Explicit Reflection in an Introductory Physics Course

AAPT Summer Meeting, Greensboro, NC

The goal of instruction is to help shift a novice to a more expert-like state in matters of knowledge, understanding, and thinking. One important behavior of expert thinking is time spent reflecting upon the meaning and structure of things learned and of tasks worked. In this talk I will discuss a classroom implementation in which explicit reflective activities supplemented the problems students worked during class. This intervention spanned a 14 week period and was evaluated based on the relative performance between a control and treatment group. Instruments used in this study to assess performance included the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), a physics problem categorization test, and four class exams. I will discuss fully our implementation of the reflective exercises and the accompanying measures. I will also discuss possible limitations to this study and will give lines of future research.