Various scholars recommend the use of open inquiry for good reason: As students make methodological decisions themselves and evaluate the quality of these, they gain a better picture of what doing science entails and learn more and better. However, simply asking students to come up with their own research question and methods and then to design their experimental setup poses insuperable difficulties for novices (note that PhD students and postdocs also receive guidance!). A gradual and segmented approach to teaching inquiry and to open inquiry seems therefore a more appropriate teaching strategy. Here we describe and review our approach to open inquiry—especially the final project in which students conceive their own experiment. To illustrate and evaluate this approach, one student team presents their experiment and reflects on their process and perceived learning gains. Through their experiences, we examine how our approach to open-ended experiments helps students develop expertise in the cognitive tasks of experimental physics while providing support as they navigate the challenges of inquiry-based experimentation. ... Read more

Suppose you are suddenly assigned to a bare classroom far from the location of your nice laboratory classroom, or you have to substitute in another class without preparation... Or you are teaching at a school without facilities... How can you still have a clear and exciting lesson?

This booklet presents a collection of small and quick demonstrations, which require no equipment beyond what is present in a common classroom (chalk, chairs, students, books, paper, student bags and common contents). The collection can be easily expanded. The nature of the demos is varied, some are to prove something, but most are to illustrate, visualize, or simulate. A few role-plays are included for when students are restless, cold, or sleepy, or for when their instructor needs a kick to get into a better mood after a late night of checking students’ papers. ... Read more

The introduction of transformative generative open AI (GenAI) has impacted science education, presenting opportunities for students and teachers to enhance teaching and learning efficiency. Equally GenAI poses challenges, including risks such as plagiarism and superficial engagement with content. Science teacher education programs play a key role in the way these opportunities are realized and how challenges are dealt with through educating the future generation of science teachers. Science teacher educators face the challenge to remodel their teaching program to showcase how GenAI is used appropriately. Their student teachers face the challenge of working with GenAI in their own learning, but also in their classroom teaching where their students in secondary education might be using GenAI. This interview study explored how science teacher educators and student-science teachers in the teacher training programs of the four technical universities in The Netherlands envisage the potential impact of GenAI on university science teacher education. Few of the teacher educators had actually used GenAI, compared to the number of student teachers that had used GenAI. Potential uses for GenAI in science teacher education and for science teaching in general were identified, as well as desired new learning goals. A strong need for a policy on the use of GenAI was expressed, including a need for clear guidelines and rules. The conclusion presents possible design characteristics for science teacher education to benefit from the advent of GenAI and circumvent associated risks. ... Read more

Investigating first-year physics students' ability to draw proper conclusions, we analysed 87 conclusions from the same experiment. Through rankings by teaching assistants we identified seven key elements of effective conclusions. These findings reveal a significant gap in students' skills, with about half of the conclusions deemed inadequate. This study underscores the necessity for targeted educational interventions to enhance conclusion-drawing capabilities in physics education. The set of seven elements might provide guidance to improve students' ability to draw proper conclusions. ... Read more

Wave-particle duality is included in many secondary school and university physics curricula as a concept central to quantum physics. The very term wave-particle duality suggests that a firm grasp of the individual classical concepts of wave and particle is crucial to studying quantum mechanics successfully. This raises the question whether students' mental models of these concepts are sufficiently addressed and developed prior to the teaching of wave-particle duality. We explored Dutch upper secondary school students' mental models of waves and particles using a short questionnaire. It was administered to a total of 147 students from two different groups. One group consisted of secondary school students prior to receiving formal education in introductory quantum mechanics while students from the other group had recently completed the Dutch national curriculum for pre-university education, which includes wave-particle duality. Our findings support the notion that students model classical particles and waves as mutually exclusive phenomena. Mental models of wave-particle duality, which require mixing the two classical models, appear to be only superficially developed. Our findings open avenues for future research on students' mental models of waves and particles as basis for wave-particle duality. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

Dertig jaar geleden verscheen in NVOX een artikel van Jaap Buning en Ed van den Berg: ‘Practicum, leren ze er wat?’ De kernboodschap: practica zouden veel leerzamer zijn als ze efficiënt op leren gericht waren. Dat artikel is nog altijd (terecht) verplichte kost in de meeste lerarenopleidingen. Maar is hun boodschap nog actueel? Door de uitspraken van een leerlinge te analyseren en concrete, simpele en laagdrempelige manieren toe te voegen, bespreken we opnieuw hoe je practica leerzamer kunt maken. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

This manual is primarily designed for and by teachers for use in education, but should be a useful resource for anyone interested in creating and collaborating on Jupyter book. Our aim is to provide a simple way to start book-making for new users (it only takes 10 clicks!) through advanced usage for experienced users. We hope you find this resource useful and refer back to it often. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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! ... Read more

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. ... Read more