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Physical Review Physics Education Research
written by Hannah C. Sabo and Andrew Elby
[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] This paper proposes the rethinking of the division of labor between physics education research curriculum developers and classroom instructors. Historically, both curriculum developers and instructors have taken responsibility for fostering students' conceptual development, epistemological development, and other learning goals related to physics content knowledge and practices or process skills. By contrast, responsibility for fostering productive group dynamics has been taken up almost entirely by instructors. Tutorial and lab developers structure their materials to be used in small groups, but have not generally designed, tested, and refined their materials to minimize problematic group dynamics. In this paper, we argue that the written tutorial can and should do more to prevent negative group dynamics from arising. To make this claim plausible, we describe an example from our own experience. While revising a tutorial, we noticed some problematic dynamics emerging; one of the students was unfairly blamed for a simulation-setting mistake and was later left out of a conversation. We came up with hypotheses about factors that might have contributed to those dynamics. A few of those factors, we argue, could be addressed in part through tutorial revision. While acknowledging that instructors will always have more capacity and hence more responsibility than curriculum writers to foster productive group dynamics, we call for tutorial writers, during the testing and revision of their materials, to monitor how the tutorial impacts team dynamics and to be transparent (in publications and presentations) about how they modified the tutorial to address problematic dynamics they observed.

Editor's Note: see Related Materials for a link to the full APS special collection on curriculum development, in which this paper was published.
Physical Review Physics Education Research: Volume 16, Issue 2, Pages 020142
Subjects Levels Resource Types
Astronomy
- Astronomy Education
= Education Research
- Fundamentals
= Gravity
Education - Applied Research
- Active Learning
= Cooperative Learning
- Instructional Material Design
= Simulation
General Physics
- Physics Education Research
- Lower Undergraduate
- Reference Material
= Article
PER-Central Types Intended Users Ratings
- Curriculum
- Curriculum / Pedagogy Guide
- Educators
- Professional/Practitioners
- Researchers
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License:
This material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Rights Holder:
American Physical Society
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142
NSF Number:
DUE-1245400
Record Creator:
Metadata instance created May 12, 2021 by Bruce Mason
Record Updated:
October 20, 2022 by Caroline Hall
Last Update
when Cataloged:
December 4, 2020
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Record Link
AIP Format
H. Sabo and A. Elby, , Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16 (2), 020142 (2020), WWW Document, (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142).
AJP/PRST-PER
H. Sabo and A. Elby, Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16 (2), 020142 (2020), <https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142>.
APA Format
Sabo, H., & Elby, A. (2020, December 4). Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics. Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res., 16(2), 020142. Retrieved December 1, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142
Chicago Format
Sabo, Hannah C., and Andrew Elby. "Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics." Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, no. 2, (December 4, 2020): 020142, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142 (accessed 1 December 2023).
MLA Format
Sabo, Hannah C., and Andrew Elby. "Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics." Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16.2 (2020): 020142. 1 Dec. 2023 <https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142>.
BibTeX Export Format
@article{ Author = "Hannah C. Sabo and Andrew Elby", Title = {Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics}, Journal = {Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.}, Volume = {16}, Number = {2}, Pages = {020142}, Month = {December}, Year = {2020} }
Refer Export Format

%A Hannah C. Sabo %A Andrew Elby %T Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics %J Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. %V 16 %N 2 %D December 4, 2020 %P 020142 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142 %O application/pdf

EndNote Export Format

%0 Journal Article %A Sabo, Hannah C. %A Elby, Andrew %D December 4, 2020 %T Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics %J Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. %V 16 %N 2 %P 020142 %8 December 4, 2020 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020142


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Rethinking the division of labor between tutorial writers and instructors with respect to fostering equitable team dynamics:

Is Part Of Curriculum Development: Theory into Design

A link to the full APS special collection on curriculum development, published 2020.

relation by Caroline Hall

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