National Science Foundation, $558,925, 2013-2017

The aim of the PHoTOnICs project is two-fold: 1) to design technology-based learning activities that seize on emerging digital devices, particularly tablet and mobile PCs of the kind that are quickly becoming widespread on college campuses and in many k-12 school settings, as resources for extending best practices in physics instruction emerging from research-based course reform efforts, and 2) to conduct research into the nature of student learning and collaborative interaction supported by those designs. The project builds on close partnerships with two innovative instructional sites: an introductory series of physics courses at UC Davis, and a diverse, urban middle/high school that has a focus on bridging formal and informal learning experiences through student-driven inquiry. Our project will work synergistically with both sites by equipping students with tablet-based tools and learning activity designs intended to support their collaborative inquiry practice and their understanding of physics concepts.

Designs: Waves, E-Fields, CathMag

Publications from this project:

• Hardy, L. & White, T. (2016). Making sense of making waves: Co-constructing knowledge and group understanding without conceptual convergence. In C.-K. Looi, J. Polman, U. Cress, & P. Reimann (Eds.), “Transforming learning, empowering learners,” Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2016. Singapore: National Institute of Education.
• Hardy, L. & White, T. (2015). Meaning-making in collaborative activity: Effort toward coherent, but not shared, interpretations of the problem. In T. Koschmann, P. Häkkinen, & P. Tchounikine (Eds.), “Exploring the material conditions of learning: opportunities and challenges for CSCL,” the Proceedings of the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Conference Gothenburg, Sweden: ISLS.