Re: Student resistance to changes in professional education practice

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

This is not really a fair comparison.  The resistance to change comes from
the fact that they have been trained from K on to expect a certain style of
learning, rote memorization.  The solution needs to start in the early
grades if it is to be complete.

Now as to the actual pain, a better comparison may be athletic training.  If
an athlete complained about soreness after a workout they would not be given
morphine to ease the pain.  And let us not forget that impending death
(failure) is always a part of education.  Indeed in conventional courses it
used to be fairly common to have a 50% failure rate rather than just a
simple decimation (10%).  Another good analogy is to the old fashioned
trading stamps.  Consumers would shop where they could get them, and ignore
the fact that products might be better and cheaper at another source.  That
is precisely what is going on now.  Students are being given trading stamps
rather than real value, but they value the trading stamps more.

The easiest way to improve customer satisfaction is by giving higher grades.
There is an instructor at a local community college that always has full
classes because he never gives a grade below B.  In reality this idea could
be used to improve ratings.  If you improved your FCI scores, why not push
your grades up to match the improved learning?  Actually some schools such
as Harvard now have instituted grade inflation.

Then there is the very important fact that PER can actually lower the
failure rate.  The most telling study there was the one done by Merlyn Mehl
in S. Africa.  By using PER type techniques (actually Piagetian analysis) he
turned a 50% failure rate on the final exam to a 100% passing rate.  The
control class which had not treatment had the traditionally dismal
performance on the same exam.

As to the analogy about being chucked into the water.  That is a complete
misunderstanding of what is going on.  The learning cycle, attributed to
Karplus, is being used.  First the students explore.  This is similar to
jumping into the shallow end.  At this stage they are asked lost of
questions.  Then they are given information, and terms are defined at this
stage.  This would be the "conventional instruction" phase where they are
told what to do when swimming.  Finally they are required to do
applications.  This is swimming alone.  However at no point does the
instructor spoon feed them specific methods to a large fraction of the
problems (hold the swimmers arms and propel them).  There might be
occasional sample problems, and in some methodologies a general problem
solving method is introduced.

Also there is a de-emphasis of rote solving using equations.  Students will
be required to solve using other mathematical tools such as graphs and
motion diagrams (pictures).  However, because math teachers almost entirely
ignore these methods, students tend to think of them as being non
mathematical and not worth learning.  Again this produces discomfort, but in
reality they learn methods that are far more powerful than just plugging
into equations.  Indeed the research shows that understanding only comes
when students can translate in between the 4 representations of a problem:
words, pictures, graphs, and equations.  Math tends to concentrate almost
exclusively on the equations which is the least understandable part.

Finally students never complain if they are asked to memorize meaningless
(to them) equations and regurgitate on the test, despite the fact that they
have learned nothing.  The complain because they do not easily grasp that
what they have learned is a process rather than just temporarily memorized
facts.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> Richard describes student discomfort as "resistance to change."
> But I have been gathering the distinct impression  both
> from Richard's posts here and others in the same vein,
> that it is a process somewhat comparable to learning to swim
> by being chucked in the water: no matter how skilled the
> accompanying life-guard - it is hard to get comfortable with
> the panicked impression of impending death.
> One doubtless has crystal-clear recollections of learning to swim
> in this manner long afterwards: the student standardized gain
>    is high, the recall is good years later, in fact.
>
> Now, having shared this impression, I am reminded of the surgeons'
> then later the obstetricians' view that pain was a normal part of
> operations and child-birth and that it was not to be gain-said
>   - a view which has ebbed over the years since the dome in
>   Mass General Hospital contained the stoic soldiers who sat in
> the operating {kitchen} chair, at first implacable, later wilting
>   to unconsciousness as shock took effect
> while the bone saw was at work to amputate their damaged &
> infected limbs.
>
> I suppose these metaphors are begging me to enquire if some
> educational anaesthetic cannot be found to ease students' pain
> with research/enquiry methods.
>
>
> Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka!