Are Students Learning what you Think?

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Are Students Learning what you Think?

• Physics Education Research
• by John M. Clement

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Several Strands

• Elementary education
• Physics Education (HS college)
• General Science education
• Psychology (especially Piaget)
• Strands are intertwined and early ideas are now
  coming back.

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A brief History

• Robert Karplus Late 50s became interested in
  his childrens schooling. Left theoretical
  physics to develop SCIS curriculum for elementary
  school. It was research based.
• He along with Lawson and others developed the
  Learning Cycle

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Learning Cycle

• Exploration (inquiry labs)
• Concept development / term definition
• Application of concepts
• All 3 phases are necessary
• They must be in this order
• This improves content understanding and student
  thinking ability.

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Kinematics graphs

• Heather Brasell Late 80s
• Showed student Misconceptions with kinematics
  graphs
• Found labs using the sonic ranger improved
  understanding more than paper and pencil tasks.

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David Hestenes Malcolm Wells

• 1992 Hestenes Hallouin developed Force Concept
  Inventory (FCI)
• Test of conceptual understanding of mechanics.
• Wells developed Modeling Method of teaching
  physics in HS that gave better FCI scores.

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Lecturers at AZ State

• Theoretician, logical orderly, proofs
• Well prepared demos, highly conceptual
• Experimentalist, emphasized problem solving
• First time teacher followed book closely
• Same book, same content
• Which one got better FCI scores?

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Lectures

• All the same. All uniformly low.
• Higher scores were achieved by a course with
  minimal lectures using the learning cycle.
• CONCLUSION Conventional lectures, problem
  solving, demonstrations are not very effective.

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Richard Hake

• 1998 6000 student comparison
• Found that Normalized gain is independent of
  pretest
• G (post pre) / (max score pre)
• G is the fraction of
• Concepts understood / initially NOT

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Results

• Conventional courses
• 0 25 G
• Indirect measurement
• 10 G
• Interactive Engagement (research based)
• 30 70 G

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Thornton, Sokoloff, Laws

• Developed Forces Motion Conceptual Evaluation
  (FMCE)
• Very different from FCI because it is not all
  natural language and stresses graphs.
• Comparison of 2 exams show they track almost
  perfectly with a high correlations

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Why ?????????????

• Misconceptions taught natural
• Too much material (mile wide/inch deep)
• Lack of coherence in books/ standards
• Learning cycle not followed
• Miscommunication teachers say one thing /
  students hear something else.

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Solutions

• Follow a learning cycle approach
• Carefully targeted inquiry labs.
• Pre/Post test to see how well you do
• Engage students in doing thinking.

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Things that dont work

• Conventional demonstrations
• Conventional lectures
• Verification labs which just illustrate theory.
  Most published labs are verification.

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Where to look for solutions

• Modeling, AZ State - Hestenes
• Activity Based Physics Laws, Thornton, Sokoloff
• Tutorials, Inquiry physics, U. Washington
  McDermott et al
• Peer Instruction, Harvard - Mazur

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Lillian McDermott et. al.

• McDermott also investigated student understanding
  (U. Washington)
• Developed her own evaluations.
• Published Tutorials in Introductory Physics which
  improve both her evaluations and FCI/FMCE gain.

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McDermott method

• Predict Students must predict results
• Confront Experiment reveals misconceptions
  (Piagetian surprise)
• Resolve Students come up with explanations.
• This comes from Piagets ideas about how students
  learn!

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Interactive Lecture Demonstrations

• Published by Thornton Sokoloff
• Complete copyable student worksheets
• Complete teacher instructions.
• Must be followed, but not scripted.
• Follows McDermott predict, confront, resolve
  cycle.
• Students have prediction results sheet

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Sample ILD Question

• A massive heavy cart (truck) is pushed toward
  alight cart (car) that isnt moving. Describe in
  words how FT?C (force of truck on car) compares
  to FC?T (force of car on truck). Make a rough
  graph of the forces over time.

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Results
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Sequence

• Show and explain situation (concrete
  introduction)
• Gather student predictions (short time)
• Demonstrate Take data
• Students copy result
• Ask for student explanation
• Bridge to similar situations

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Effective Demonstrations

• Catherine Crouch Harvard
• Conventional demonstrations are extremely
  ineffective. But
• Student prediction of the result improves
  understanding.

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Peer Instruction Eric Mazur

• ACTIVE LECTURES
• Lecture for no more than 10 min
• Ask conceptual question
• Students vote in silence
• If enough get it right students discuss
• Students vote again
• Anonymous electronic voting helps!

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Real Time Physics Labs

• Thornton, Sokoloff
• Follow learning cycle and McDermott predict,
  confront, resolve cycle
• Shown to improve understanding even when
  instructor has never used them.
• Short cheap version called Tools for Scientific
  Thinking - Vernier

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Modeling AZ State

• Method of teaching
• Supplies complete materials
• Teachers experience curriculum materials
• Best developed training program
• Coherent curriculum/whiteboarding
• 4 weeks in summer in Tempe or at other locations.

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Preconceptions in Mechanics

• Clement Camp
• Uses Anchor Bridging analogies
• Start with well known correct intuition
• Bridge by a series of analogies to target
  conception.
• Copyable student WS.

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Minds on Physics

• Leonard et al Univ. Mass Amherst
• 6 volume activity based course
• Designed to enhance problem solving
• Teacher manual is extensive.
• NOT a workbook as students hand in separate
  sheets.
• Uses many techniques!

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What about problem solving?

• Improves some when conceptual understanding
  improves.
• Must be targeted as a separate skill
• Emphasize using concepts.

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Mechanics

• Students need to have multiple ways of looking at
  physics.
• Pictures
• Graphs
• Descriptions
• Equations
• Must translate between all 4

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Pictures

• Strobe or Motion Diagrams.

1. Is the Acceleration , 0, or - ?
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Students must

• Learn to interpret motion maps
• ---- Draw Motion maps
• ---- Draw graphs from motion maps
• Describe the motion completely
• Write equations from motion maps and graphs.
• And in reverse.

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General Thinking Skills?

• Recent evidence shows that they are hidden
  variables limiting physics learning.
• Anton Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific
  Thinking from his text Science Teaching and the
  Development of Thinking

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FMCE gain vs Thinking skill
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Lawson Test

• Tests general skills such as proportional
  reasoning, 2 variable reasoning
• Only 25 of regular students have proportional
  reasoning
• 75 of honors students have proportional
  reasoning.
• Scores on this test need to be targeted.