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Re: assessments/pedagogy/curriculum



HEAR, HEAR!

Rick Tarara said:
The ongoing discussions about the FCI and the relative merits of
various pedagogical techniques suggests to me that what has been
happening is the following:

1) Physics Educational Research (PER) became painfully aware through a
couple of diagnostic tests that conceptual understanding of some basic
areas was lacking in intro-level classes.
2) A lot of work has been done to find ways to correct that, but most
of those ways use the SAME diagnostic tests to determine their success.
3) The success of these new techniques to produce higher scores on the
diagnostic tests impresses people who adopt the techniques--but at the
same time are forced to adopt a more limited curriculum in order to
accommodate the time intensive techniques.

I fear that what is going on here is that the ASSESSMENT TOOLS [whether
good or bad--that's another debate] have driven the pedagogy. That is,
the pedagogy is calibrated to TEACH TO THE TESTS. This in itself is
not necessarily bad--providing that the tests are really good and
really comprehensive [here is where we could get into over the FCI.]

The _real_ problem that I see, is that the above process is also
driving the curriculum--and that is backwards! To score well on the
FCI one needs to spend much more than the typical one week of older
courses dealing with Newton's Laws. Likewise the time is stretched for
dealing with basic electrical forces, with geometrical optics, etc.
Meanwhile we see things like thermo (especially calorimetry), fluids,
etc. disappearing from the curriculum. As seems to be the case in the
AP world and now in the proliferation of state testings, it is the
TESTERS who are driving curriculum. I see AP teachers asking 'Are
fluids still on the AP test?' meaning that if they aren't, then the
teacher won't cover that
material--regardless of the importance to a comprehensive
intro-curriculum.

I don't know about others, but I have a curriculum, I teach to that
curriculum, and THEN I assess the student's understand of what has been
covered. I rework the assessment tools constantly to match what we've
covered rather than covering what is on a fixed assessment tool. [But
I still resent having to somehow convince North Central that I do that!
;-( ]

A suggestion to the PER community would be to stop being obsessed with
FCI scores and start thinking about a coherent, comprehensive
curriculum for intro-level classes--perhaps one for the HS level and
one for the College level (I very seldom get students in an
intro-college course who haven't taken a HS physics course--so these
could overlap and mesh without being identical.) Such curricula should
not be technique constrained--only work with modeling, only work with a
studio course, etc. The curricula should also serve a well thought
out, explicitly stated educational goal for the students. If one is to
spend much of a semester to attain deep
understanding of Newton's Laws, then justify that goal in terms of the
student's full education and in light of other possible goals.

Just my thoughts,

Rick Tarara

*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
********************************************************
Free Physics Educational Software (Win & Mac)
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
NEW: Friction and Work lab simulations.
********************************************************


Daryl L. Taylor, Fizzix Guy
PAEMST '96
Williamstown HS, NJ
www.DarylScience.com
609.330.9571

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