Blogging in the Physics Classroom

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Blogging in the Physics Classroom

• Gintaras K. Duda
• Katherine Garrett

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The Hidden Curriculum

• Wed like our students to leave liking physics.
• But it goes beyond this!
• To use a JITT phrase, we want students to see
  what physics is good-for

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What do Students Learn in Introductory Physics?

• What students do well
• Memorize formulae
• Learn problem solving techniques which they
  regurgitate on exams
• Solve simple problems which have limited
  applicability in the real world
• What they dont get
• A richer understanding of physics.

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From the MPEX Survey

• MPEX1 survey probes student attitudes, beliefs,
  and assumptions about physics
• In all cases, the result of instruction on the
  overall survey was an increase in unfavorable
  responses and a decrease in favorable responses
  ... Thus instruction produced an average
  deterioration rather than an improvement of
  student expectations."
• 1E. Redish, J. Saul, and R. Steinberg, Student
  expectations in introductory
• physics," Am. J. Phys. 66, 212-224 (1998).

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Attitude II Survey

• Zeilik et al. devised an active-learning
  approach to introductory astronomy at University
  of New Mexico
• Found little change over each semester in
  students mildly positive incoming attitudes
  about astronomy and science.

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The CLASS1 Survey

• A relatively new instrument designed to measure
  student attitudes in introductory physics courses
  over a wide range of categories such as personal
  interest, real world connections and sense making
• They found
• most teaching practices cause substantial
• drops in student scores
• 1W. Adams et al., New instrument for measuring
  student beliefs about
• physics and learning physics The Colorado
  Learning Attitudes about
• Science Survey," Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.
  2, 010101 (2006).

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Is Physics Unique?

• Other disciplines have begun worrying about
  student attitudes
• CLASS instrument was modified and used in an
  intro chemistry course
• results indicated that shifts after instruction
  were similar to, if not worse than, in physics in
  moving in the unfavorable direction
• UNIVERSAL PROBLEM!

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The Problem

• Students come out of introductory physics courses
  less interested in the subject than when they
  started.
• Students see physics as a random assortment of
  facts and equations.
• Students have only a vague idea how the physics
  they learn relates to the world around them.
• Students dont come away understanding how
  physics is used in the real world or how its
  practiced as a science.

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Why Worry about Attitude?

• Educational research has shown learning is
  intrinsically linked with student attitude and
  expectations.
• See for example
• A. Schoenfeld
• T. Koballa and F. Crawley

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The Solution?

• A course blog for introductory physics at
  Creighton University.
• The blog would
• Give real world examples of physics
• Relate the classroom to the outside world
• Show how physics principles relate to other
  disciplines
• Show whats interesting about physics

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Why a Blog?

• New technology which appeals to students
• Ferdig and Trammel have some good stuff to say
• Using blogs in a different educational setting,
  Brownstein and Klein report
• Blogs appear to be a powerful tool to help begin
  addressing the hidden curriculum

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Our Question

• Can a course blog in a general physics class in
  which real world examples of physics are provided
  to students stop or at least ameliorate the
  deterioration in attitude after instruction as
  measured by the MPEX, CLASS, and Attitude II
  instruments?

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The Blog CU General Physics I
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Why Blogger? Its free and easy to use. No
campus support issues. www.blogger.com
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Posts are compiled and can be edited or deleted
as wished.
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Student comments were collected by using
haloscan. Free and superior to bloggers
comments.
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Blog Posts by Subject Area
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A typical Blog Post
Students learn about how friction works in the
real-world by reading about how Geckos scale
walls. Microscopic attraction!
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Did the Blog Work?

• 26 question Likert-scale attitudinal survey
• Modified version of Zeiliks Attitude II survey
• Pre and post testing
• Examines
• Attitude toward physics
• Cognitive competence and confidence
• Perception of difficulty
• Value of physics to students lives (referred to
  as reality link questions)

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Reality Link questions

• Some examples
• Physics is irrelevant to my life
• What I learn in physics this semester will not
• be useful in my career
• Physics is not useful in my everyday life
• I will (or do) look at the world differently
  after taking this class

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Breakdown of Semesters

• Semester Section Number of Students
  Participated in Blog Study
• Fall 2005 A 31 yes
• B 27 yes
• C 32 no (control group)
• D 24 no (control group)
• Spring 2006 A 36 yes
• B 35 yes
• C 33 yes
• D 25 yes
• Fall 2006 A 33 yes
• B 34 yes
• C 30 yes
• D 28 yes
• Spring 2007 A 33 yes

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Fall 2005
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Spring 2006 Results
Results from reality-link" questions for the
attitudinal survey. Based on a samples-dependent
t-test. The difference between the blog and
non-blog reading groups was not-statistically
significant for the pre-test but statistically
significant with p lt 0.001 for the post-test.
Scores have been normalized so that 50
represents a neutral response on the Likert-style
attitudinal survey.
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Conclusions

• A blog seemed to be a powerful way to reach
  students and address the hidden curriculum
• Students responded positively
• Learned how physics applies in the real-world
• For many their favorite component of the course
• Students who read and posted to the blog
  maintained their initially positive attitudes
• Paper to AJP!

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Whats Next

• Blogging can affect attitude
• Need to show the effect on student learning
• This is where we need help!

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Ideas

• Standard assessment exams are given in general
  physics
• weak correlation with attitude
• gain may correlate better
• Link blog to exam questions?
• New assessment instrument for reality link
  concepts?

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Slides for Questions
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Sample Student Comments

• I am a very big fan of baseball. So, I went to
  the website about the physics of baseballs, and
  the line why do bats break caught my attention.
  I found out that the force that can act on a bat
  are in the range of 6,000-10,000lbs and happened
  in the time span of 1/1000 of a second. Because
  of this great force, lots of vibrations are
  produced, and some bats break. Also, this is the
  reason why in a major league baseball game a ball
  is only used for 4-5 pitches! I knew that they
  changed balls a lot, but I never knew why. Its
  amazing that so many things have to due with
  physics!
• General Physics Student 1 09.20.05 - 820 pm

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• With the rise of technological advancements, I
  guess that I just assumed that functions by a
  shower head and gas nozzle were simply based in
  some sort of computerized mechanisms. I never
  really stopped to actually think about it- I
  guess I simply took these simple pleasures for
  granted. Once again, the weekly posted blog has
  made me examine the functions of everyday life
  more closely and ask "why?" For me, these blogs
  have provided concrete examples of the physics
  that surrounds me...instead of it just being a
  subject represented by some abstract equations.
• General Physics Student 2 11.06.05 - 1214 am

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Data Analysis

• Because of the difficulty in interpreting 5-pt
  Likert scale data we performed two analyses
• 1) group the value or reality-link questions
  and perform a dependent samples t-test (as
  interval data)
• 2) use an agree-disagree binomial analysis
  (treating our data as ordinal data)

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Agree-Disagree Plots

• Introduced by Redish et al. in their MPEX paper -
  called Redish plots

Change from pre to post must be gt 2s to be
considered significant (at 5 probability level)