clues Please explain your answer.. Island Puzzle Responses
Category N: no explanation or statement "I can't explain." Category I (pre-logical): an explanation which makes no reference to the clues and/or introduces new information. Subcategories are the mere repetition of the answer to be explained (to #2, "Yes, because there are flights"), appeal to the diagram itself (to #2, "Yes, because it is the diagonal" or to #3, "Yes, because it is close"), and fanciful stories (to #1, No, because there is a strong air pocket that no one can survive" or to #2, "No, because the plane can run out of gas and go down in the water") Category Ila (transition to concrete models) : direct appeal to or repetition of clues (#1, "No, because you did not say so" or to "#1 "Can't tell because you didn't say"). Since all three questions require inferences, a direct appeal to the clues does not provide a logical justification. Category Ilb (concrete models) : the clues are used to construct models which are then used to make the predictions. The most common model provides for the presence or absence of airport facilities on an island, according to whether flights were or were not said to reach it (to #l, "Can't tell, because Bean Island has an airport, but Bird Island might or might not have an airport"; to #2, "Yes, because there must be an airport on Bird Island, so the people from Fish lsland can get there"; to#3, "No, Snail must be the one with no airport, so people from Fish Island can't get there"). This model-based approach, when correctly used, leads to correct answers to all three questions in the problem. It assumes information not given in the clues, however, and cannot be generalized to solve similar puzzles with different data. Category IIIa (transition to abstract logic): logical explanation to question 2, that Bird Island can certainly be reached from Fish Island by way of a stop at Bean Island (to #2, "Yes, Fish to Bean to
Bird"). Since the logical inference from the two positive state- ments (clues I and 3) needed for question 2 is easier, in our view, than the use of the negative statement (clue 2), question 2 does not make maximum demand on the subject's reasoning ability. We have therefore classified the logical answer here as being transitional to the abstract stage, rather than representing attainment of the abstract stage. Category IIIb (abstract logic): logical explanations to questions 1 and 3 (to #1, Can't tell because there is no information linking either Bean or Fish Island with Bird Island"; to #3, "No, because a flight between Fish and Snail would make possible a route between Bird and Snail via Bean and Fish; this contradicts the second clue"). Karplus collected responses to the Island Puzzle from students from ages 10 to 17 as well as from members of the National Science Teachers Association and the AAPT. The results of his investigations are shown in the following bar graph.
Based on the work of Karplus we wondered about the reasoning patterns typically used by college students in the USA. Furthermore, we decided that proportional reasoning is a pattern that is essential for understanding college level mathematics and physics. So we solicited the help of many faculty colleagues to collect data about the reasoning of a large number of college students doing a variety of proportional reasoning tasks. We give three examples of the kinds of proportional reasoning tasks we developed [10] to use with college students2. The Wahoo Puzzle
2
With the help of other faculty members we collected student responses to proportional reasoning tasks from more that eight thousand college students in the USA. We developed five categories of responses, ala Karplus, to these tasks.
The state of Ohio is converting all of their highway distance road signs to a dual English-metric system. Shown below is an example of a sign that you might see as you drive towards Cleveland, Ohio. CLEVELAND 94 MILES 152 KILOMETERS Assume that the state of Nebraska also converts its road signs to the same system. As you drive towards Wahoo, Nebraska, you might see the following sign. WAHOO _____ MILES 380 KILOMETERS Are you able to compute the number to put in the blank shown on the sign above from the data you are given on this page? Yes No Explain your answerIf you can compute the number to put in the blank, please do so. Write it in the blank above and explain in words how you calculated your result. Show your work below: The Recipe Puzzle
A recipe for pumpkin pie requires that milk be added along with other ingredients. This modern recipe gives both the old English and the new metric equivalents as shown below. Recipe #1 Pumpkin Pie
Add 21 teaspoons of milk or 99 milliliters of milk Another metric recipe calls for a similar ingredient but does not give the English unit equivalent. Recipe #2 Chocolate Cake
Add teaspoons of milk or 231 milliliters of milk Are you able to compute the number to fill in the blank shown in Recipe #2 ?
Yes No Explain your answerIf you can compute the number, please do so. Write your answer in the blank above, and show and explain how you did the calculation below. The Shadows Puzzle
Walking back to my room after class yesterday afternoon, I noticed my six-foot frame cast a shadow eight feet long. A rather small tree next to the sidewalk cast a shadow eighteen feet long. My best guess of the height of the tree would be Please explain the reasoning you used to find your answer Proportional Reasoning Responses
1. Intuitive: No response or a guess with little evidence of reasoning. Examples: Can't tell. I'm not good at numbers. 2. Additive: Adds or subtracts to obtain an answer. Example (Shadows): 8 is to 6 as 18 is to 16. 3. Ratio attempt: Attempts a ratio but fails for reasons other than arithmetic: wrong ratio, can't solve for x, etc. Example (Recipe): May try to find how many times 99 goes into 231, what remainder will exist, then somehow try to convert the 33 ml remainder into teaspoons. 4. Ratio formula: Uses proportional reasoning to set up an equation and then solve for unknown. Example (Shadows): 6/8 = x/18 so x = (6/8) 18 or 13 feet. 5. Conversion: Introduces a new quantity as a conversion factor then multiplies or divides. Example (Shadows): The height is 6/8 or 75% of the shadow so the tree is 0.75 x 18 = 13.5 feet high.
You will notice on the following bar graph of our results that a significant fraction, about forty percent, of typical USA college students do NOT systematically use proportional reasoning. Before we can begin to develop a new physics curriculum, we must address a more fundamental question. How do we foster the development of more advanced reasoning by college students? Let us turn our attention back to the work of Robert Karplus as we attempt to answer that question. Robert Karplus's enduring contributions to science education (continued): 3) Karplus developed the learning cycle instructional strategy [11]. He believed this strategy was most likely to encourage students to go through the process of self-regulation and develop more advanced reasoning processes. Classroom activities may play a central role in the improvement of student reasoning. A classroom instructional strategy based upon the work of Piaget and Karplus is called the Learning Cycle. The entire learning cycle consists of three phases that are called exploration, and application. During exploration the students learn through their own more or less spontaneous reactions to a new
situation. In this phase, they explore new materials or ideas with minimal guidance or expectation of specific achievements. Their patterns of reasoning may be inadequate to cope with the new data, and they may begin self-regulation. During the invention phase, a new concept is defined or a new principle invented to expand the students' knowledge, skills, or reasoning. This step should always follow exploration and relate to the exploration activities. It will thereby assist in your students' self-regulation. Do encourage individual students to “invent” part or all of a new idea for themselves, before you present it to the class. During the last phase of the learning cycle, application, students find new uses for the concepts or skills they have invented earlier. The application phase provides additional time and experiences for self-regulation to take place. It also gives you the opportunity to introduce the new concept repeatedly to help students whose conceptual re-organization proceeds more slowly than average, or who did not adequately relate your original explanation to their experiences. Individual conferences with these students to identify their difficulties are especially helpful. A wide variety of evaluation projects were able to demonstrate the efficacy of this instructional strategy. Robert Karplus's enduring contributions to science education (continued): 4) Professor Karplus developed a scientific process of curriculum development. It seems so logical now. The process that Karplus developed has become widely used by people who are unaware of his work. He brought the feedback loop of the scientific method to the task of curriculum development. Field testing materials with students was a keystone of his process. The process that he used is to develop the materials, then field test them in a wide variety of classrooms and then use the feedback from the classroom activities to revise the lessons and field test them again and revise them again, etc. In such a process, only the very best lessons survived [12]. 5) Dr. Karplus realized that the central figure in the school learning experience of science is the teacher. Elementary school teachers had to become comfortable with hands-on science activities in order for his SCIS program to succeed. Karplus emphasized teacher development. He created a series of teacher workshops on the theme of science teaching and the development of reasoning [13]. In addition to the workshops, Professor Karplus and his co-worked created a series of movies that show how students react to a variety of reasoning tasks, many of them taken from Piaget's work. The film of most use to college faculty is his film on formal reasoning patterns. It shows the behavior of students from 10 to 17 years of age as they approach tasks requiring combinatorial reasoning, proportional reasoning, separation and control of variables and multiplicative compensation [14]. 6) Karplus emphasized that science for everyone, not just an elite few. As a result of his conviction about this, they tried SCIS lessons on students of all kinds. The modern day movement of science for all students can look back and find its roots in the work of Robert Karplus. 7) Finally, Karplus loved the act of discovery. He never tired of discovering things for himself and he wanted children to know the joy of discovery. "Don't tell me, let me find out." is the title of the film that they made about the SCIS curriculum. In conclusion, then, it seems clear to me that important curriculum work in physics and other sciences will find its strength in the enduring contributions that Robert Karplus has made to science education. A successful physics curriculum for the 21st century will be one in which students in physics classes are encouraged to have their own wonderful ideas [15]. References [1] D. Goodstein, "Now Boardng: The Flight from Physics", Amer. J. Phys., 67(3), (1999), 183-6. [2] S. Tobias, "From innovation to change: Forging a physics education reform agenda for the 21st century", Amer. J. Phys., 68(2), (2000), 103.
[3] R. Howes and R. Hilborn, "Winds of Change", Amer. J. Phys., 68(5), (2000), 401-2. [4] R. Karplus et al., Fourth Order Corrections in QED to the Magnetic Moment of the Electron, Phys. Rev. 77, (1950), 53649. [5] R. Karplus and J.M. Atkin, "Discovery or Invention?", The Science Teacher 29(5), (1952), 45-47. [6] "A Love of Discovery: Science Education - the Second Career of Robert Karplus", R.G. Fuller (Ed), Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, ", (2002). [7] R. Karplus et. al., Physics teaching and the development of reasoning workshop. American Association of Physics Teachers, (1975). [8] R. Karplus and R. W. Peterson, Intellectual development beyond elementary school ii: ratio, a survey, School Science and Mathematics, 70(9), (1990), 813-820. [9] E. F. Karplus and R. Karplus, Intellectual Development Beyond Elementary School 1: Deductive Logic, School Science and Mathematics, 70(5), (1970), 39@-406. [10] M.C. Thornton and R.G. Fuller, how do college students solve proportion problems? J. Res. Sci. Teach., 18, (1981), 335. [11] R.G. Fuller, R. Karplus, and A.E. Lawson, Can physics develop reasoning?, Physics Today, 30 (2), (1977), 23; R. Karplus, Science Teaching and the Development of Reasoning, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 14 (2), (1977), 169-175. [12]R. Karplus, Strategies in Curriculum Development-The SCIS project, Strategies for Curriculum Development, Jon Schaffarzick and David H. Hampton (Eds), McCutchan Publishing Corp., Berkeley, CA, (1975), 69-88. [13] R. Karplus, A. E. Lawson, W. T. Wollman, M. Appel, R. Bernoff, A. Howe, J. J. Rusch and F. Sullivan. Workshop on Science Teaching and the Development of Reasoning, Berkeley, CA: Lawrence Hall of Science, March (1976) (trial edition), Final edition, (1977)] [14] R. Karplus and R. Peterson, Formal Reasoning Patterns (a film illustrating Jean Piaget's developmental theory of intellectual development), San Francisco: Davidson Films, (1978). [15] [Eleanor R. Duckworth, The having of wonderful ideas & other essays on teaching & learning, 2nd ed, Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University, (1996).
