In her POD post of 1 Aug 2003 13:12:18-0500 titled "Student
Engagement," Mary Rose Grant wrote:
"Where can I get the best information on student engagement and some
suggested exercises for faculty that get them thinking student
engagement and interactivity?"
I hate to sound like a broken record, but immodestly suggest
consideration of Hake (1998a,b; 2002a). In Hake (2002b) I wrote (see
that article for the references):
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
More recently normalized gain differences between T [Traditional] and
IE [Interactive Engagement] courses that are consistent with the
work of Hake (1998a,b,c; 2002a,b,c,d) have been reported by Redish et
al. (1997); Saul (1998); Francis et al. (1998); Redish & Steinberg
(1999); Redish (1999); Beichner et al. (1999); Cummings et al.
(1999); Novak et al. (1999); Beichner et al. (2000); Bernhard (2000);
Crouch & Mazur (2001); Johnson (2001); Meltzer (2002a,b,c); Meltzer &
Manivannan (2002); Savinainen & Scott (2002a,b); Steinberg and
Donnelly (2002); Fagan et al. (2002); and Van Domelen & Van Heuvelen
(2002).
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
In Hake (1998a), I OPERATIONALLY defined [even despite the
antipositivist vigilantes (Phillips 2000, Chapter 9 "Positivism")]
" 'Interactive Engagement' (IE) methods as those designed at least in
part to promote conceptual understanding through interactive
engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually)
activities which yield immediate feedback through discussion with
peers and/or instructors, all as judged by their literature
descriptions."
In my opinion, a good way to get faculty "thinking about student
engagement and interactivity" is to show them the above evidence that
it promotes student learning much more effectively than traditional
passive-student lectures.
Such evidence is often hidden from the view of those who gauge course:
(a) cognitive impact (as opposed to affective impact) only by student
evaluations [for a discussion see Hake (2002c)], or
(b) cognitive impact by faculty-designed course exams [for a
discussion see Hake (2003c)].
Even despite the disdain [see e.g. Hake (2001)] of pre/post testing
of many in the psychology/education/psychometric (PEP) community, and
its inexplicable dismissal by the NRC's CUSE (Committee on
Undergraduate Education) [Hake (2003a,b,c)], pre/post testing with
high quality standardized tests is beginning to gain a foothold in
undergraduate education. This movement, though relatively recent, has
already led to evidence for the superiority or interactive engagement
methods in fields other than physics [see e.g., for astronomy Zeilik
et al. (1999); for biology Roy (2002, 2003)].
In Hake (2003a,d) I wrote (see those articles for the references):
"Pre/post testing to measure learning gains in undergraduate courses
is also currently being pursued [even despite outbreaks of virulent
pre/post paranoia (Hake 2001)] in ASTRONOMY [Adams et al. (2000);
Zeilik et al. (1997, 1998, 1999)]; BIOLOGY [Roy (2001), Anderson et
al. (2002)]; CHEMISTRY [ASU 2003 [I should have added Milford (1996)
and Bowen & Bunce (1997)]; COMPUTER SCIENCE [Almstrum (2003)];
ECONOMICS [Saunders (1991), Kennedy & Siegfried (1997), Chizmar &
Ostrosky (1998), Allgood and Walstad (1999)]; and ENGINEERING [Evans
& Hestenes (2001), Foundation Coalition (2003), Wage & Buck (2001)]."
REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66: 64-74; online as ref. 24 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.
Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online as ref. 25 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. SUBMITTED on 6/19/98 to the
"Physics Education Research Supplement to AJP"(PERS). In this SADLY
UNPUBLISHED (Physics Education Research has NO archival journal!)
crucial companion paper to Hake (1998b): average pre/post test
scores, standard deviations, instructional methods, materials used,
institutions, and instructors for each of the survey courses of Hake
(1998a) are tabulated and referenced. In addition the paper
includes: (a) case histories for the seven IE courses of Hake (1998a)
whose effectiveness as gauged by pre-to-post test gains was close to
those of T courses, (b) advice for implementing IE methods, and (c)
suggestions for further research.
Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>. "Conservation Ecology," is
a FREE "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and fundamental
policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.
Hake, R.R. 2002b. "Assessment of Physics Teaching Methods,"
Proceedings of the UNESCO-ASPEN Workshop on Active Learning in
Physics, Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2-4 Dec. 2002; also online
as ref. 29 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>.
Hake, R.R. 2003a. "NRC's CUSE: Oblivious of the Advantage of Pre/Post
Testing With High Quality Standardized Tests?" post of 25 Jul 2003
13:07:23-0700 to ASSESS, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, EvalTalk, PhysLrnR, and
POD; online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307&L=pod&O=D&P=17145>.
Later distributed to AERA-D and STLHE-L.
Hake, R.R. 2003b. "Re: Designing Pretests," post of 31 Jul 2003
13:38:21-0700 to ASSESS, Biopi-L, 6, EvalTalk, PhysLrnR, and POD;
online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307&L=pod&O=D&P=22283>.
Later sent to AERA-D, STLHE-L, Phys-L, Physhare, AP-physics, and
Biolab.
Hake, R.R. 2003c. "NRC's CUSE: Stranded on Assessless Island?" post
of 3 Aug 2003 12:52:16-0700 to ASSESS, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, EvalTalk,
PhysLrnR, and POD; online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0308&L=pod&F=&S=&P=391>.
That post was later sent to AERA-D, STLHE-L, Phys-L, and Biolab.
Phillips, D.C. 2000. "Expanded social scientist's bestiary: a guide
to fabled threats to, and defenses of, naturalistic social science."
Rowman & Littlefield.
Roy, H. 2001. "Use of Web-based Testing of Students as a Method of
Evaluating Courses." Bioscene 27(3): 3-7; online at
<http://acube.org/volume_27/index.html>.
Roy, H. 2001. "Studio vs Interactive Lecture Demonstrations,"
Bioscene 29(1): 3-6; soon to be online at
<http://acube.org/publications.html>.
Zeilik, M., C. Schau, N. Mattern. 1999. Conceptual astronomy. II.
Replicating conceptual gains, probing attitude changes across three
semesters. Am. J. Phys. 67(10): 923-927.