For the start of a secondary school level lesson series on quantum computing, we designed a hands-on modeling activity where students construct a model diamond lattice with a nitrogen vacancy (NV) defect. NV centers find application as qubits and sensitive magnetometers. This activity aims to help students visualize the structure of such NV centers within the diamond lattice, making the subject matter more tangible. The activity has proven to be challenging but feasible. It features both collaborative and competitive elements thereby surely creating an energizing buzz in the classroom.@en

Demonstrations are fantastic. They offer so many wonderful possibilities to show the beauty of physics and amaze pupils, that we really should do at least one in every physics class. While it may not always be feasible, the objection “which demo then?” no longer applies. This book presents a selection of the 99 ‘best’, most beautiful physics demonstrations from the Dutch book series “ShowdeFysica” as published by the Dutch Association for Science Education. The demonstrations are categorized as nature of science; scientific inquiry; conceptual development or special occasions. So, whether you want to deepen students’ understanding of a specific topic, want to engage them in thorough thinking, or if you were asked to demonstrate physics on a festive occasion, you can find demonstrations and inspiration in this book.@en

Het maken van modern lesmateriaal vereist tools die optimaal gebruik maken van interactieve elementen. De waarde van dat materiaal stijgt wanneer het makkelijk inzetbaar, aanpasbaar en te delen is. In dit artikel bespreken we de tool Jupyter Book, waarmee pagina’s met instructies eenvoudig worden gecombineerd in een interactief en toegankelijk document (website) met de mogelijkheid voor het opnemen van vergelijkingen en visualisaties.@en

This article presents an experimental setup capable of conducting various experiments. The setup is used to accurately determine the acceleration due to gravity using either the pendulum or free fall experiment, as well as to allow students to conceive and conduct their own experiment. We discuss the design of the setup and the experiments conducted with it, highlighting the versatility and potential use for open inquiry. We include students’ perception on this particular experiment and how it led to an interesting and educational open inquiry.

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Ruim 80 demonstraties om morgen in de klas uit te voeren zó beschreven dat fysische begripsvorming optimaal is, met soms conceptcartoons gericht op natuurwetenschappelijke vaardigheden, begripsontwikkeling of de charme van natuurkunde voor een groot publiek voorzien van een site met links, aanvullende informatie en downloadbare bestanden.@en

Enabling students to engage in independent scientific inquiry is a highly valued but seemingly elusive goal of (secondary school) science education. Therefore, this study aims to determine and understand how to effectively develop inquiry knowledge in students. The chosen approach to enable students to plan, carry out and evaluate a physics inquiry, is to regard an inquiry as the construction of a scientifically cogent argument for a specific claim. In an authentic scientific inquiry, the researcher invests - from the very start of the inquiry - time and effort in making the inquiry’s claim as indisputable as possible. The researcher strives for optimal cogency of the argument in support of that claim. Throughout the various studies in this thesis it is argued that this idea can be translated to classroom situations: fostering the insight that students’ inquiry should result in a complete, correct and substantiated answer to the research question. It is shown that this is a meaningful strategy in enabling them to engage in independent scientific inquiry: it results in a cognitive need in students to develop the knowledge that allows them to produce such an answer. As such, this thesis shows that argumentation is an indispensable part of teaching scientific inquiry. Explicit attention for argumentation promotes development of students’ inquiry knowledge.@en

In filmscenes gebeuren regelmatig dingen waarvan niet meteen duidelijk is of het in het echt ook kan. Op de WND-conferentie van 2014 liet ik een samengestelde korte film zien waarbij steeds de vraag was: komt wat we zien in de filmscene overeen met de gebeurtenis zoals deze in het echt zou plaatsvinden? De vraag ‘is dit echt of worden we genept?’ is een leuke en uitdagende vraag voor leerlingen waarbij ze natuurkunde moeten gebruiken om de vraag te beantwoorden. De Spidermanfilms bieden tal van scenes waarin deze vraag gesteld kan worden.@en

In practical work focussing on conceptual development, students spend valuable in-class time on collecting data rather than making sense out of it. This provides a barrier to learning about the targeted concept. To address this problem, we developed an approach that we coin collaborative data collection. Using a practical on the topic density, we describe this approach and illustrate how the focus of practical work shifts away from mere data-collection towards meaning making. Although a single practical is described, the approach can be applied to other practicals as well.

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This small-scale, qualitative study uses educational design research to explore how focusing on argumentation may contribute to students’ learning to engage in inquiry independently. Understanding inquiry as the construction of a scientifically cogent argument in support of a claim may encourage students to develop personal reasons for adhering to scientific criteria and to use these with understanding rather than by rote. An understanding of the characteristics of scientific evidence may clarify why doing inquiry in specific ways is important, in addition to the how. On the basis of five design principles—derived from literature—that integrate argumentation in inquiry and enhance learning through practical activities, we developed a teaching-learning sequence of five activities aimed at developing inquiry knowledge in lower secondary school students. By means of observations of a grade 9 physics class (N=23, aged 14–15), students’ answers to worksheets, and self-reflection questions, we explored whether the design principles resulted in the intended students’ actions and attitudes. We studied whether the activities stimulated students to engage in argumentation and to develop the targeted inquiry knowledge. The focus on argumentation, specifically through critical evaluation of the quality of evidence, persuaded students to evaluate whether what they thought, said, or claimed was “scientifically” justifiable and convincing. They gradually uncovered key characteristics of scientific evidence, understandings of what counts as convincing in science, and why. Rather than adopting and practicing the traditional inquiry skills, students in these activities developed a cognitive need and readiness for learning such skills. Of their own accord, they used their gained insights to make deliberate decisions about collecting reliable and valid data and substantiating the reliability of their claims. This study contributes to our understanding of how to enable students to successfully engage in inquiry by extending the theoretical framework for argumentation toward teaching inquiry and by developing a tested educational approach derived from it.@en

Als afsluiter van het eerstejaars natuurkunde practicum aan de TU Delft voeren studenten een eigen onderzoek uit. Een opvallend onderzoek dit jaar richtte zich op de radioactiviteit van fruit. Gezamenlijk doen we verslag@en

In 1999 stond in de NRC een column van Karel Knip over de vraag uit de wetenschapsquiz of je direct een wolkje melk in je koffie moet doen als de bel gaat of dat je dat beter kunt doen als je terugkomt van de buitendeur. De column geeft een mooi beeld van wat er allemaal kan komen kijken als je wat dieper op de vraag ingaat. Er blijken veel mogelijkheden te zijn om ook in de klas met deze vraag aan de slag te gaan!@en

In het magazijn van het natuurkundig practicum van de TU Delft staat een rijke historie aan instrumenten en experimenten opgeslagen. Toen ik drie dezelfde opstellingen tegenkwam maakte ik een ‘reis naar het verleden’ in een poging het experiment in ere te herstellen.@en

Physics inquiry can be interpreted as the construction of a cogent argument in which students apply inquiry knowledge and knowledge of physics to the systematic collection of relevant, valid, and reliable data, creating optimal scientific support for a conclusion that answers the research question. In learning how to devise, conduct and evaluate a rigorous physics inquiry, students should learn to choose and apply suitable techniques and adhere to scientific conventions that guarantee the collection of such data. However, they also need to acquire and apply an understanding of how to justify their choices and present an optimally convincing argument in support of their conclusion. In this modified and augmented Delphi study we present a view of inquiry knowledge and a way to assess it that acknowledges both of these components. Using our own expertise with teaching physics inquiry and using curriculum documents on physics inquiry, “inquiry knowledge” is deconstructed as a set of “understandings of evidence” (UOE)—insights and views that an experimental researcher relies on in constructing and evaluating scientific evidence. While insights cannot be observed directly, we argue that their presence can be inferred from a student’s actions and decisions in inquiry, inferred with more definitude as a more explicit and adequate justification is provided. This set of UOE is presented and validated as an adequate, coherent, partially overlapping set of learning goals for introductory inquiry learning. We specify conceivable types of actions and decisions expected in inquiry as descriptors of five attainment levels, providing an approach to assessing the presence and application of inquiry knowledge. The resulting construct, the assessment rubric for physics inquiry, is validated in this study. It distinguishes nineteen UOE divided over six phases of inquiry. Preliminary results suggesting a high degree of ecological validity are presented and evaluated. Several directions for future research are proposed.@en

Secondary school students often only use the rules for doing scientific inquiry when prompted, as if they fail to see the point of doing so. This qualitative design study explores conditions to address this problem in school science inquiry. Dutch students (N = 22, aged 14–15) repeatedly consider the quality of their work: in a conventional, guided inquiry approach; by evaluating their conclusion in terms of the contextual purpose of the investigation; as consumers of knowledge facing the (hypothetical) risk of applying the findings in the real world. By gauging students’ confidence in the inquiry’s trustworthiness, we established that, while each confrontation instigated some students to (re)consider the quality of their inquiry, the final stage had the greatest impact. Students came to see that finding trustworthy results is essential, requiring scientific standards. The scientific quality of their inquiries was described, weaknesses identified and compared with the improvements students themselves proposed for their inquiries. While the improvemens were expressed in non-specific terms these align with a scientific perspective. Students now wanted to find trustworthy answers by exploiting scientific standards. In enabling students to engage successfully in basic scientific inquiry, finding ways to establish students’ mental readiness for attending to the quality of their scientific claims, and of personalised scientific criteria for their assessment, is indispensable.

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Om de geringe leeropbrengst van practica te vergroten, ontwikkel en test ik in mijn promotieonderzoek een leerlijn onderzoeken. De activiteiten van deze leerlijn richten zich op
het ontwikkelen van de benodigde kennis en kritische houding om een onderzoek succesvol uit te voeren. In dit artikel bespreek ik de eerste stap: leerlingen prikkelen om überhaupt een goed onderzoek op te wíllen zetten.@en

As part of the final projects of our introductory lab course, students conceived experiments related to the umbrella topic of 'Physics of toys and sports' and carried out the experiments at their homes. This paper revisits two of these experiments described by student teams and illustrates how self-conceived experiments provide opportunities to truly engage students in doing science.

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Een experiment waarin de zwaartekrachtsversnelling centraal staat komt in bijna ieder jaar wel terug. Ik beschrijf hoe onderzoek naar de bijbehorende beweging zich kan ontwikkelen, startend met een kwalitatief demoexperiment en eindigend met het vaststellen van het vierde significante cijfer van g. Met het verschuiven van de jaren, schuift het leerdoel mee.@en

This paper explores students’ ability to analyse and interpret empirical data as inadequate data analysis skills and understandings may contribute to the renowned disappointing outcomes of practical work in secondary school physics. Selected competences, derived from a collection of leading curricula, are explored through interviews and practical tasks, each consisting of three probes. The 51 students, aged 15 and commencing post-compulsory science education in the Netherlands, were able to carry out basic skills such as collecting data and representing these. In interpreting the data in terms of the investigated phenomenon or situation however, performance was weak. Students often appeared to be unable to identify the crucial features of a given graph. Conclusions based on the data were often tautological or superficial, lacking salient features. Students failed to infer implications from the data, to interpret data at a higher level of abstraction, or to specify limitations to the validity of the analysis or conclusions. The findings imply that the students’ understanding of data-analysis should be developed further before they can engage successfully in more ‘open’ practical work. The study offers a collection of activities that may help to address the situation, suggesting a baseline for guided development of data analysis abilities.

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