Shay Sofer Doctorate 2007

Physics In guidance of: Prof. Bat Sheva Eylon

The “Physics and Industry” program is collaboration between schools, the science teaching department at the Weizmann Institute and the electro-optics industry. In this program, high-school physics students in the 11th-12th grade carry out throughout a year, a project concerned with an...

authentic design problem. They are mentored collaboratively by engineers, teachers and experts of systematic inventive thinking (SIT). The students study electrooptics, use SIT for divergent and convergent reasoning; run experiments; document the process in a portfolio; conclude with a working-model; and present the project in an oral matriculation examination. We have investigated aspects of students' learning such as the ability to offer alternative solutions; constraint-based decision making; coherence between task, methods and outcomes; knowledge of physics; and reflection about design and investigation processes. The results indicate that students advanced in all these aspects; had high success in the matriculation; and were very satisfied with the program's contribution.