Measure of student understading (was Test writing)

[Brian McInnes <bmcinnes@PNC.COM.AU>]

on 28/4/02 11:59 AM, Tucker Hiatt at hiattu00@USFCA.EDU wrote:

> Could it be that all the thoughtful talk about different approaches
> to teaching ("physics modeling," "active physics," the
> "students-teaching-students" approach that you describe, etc.) all
> succumb to the rule of breadth vs. depth?  Let me even try to make it
> quantitative ...
>
> Let's suppose that students acquires a certain (non-negligible!)
> "volume" of understanding during a year-long physics course.
> Perhaps, for ANY sensible teaching method, the volume of the average
> student's ultimate understanding is given by
> V = kdA
> where:
> k = coefficient of teacher enthusiasm (dimensionless  ... and
> priceless for high values)
> d = average depth of topics taught (proportional to time spent per topic)
> A = breadth of topics taught (proportional to number of chapters "covered")

What Dick Hake's thorough investigations have shown is that k is pretty well
a constant for all levels of teacher enthusiasm.  This is almost certainly a
blow for the many of us who have approached teaching with enthusiasm and
have won high student evaluations and even awards for good teaching.  dick
has provided the figures that show that all that enthusiasm, all the spent
energy counts for very little, if for anything.

So, it seems we can drop the k from the relation.  All is not lost.  What
Hake has shown is that we can write.
V = scdA,
where
s = a measure of the student involvement in the learning process
c =  a measure of the curriculum material used (or, the way the student's
are involved in their learning).

Brian McInnes