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Re: Ten Learning Principles - Worthwhile or Not?

I believe that it was Confucius who once said that
"All education experiments are doomed to success".

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
Where education research is always 100% successful


On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 00:24:08 -0600 Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV> writes:
Hi all-
There is a glaring difference between the educational
research
and the physics research the I have seen. The educational
exeriments seem
to be generally designed and conducted for the purpose of proving
the
correctness of an educational theory. Physics experiments are
generally
designed and conducted for the purpose of disproving a physical
theory.
That is why there are many experimental physics papers labeled
"Search for
..." (with the implication that the search was unsuccessful) and
the
result being an upper or lower bound on the value of some
conjectured
quantity (today's seminar comes to mind, the subject was proton
decay).
How many educational experimental papers have you seen where
the
proponent of a new educational theory reported on the unsuccess of
the
theory? Yet it is valuable to know the techniques that are
enthusiastically tried and don't work.
Regards,
Jack

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Richard Hake wrote:

Please excuse this cross-posting to discussion groups with
archives a=
t:

POD <http://listserv.nd.edu/archives/pod.html>,
PhysLrnR <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>,
Phys-L: <http://mailer.uwf.edu/archives/chemed-l.html>,
Chemed-L: <http://mailer.uwf.edu/archives/chemed-l.html>.

In his POD post of 23 Jan 2002 15:07:32 -0500 titled "Re: ten
learning principles- worthwhile or not?", Michael Chejlava wrote:

"Perhaps a technique called round-robin-testing that is used by
analytical chemists to measure the robustness of analytical
methods
would be useful here. . . . (in assessing the value of the "ten
learning principles" (see, e.g., AAHE et al. 1998, Potter 1998-99
and
the APPENDIX). . . . A robust method is one which can give
consistent
results in different labs, with different analysts, with a range of
sample types and even different makes and models of
instrumentation.
=2E . . . . . HAS ANYONE HEARD OF SUCH A SYSTEM BEING USED IN
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH? It would require that different instructors
at
different type of schools would teach similar courses and use a
standard set of assessment tools. Also, there would need to be
control class sections at most if not all of the sites for best
results. . . ." (My EMPHASIS.)

In answer to Michael's question "HAS ANYONE HEARD OF SUCH A
SYSTEM
BEING USED IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH?" The answer is "YES". Such "a
system" (a crucial component of the "scientific method") has been
used for several years in physics education research (PER).

In Hake (2002) (in the section "Can Educational Research be
Scientific Research") I wrote (see the article for the
references):

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
There has been a long-standing debate over whether education
research
can or should be "scientific" (e.g., PRO: Dewey 1929, 1966,
Anderson
et al. 1998, Bunge 2000, Redish 1999, Mayer 2000, 2001, Phillips
and
Burbules 2000, Phillips 2000; CON: Lincoln and Guba 1985, Sch=F6n
199=
5,
Eisner 1997, Lagemann 2000). In my opinion, substantive education
research must be "scientific" in the sense indicated below. My
biased
prediction (Hake 2000a) is that, for physics education research,
and
possibly even education research generally: (a) the bloody
"paradigm
wars" (Gage 1989) of education research will have ceased by the
year
2009, with, in Gage's words, a "productive rapprochement of the
paradigms," (b) some will follow paths of pragmatism or Popper's
"piecemeal social engineering" to this paradigm peace, as
suggested
by Gage, but (c) most will enter onto this "sunlit plain" from
the
path marked "scientific method" as practiced by most research
scientists:

1. "EMPIRICAL: Systematic investigation . . . (by quantitative,
qualitative, or any other means) . . . of nature to find
reproducible
patterns in the structure of things and the ways they change
(processes).

2. THEORETICAL: Construction and analysis of models representing
patterns of nature." (Hestenes 1999).

3. "Continual interaction, exchange, evaluation, and criticism so
as
to build a . . . . community map." (Redish 1999).

For the presently discussed research, the latter feature is
demonstrated by the fact that FCI. . .(Force Concept Inventory). .
.
normalized gain results for IE. . . (Interactive Engagement). .
.
and T . . . (Traditional). . . courses that are consistent with
those of Hake (1998a, 1998b, 1998c) have now been obtained by
physics
education research (PER) groups at the Univ. of Maryland (Redish
et
al. 1997, Saul 1998, Redish and Steinberg 1999, Redish 1999), the
University of Montana (Francis et al. 1998), Rennselaer and Tufts
Universities (Cummings et al. 1999), North Carolina State
University
(Beichner et al. 1999), Hogskolan Dalarna - Sweden (Bernhard
2001),
Carnegie Mellon University (Johnson 2001), and City College of
New
York (Steinberg and Donnelly 2002).

In addition, PER groups have now gone beyond the original survey
in
showing, for example, that (a) there may be significant
differences
in the effectiveness of various IE methods (Saul 1998, Redish
1999);
and (b) FCI data can be analyzed so as to show the distribution
of
incorrect answers in a class and thus indicate common incorrect
student models (Bao and Redish 2001).

Thus in physics education research, just as in traditional
physics
research, it is possible to perform quantitative experiments that
can
be reproduced (or refuted) and extended by other investigators,
and
thus contribute to the construction of a continually more refined
and
extensive "community map."
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>


REFERENCES
AAHE, American Association of Higher Education, American College
Personnel Association, National Association of Student Personnel
Administrators. 1998. "Powerful Partnerships: A Shared
Responsibility
for Learning," online at
<http://www.aahe.org/assessment/joint.htm>.

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Lessons from the physics education reform
effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>.

Potter, D.L. 1999. "Is George Mason a Learning-Centered
University?"
Inventio 1(1), online at
<http://www.doiiit.gmu.edu/Archives/feb98/potter.htm>.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
APPENDIX - TEN PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING: THE PRINCIPLE OF:

1. CONNECTEDNESS: Learning is fundamentally about making and
maintaining connections: biologically through neural networks;
mentally among concepts, ideas and meanings; and experientially
through interaction between the mind and the environment, self
and
other, generality and context, deliberation and action.

2. A COMPELLING SITUATION: Learning is enhanced by taking place
in
the context of a compelling situation that balances challenge and
opportunity, stimulating and utilizing the brain's ability to
conceptualize quickly and its capacity and need for contemplation
and
reflection upon experiences.

3. AN ACTIVE SEARCH FOR MEANING: Learning is an active search for
meaning by the learner-- constructing knowledge rather than
passively
receiving it, shaping as well as being shaped by experiences.

4. DEVELOPMENT AND HOLISM: Learning is developmental, a
cumulative
process involving the whole person, relating past and present,
integrating the new with the old, starting from but transcending
personal concerns and interests.

5. SOCIAL INTERACTION: Learning is done by individuals who are
intrinsically tied to others as social beings, interacting as
competitors or collaborators, constraining or supporting the
learning
process, and able to enhance learning through cooperation and
sharing=
.

6. THE LEARNING CLIMATE: Learning is strongly affected by the
educational climate in which it takes place: the settings and
surroundings, the influences of others, and the values accorded
to
the life of the mind and to learning achievements.

7. FEEDBACK AND USE: Learning requires frequent feedback if it is
to
be sustained, practice if it is to be nourished, and opportunities
to
use what has been learned.

8. INCIDENTAL LEARNING: Much learning takes place informally and
incidentally, beyond explicit teaching or the classroom, in
casual
contacts with faculty and staff, peers, campus life, active
social
and community involvements, and unplanned but fertile and complex
situations.

9. GROUNDEDNESS: Learning is grounded in particular contexts and
individual experiences, requiring effort to transfer specific
knowledge and skills to other circumstances or to more general
understandings and to unlearn personal views and approaches when
confronted by new information.

10. SELF-MONITORING: Learning involves the ability of individuals
to
monitor their own learning, to understand how knowledge is
acquired,
to develop strategies for learning based on discerning their
capacities and limitations, and to be aware of their own ways of
knowing in approaching new bodies of knowledge and disciplinary
frameworks.


--
"But as much as I love and respect you, I will beat you and I will
kill
you, because that is what I must do. Tonight it is only you and me,
fish.
It is your strength against my intelligence. It is a veritable
potpourri
of metaphor, every nuance of which is fraught with meaning."
Greg Nagan from "The Old Man and the Sea" in
<The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>



Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where it's nice to live but I wouldn't
want to be a tourist here)
herbgottlieb@juno.com