Elementary and middle school teachers often find that teaching science is a special challenge, and often they lack relevant science content knowledge. The challenge may be particularly daunting when they begin to teach student-centered science as recommended in the National Science Education Standards. Since teachers usually teach as they have been taught, it is important to provide future teachers with models of student-centered teaching in the context of undergraduate science courses. Implementing such models has been a major objective of the Kansas Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation, and to that end KCETP supported the design of a physics laboratory course to accompany a one-semester physics lecture course at the University of Kansas. The target audience was future elementary and middle school teachers.

Kansas State University, our partner in the Collaborative, was the source of a functioning example of a student-centered physics course at the undergraduate level. Over a period of two decades, Dean Zollman and other physics educators at KSU have established an introductory physics course for majors in elementary education. The KSU adaptation of the Learning Cycle sequence to classes of approximately 100 students depends on a schedule of two weekly laboratory sessions coordinated with three lectures. Laboratory sessions are completed in an open, teaching assistant-monitored laboratory at times chosen individually by each student. Students attend a laboratory session and complete simple exploration activities sometime in the early part of the week. This occurs before the Wednesday lecture that serves as the concept definition phase. Expansion occurs after the Wednesday lecture and includes a more challenging laboratory session and another lecture on Friday. Thus each week of the semester is devoted to a Learning Cycle directed at understanding a major physics concept.

The situation at the University of Kansas was much different than that at KSU: the lecture course did not include laboratory activities, and space in the physics department for such activities was very limited. However, the KU physics department agreed to work with KCETP to establish a small-scale laboratory course that would adopt elements of the KSU course: Learning Cycles, twice-weekly laboratory sessions, and alignment with National Science Education Standards. Necessary modifications were moving the concept definition to laboratory sessions and a commitment to the use of familiar equipment and materials that would normally be available to elementary and middle school teachers

The laboratory course was piloted with a group of five student volunteers during the Spring 2000 semester. Design research conducted during the course pilot drew on 1) student products, 2) written student feedback, 3) instructor's notes, and 4) exit interviews. The results led to modifications in the course that included greater alignment with the lecture course and the addition of a website. The website featured pre- and post-lab assignments that led to more effective use of laboratory time. Now in its third iteration, refinement of the course continues, and the website has become an important part of the Learning Cycles.