Lessons from pendulums: A design comparison of three lab activities

We present three versions of a pendulum lab activity to explore how theoretical commitments, motivations, and aspirations are reflected in curriculum design. In earlier work, Boudreaux and Elby [How curriculum developers’ cognitive theories influence curriculum development, ] discussed how different theoretical perspectives led them to different designs of tutorials. Here, we discuss our finding that even starting from the same theoretical perspective and having similar goals for students can lead to differences in design. We give three interacting reasons why our labs diverge: We have different expectations of students at our respective institutions; we have different ancillary goals; and we draw different implications from our shared theoretical commitments. Our account demonstrates the complexity of the relationship between theory, goals, and curriculum design. In this way, it adds to prior arguments for the importance of designers’ articulating the reasoning for their choices as well as for the possible value of instructors’ responsive adaptations to curricula.