Physics 641: Physics Pedagogy
An On-line Course for Teachers of Physics

Week 1: Overview of Course and Introduction to the Nature of Science (NOS)

Overview of Course

Nature of Science (NOS)

Read the following five articles from the November 2004 publication of The Science Teacher (These articles are all in PDF format). These articles are also available on the CD-ROM and are listed by the title and author.

• "Keys to Teaching the Nature of Science", by William F. McComas. Note that McComas describes 9 tenets.
• "The Nature of Science: Always Part of the Science Story", by Michael R. Clough and Joanne K. Olson.
• "Focusing Labs on the Nature of Science", by Alan Colburn.
• "Revising Instruction to Teach nature of Science", by Norman G. Lederman and Judith S. Lederman. Note that Lederman describes 7 tenets.
• "Quizzing Students on the Myths of Science", by Eugene L Chiappetta and Thomas Koballa.

Read the article "The Nature of Science and Instructional Practice: Making the Unnatural Natural", by Abd-el-Khalick, Bell and Lederman (labeled "NOSpaper" on the CD-ROM). Please be aware that this file is rather large (1.3 MB) to download if you have a slower connection to the Internet.

Click here to obtain the Mystery Tube Template. Print it out.

View the lecture by Douglas Toti on the Nature of Science. The entire lecture is 1 hour 5 minutes and is found on the course CD. You may skip over the section from 6 min, 10 seconds until 51 minutes, 0 seconds, because the tenets or key ideas of the Nature of Science covered in that section of the lecture are well covered in the papers you have read. The seven tenets of the Nature of Science, according to the lecture, can be found here.

Assignment