John Airey
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Uppsala University
Department of Mathematics and Science Education
Stockholm University
Teaching and Learning with
Disciplinary Resources
• 120 employees
• Most work with
teacher training
• Full spectrum
pre-school to
university-level
• Unique in
Sweden
• Science faculty
• Develop
education for the
science faculty
• University
teacher courses
• Workshops
• Consultations
• SAMTAL@SU
Ångström Laboratory
Uppsala Physics Education Research Group
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Undergraduate teaching and learning in physics
Unique in Sweden (Europe?)
In the US there are 86 physics education research
centers that are part of a physics department
Fysik@UU
6
Physics Education
Research
Discipline-based education research
“investigates learning and
teaching in a discipline using a
range of methods with deep
grounding in the discipline’s
priorities, worldview, knowledge
and practices
”
Long-term goal:
“to understand the
nature of expertise in a discipline”
US National Research Council (2012, p 9)
Interested in the relationship between physics
knowledge and disciplinary-specific resources.
My interest
We can partly
talk
our way through a scientific event or problem
in purely verbal conceptual terms, and then we can partly make
sense of what is happening by combining our discourse with the
drawing
and interpretation of visual
diagrams
and
graphs
and
other representations, and we can integrate both of these with
mathematical formulas
and
algebraic derivations
as well as
quantitative calculations
, and finally we can integrate all of these
with actual
experimental procedures
and
operations
. In terms of
which, on site and in the
doing
of
the experiment
, we can make
sense directly through
action
and
observation
, later interpreted
and represented in
words
,
images
, and
formulas
.
Lemke (1998:7)
Disciplinary resources in science
Interested in the relationship between physics
knowledge and disciplinary-specific resources.
My interest
VR grants: 2 current
PhD students: 3 current
Urban Eriksson
Disciplinary discernment
Extrapolating 3-D from 2-D representations
Astronomical distance
Astronomical time
Research
How resources develop
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Rationalization has occurred over many years
”Meaning” may have changed several times
Lecturers
do not see
that things have been left
out
What has been ”left out” might be what students
need to make sense of the diagram
John Airey 7
thFeb. 2020 Department of Astronomy
• Omission
Experts leave things out
• Overloading
Experts give too much information
• History
Disciplinary resources are idiosyncratic
• Expectations
Students’ everyday heuristics
Barriers to learning with disciplinary
resources
What about Astronomy?
The HR diagram
Mentioned to an astronomer that it was
counterintuitive.
What!
But it’s perfect!
You can’t say that!
I use it every day!
Original magnitude scale
Hipparchos circa 134 BC
Brightest stars = 1
Weakest stars = 6
Y-axis: ”Brightness”
1856 Pogson
Magnitude 1 is 100 times brighter
than magnitude 6
Slight adjustment
Could deal with telescope observations
Y-axis: ”Brightness”
Stars at different distances
Bessel 1838 measure interstellar distance
Absolute magnitude
Kapteyn 1902 10 parsec
Kept the old system of brightness
Y-axis: ”Brightness”
Counterintuitive scale
Brighter stars have a lower numbers
Minus 10 to plus 20
Zero has no special meaning
Y-axis: ”Brightness”
Herschel 1798 prism to separate spectra
Sechi 1868 400 stars four classes
Draper 16 classes A, B, C
Pickering, Maury, Fleming, Cannon
Harvard O,B,A,F,G,K,M
Relationship to surface temperature
x-axis: ”surface temperature”
Strange labels
No temperature shown (no label at all!)
Temperature increases towards the origin
x-axis: ”surface temperature”
Temperature scale
Student expectations:
Increases to the right
Red is hot
Dead is colder than alive
Life and death
We expect students to know what to see…
Takes time to develop discipinary discernment
(Eriksson et al 2014)
Disciplinary discernment
Too much information
Students don’t know where to look!
Disciplinary discernment
Imagine you are out with your two-year old son.
You see a worm on the ground.
He doesn’t know what a worm is.
How do you get him to notice?
Disciplinary discernment
Hold all aspects constant except for the aspect of
you want students to notice
This is the essence of variation theory
(Marton & Booth 1997)
We notice what changes.
1. The variables represented by the axes.
2. The major relationships that can be seen
when the variables are plotted against one
another.
3. The disciplinary meaning that has been
assigned to these relationships.
What students need to know
• Omission
Experts leave things out
• Overloading
Experts give too much information
• History
Disciplinary resources are idiosyncratic
• Expectations
Students’ everyday heuristics
Barriers to learning with disciplinary
resources
Questions
and
Airey, J. (2015). Social Semiotics in Higher Education: Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics.
Paper presented at the Concorde Hotel/ National Institute of Education, Singapore, 3–5 November 2015.
Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2019) Unpacking the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram: A Social Semiotic Analysis of the
Disciplinary and Pedagogical Affordances of a Central Resource in Astronomy. Designs for Learning, 11(1), 99–107. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/dfl.137
Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in
a critical constellation of modes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27–49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20265
Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2017). Social Semiotics in University Physics Education. In D. F. Treagust, R. Duit, & H. E.
Fischer (Eds.), Multiple Representa- tions in Physics Education (pp. 95–122). Cham: Springer International Publishing. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-58914-5_5
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University and Kristianstad University.
Eriksson, U., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Redfors, A. (2014). Introducing the Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment – An
example for Astronomy. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2(3), 167–182.
Fredlund, T., Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2012). Exploring the role of physics representations: an illustrative example from
students sharing knowledge about refraction. European Journal of Physics, 33(3), 657. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807/33/3/657
Fredlund, T., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Linder, A. (2014). Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation
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