Evaluation Strategies: Teaching Students to Assess Consistency

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that introductory physics courses should help students develop general scientific reasoning abilities that transform them into lifelong learners, preparing them for careers and citizenship in a rapidly evolving world. Despite the sometimes daunting nature of this challenge, activities developed by various physics education researchers have demonstrated that it is, in fact, an achievable goal. Although some of these activities require specific course formats that may not be feasible for every instructor, this is not uniformly true. In this article, I describe the design and use of activities that may be used within an introductory algebra-based physics course of any format to encourage the development of students' evaluation abilities.