• Open Access

Communities of practice as a curriculum design theory in an introductory physics class for engineers

Paul W. Irving, Daryl McPadden, and Marcos D. Caballero
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, 020143 – Published 4 December 2020
An article within the collection: Curriculum Development: Theory into Design

Abstract

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] The communities of practice framework has become an essential framework for understanding identity development both in physics education research (PER) and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, more broadly. However, the use of communities of practice as a learning theory that informs curriculum design is significantly less prevalent within the PER community. One possible reason for this is that communities of practice as a theory originated in professional environments and it subsequently moved towards a framework that is centered around informing management practices. Some significant interpretations and negotiations need to be completed in order to apply and to design for communities of practice in the classroom environment. In this paper, we outline an introductory physics course called Projects and Practices in Physics (P-Cubed) that was designed using the communities of practice as a guiding framework. We present the curriculum decisions that focus specifically on the adaption process from professional practice to the classroom context along with the theoretical underpinnings of the curriculum design decisions that went into the development of the P-Cubed classroom.

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  • Received 9 July 2019
  • Accepted 9 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020143

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics Education Research

Collections

This article appears in the following collection:

Curriculum Development: Theory into Design

A special collection on theory and design of curriculum.

Authors & Affiliations

Paul W. Irving1, Daryl McPadden1, and Marcos D. Caballero1,2,3

  • 1Department of Physics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 2CREATE for STEM Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 3CCSE, Department of Physics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1048 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway

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Issue

Vol. 16, Iss. 2 — July - December 2020

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