•  
  •  
 

Abstract

This action research study investigated the impact of teaching physics using a disciplinary literacy framework for instruction across all units in one academic year. Through a suite of vocabulary strategies and lessons that encourage students to write, speak, draw, mathematically translate, and design experiments, students learn to do physics by approximating problems and tasks like physicists. The data from this study suggests that students who exhibit these physicist-like disciplinary literacy behaviors may perform better on math-based assessments so long as they employ disciplinary literacy strategies while problem solving. By teaching via a disciplinary literacy framework, the classroom may become more student-driven where disciplinary literacy behaviors are observable which may result in higher scores on teacher evaluation instruments that favor student-driven instruction. While students that exhibit disciplinary literacy behaviors seem to perform better at math-based problem solving tasks, the relationship between phenomena visualization and corresponding mathematical fluency is less clear and requires further research.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.