Freek Pols published a frontline article: Collaborative data collection: shifting focus on meaning making during practical work

News - 06 February 2023 - Communication ImPhys

Freek Pols published a frontline article: Collaborative data collection: shifting focus on meaning making during practical work. Frontline articles are short papers which feature good, immediately useful ideas for the classroom or the laboratory. In this paper he presents, together with a high school teacher, an approach to practical work in which data collection is minimized freeing time for the more cognitive demanding tasks such as data-analysis and drawing conclusions.

Abstract:
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.