Research-Based Teaching-Learning Sequences in Physics Education: A Rising Line of Research

Abstract

In recent decades, research on physics teaching has contributed to improving the design and evaluation of instructional materials in physics courses. In this chapter, we first present a brief review of research on the design and implementation of Teaching/Learning Sequences, the achievements and problems that persist. A common weakness of many research-based curriculum development projects and articles published in PER is that they often lack a detailed explanation of the implicit and explicit decisions made in relation to design and implementation. This common weakness probably limits the impact of published work in this area of PER, and perhaps also limits the ability of individual researchers to build on each other's work. In the following, we present design-based research (DBR) as a methodology to make the development of research-based TLS more transparent. DBR provides a “bridge” between empirical and theoretical research findings on students' understanding of specific physics content, and the design and evaluation of classroom instruction aimed at improving students' learning of that content. We describe the elements that make up DBR and propose several “design tools” that could support physics teachers and physics education researchers in the development of TLS. We conclude by discussing the contributions of design-based research and new perspectives.