Abstract

We investigated a group of physics majors solving a creative problem in the context of a course on conceptual physics and children's thinking adapted from the Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum. In addition to learning conceptual physics, course participants discussed the ways that elementary and middle school students learn physics and their common pre-instructional ideas and models of physics phenomena. To explore group performance, research participants were asked to collaboratively design a physics learning activity with at least two questions either for elementary, middle or high school level. Participants' discussion was audio recorded, and analyzed with attention to emergent themes of the problem solving process. Next, we used a model of group effectiveness to identified the degree to which the group met the conditions for effective performance. Results suggest the group decided the content and questions for the task following a creative process where they generated ideas on the structure of the problem and its scientific narrative, while also making decision regarding targeted students age, what these would do when facing the problem, and engaged in the process of requesting ideas and information. These processes shaped the conditions for effectiveness, which enabled a deep understanding on the team's dynamic.