Instructional Guides and Lesson Plan/Notes of selected physics topics taught with Cubing and Cognitively Guided Instructional Strategies
Description
The instructional guides and lesson plans/notes were developed as part of a study that examined the comparative effects of the cognitivists versus the constructivists instructional approaches on students' learning outcomes. Specifically, the study investigated how varying levels of student autonomy during instructional activities impact attitudes toward physics, building on Okeke et al.’s (2023, 2024) research. Two instructional strategies that mirrors the cognitivists and constructivists approaches to instruction were adapted for the study. These strategies are the Cognitively Guided, and Cubing Instructional Strategies. CGIS is a student-centred, guided inquiry method that leverages students’ prior experiences to foster understanding in science and mathematics. Developed by Carpenter and Fennema in the 1980s, CGIS builds on students' innate knowledge to enhance problem-solving skills and deep conceptual understanding. Through dialogue and problem-solving, CGIS helps broaden students’ existing knowledge base, encouraging them to explore different approaches while discussing with peers and teachers (Moscardini, 2014; Sencibaugh et al., 2016). CGIS utilizes "advance organizers," which link new concepts to students' existing cognitive frameworks, helping integrate new ideas into familiar patterns. On the other hand, CIS was designed to develop students' cognitive abilities by encouraging them to examine concepts from various perspectives. Originating from poetry, this versatile strategy prompts students to explore a topic through six perspectives, fostering a multi-faceted understanding. The six perspectives proposed by Nazario (2013) include: • Description: Imagining and detailing the topic. • Compare/Contrast: Identifying similarities or differences with other concepts. • Association: Relating the topic to everyday experiences. • Analysis: Breaking down the topic to understand its parts. • Application: Identifying practical uses. • Creation: Clarifying understanding through evaluative responses. In physics classrooms, the CIS perspectives allow students to gain a better understanding by describing, comparing, associating, analysing, applying, and creating knowledge. By guiding students through these perspectives, CIS enhances their conceptual engagement and encourages knowledge construction, providing an effective pathway for learning physics. The Guides and Lesson Plans/Notes therefore shows the actions taken during the implementation of the study's objectives. Guidelines were developed to create a structured framework for implementing lesson plans. They were developed and validated by Okeke et al. (2023) and Okeke et al. (2024) with reliability indices of 0.76 for GCGIS, 0.74 for GCIS and 0.71 for the GCTCS. The Guidelines and the Lesson Plan/Notes detailing what was done during the implementation of the intervention would be made available on request.