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Re: Life-long Learning Skills



In her POD post of 25 Nov 2003 17:03:03-0800 titled "Life-long
Learning Skills," Lynda Harding addresses an important issue: " . . .
. I've been thinking about the intersection between content
knowledge, information competence, and life-long learning. . . .
Seems to me that a biology faculty member, for example, would want
students to graduate being able to springboard into a new area of the
discipline, gathering information, evaluating and synthesizing new
information. To what extent does the content knowledge students gain
during an undergraduate education provide the cognitive scaffold on
which to build new knowledge structures? To what extent does it
provide a yardstick against which the validity of new information can
be judged?"

Alan Van Heuvelen (2001) has insightfull addressed such matters for
physics education, but his message applies as well to other
scientific disciplines. His abstract reads:

"We review three important ideas concerning physics education. First,
what do surveys from the workplace indicate about the relative
importance in student education of scientific process knowledge,
personal skills, and conceptual physics knowledge? Second, what are
the characteristics of student minds that need to acquire this
knowledge and these skills? Finally, what can we do with physics
learning systems to help these minds better acquire this knowledge
and these skills?"

In Hake (2000), a figure on:

Page 23 depicts workplace skills as set forth by the American
Institute of Physics, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Labor
Dept., ABET (Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology), and
the Van Heuvelen/Andre synthesis of those four, after Van Heuvelen &
Andre (2000).

Page 25 depicts the Goldschmid's (1999) four-quadrant circle which
"presents several discipline-independent dimensions, which should
gain more importance in the curricula of the University of the
Future. . . (ref. 19).. . . Complementary entrepreneurial
inclinations, humanistic considerations, and multicultural skills for
example, might serve the future graduate better than
strictly technical knowledge. The question is how can these subjects
be built into the curriculum without necessarily adding new courses?"

In Hake (2002) I wrote (bracketed by lines "HHHHHHH. . . . ."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Does the class average normalized gain <g> for the [any of the tests
of conceptual understanding of mechanics] provide a definitive
assessment of the OVERALL effectiveness of an introductory physics
class? NO! It assesses "ONLY THE ATTAINMENT OF A MINIMAL CONCEPTUAL
UNDERSTANDING OF MECHANICS. In some
first-semester or first quarter introductory physics courses,
subjects other than mechanics are often covered. The effectiveness of
the course in promoting student understanding of those topics would
not, of course, be assessed by the normalized gain on [any of the
tests of conceptual understanding of mechanics]. Furthermore, as
indicated in Hake (1998b), among desirable outcomes of the
introductory course that <g> DOES NOT measure directly are students':

(a) satisfaction with and interest in physics;

(b) understanding of the nature, methods, and limitations of science;

(c) understanding of the processes of scientific inquiry such as
experimental design, control of variables, dimensional analysis,
order-of-magnitude estimation, thought experiments, hypothetical
reasoning, graphing, and error analysis;

(d) ability to articulate their knowledge and learning processes;

(e) ability to collaborate and work in groups;

(f) communication skills;

(g) ability to solve real-world problems;

(h) understanding of the history of science and the relationship of
science to society and other disciplines;

(i) understanding of, or at least appreciation for, "modern" physics;

(j) ability to participate in authentic research.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The late Arnold Arons [for a review see Hake (2003)] put particular
emphasis on all the above, save "i" and "j".

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


REFERENCES
Goldschmid, M.L. 1999. "International University of Switzerland: A
University for the Future?" in T. B. Massey, ed., "Proceedings of the
24th International Conference on Improving University Teaching," p.
8; Brisbane, Australia, CPD,
EPFL, No. 397, 1999. [CPD = Chaire de Pédagogie et Didactique, EPFL =
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.] See also Goldschimid
(2000).

Goldschmid, M.L. 2000. "Twenty-five Years of Efforts to Improve
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: A Retrospective and a Look
Ahead" in "Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on
Improving University
Teaching," T. B. Massey, ed., Johann Wolfgang Goethe University;
Frankfurt, Germany; 17-20 July 2000.

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
(1998b) are tabulated and referenced. In addition the paper includes:
(a) case histories for the seven IE courses of Hake (1998b) 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. 2000. "Is it Finally Time to Implement Curriculum S?" AAPT
Announcer 30(4), 103; online as ref. 13 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake> (400 references & footnotes,
390 hot-linked URL's). This paper concerns improving the education
of undergraduate physics majors by instituting a "Curriculum S" for
"Synthesis." But because that's a small part of a much larger
educational problem in the U.S. there's a lot of material on the
reform of P-16 education generally (P = preschool).

Hake, R.R. 2002. "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. 2003. "The Arons-Advocated Method"; online as ref.31 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.

Van Heuvelen, A. 2001. "Millikan Lecture 1999: The Workplace, Student
Minds, and Physics Learning Systems," Am. J. Phys. 69(11): 1139-1146.

A. Van Heuvelen & K. Andre [now Kathleen Harper of the Ohio State's
Faculty and TA Development Center]. 2000. "Calculus-Based Physics and
the Engineering ABET 2000 Criteria," Undergraduate Physics for the
New Century, Conference of Physics Chairs, 14-16 April 2000;
<http://www.aapt.org/>.