General relativity in upper secondary school: Design and evaluation of an online learning environment using the model of educational reconstruction

Abstract

Because of its abstract nature, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is rarely present in school physics curricula. Although the educational community has started to investigate ways of bringing general relativity to classrooms, field-tested educational material is rare. Employing the model of educational reconstruction, we present a collaborative online learning environment that was introduced to final year students (18-19 years old) in six Norwegian upper secondary physics classrooms. Design-based research methods guided the development of the learning resources, which were based on a sociocultural view of learning and a historical-philosophical approach to teaching general relativity. To characterize students' learning from and interaction with the learning environment we analyzed focus group interviews and students' oral and written responses to assigned problems and discussion tasks. Our findings show how design choices on different levels can support or hinder understanding of general relativity, leading to the formulation of design principles that help to foster qualitative understanding and encourage collaborative learning. The results indicate that upper secondary students can obtain a qualitative understanding of general relativity when provided with appropriately designed learning resources and sufficient scaffolding of learning through interaction with teacher and peers.

‘I loved exploring a new dimension of reality’ – a case study of middle-school girls encountering Einsteinian physics in the classroom

“…To take such a broad perspective on EP instruction and to examine its educational impact, researchers have started to investigate students' learning of and encounter with EP broadly from two different angles. One body of literature maps students' conceptual challenges, content knowledge and long-term retention (Baldy, 2007;Choudhary et al, 2020;Dimitriadi & Halkia, 2012;Kamphorst et al, 2019;Kaur et al, 2020b;Kersting et al, 2018;Stadermann & Goedhart, 2020). The other body of literature explores students' attitudes, motivation, and personal engagement with EP topics (Johansson, 2018;Johansson et al, 2018;Levrini & Fantini, 2013;Vetleseter Bøe et al, 2018).…”

Exploring participant engagement during an astrophysics virtual reality experience at a science festival

“…The first observation of gravitational waves in 2015 has led to an increased public interest in astronomy and has brought a new educational focus on the field as well (Key & Hendry, 2016). This focus presents enormous opportunities and substantial responsibility for science educators because astronomy is a learning domain in which concepts are notoriously difficult to visualise (Azevedo & Mann, 2018;De Hosson et al, 2014;Eriksson et al, 2014;Kersting, 2020;Kersting et al, 2018). We have no direct experience of astronomical phenomena such as gravitational waves.…”

“…Therefore, these phenomena often present learners with imaginative challenges (Steier & Kersting, 2019). Moreover, the nature of many astronomical phenomena seems to be counterintuitive or even contradictory to our previous knowledge of the world (Kersting et al, 2018). Besides, topics of astronomy challenge us because of the vast scale of the Universe and its multidimensionality (Bakas & Mikropoulos, 2003;Conlon et al, 2018;Eriksson et al, 2014;Kersting, 2020).…”

Metaimagining and Embodied Conceptions of Spacetime

“…While in recent years physicists and science educators have argued for introducing general relativity to undergraduate and high school curricula, initial efforts to do so have mostly focused on the development of teaching approaches rather than to look at students' experiences and learning processes (eg. Kaur, Blair, Moschilla, Stannard, & Zadnik, 2017;Kersting, Henriksen, Bøe, & Angell, 2018;Stannard, 2018;Velentzas & Halkia, 2013). Consequently, student meaning making processes, including the role of imagination and its emergence, have been largely overlooked.…”