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Re: [Phys-l] WSJ on Active Physics



ABSTRACT: Rob Tomosho of the Wall Street Journal reports the backlash from parents and teachers against the San Diego school district implementation of Leon Lederman's "Physics First" in the ninth grade through the use of Author Eisenkraft's "Active Physics." Among possible reasons for the backlash are:
(a) "parents in affluent schools often resist changes that affect students who are already thriving," as indicated by Kati Haycock of the Education Trust,
(b) unfamiliarity of parents and teachers with the mountain of evidence for the superiority of interactive engagement over traditional methods in enhancing students' understanding of the concepts and nature of science, and (c) insufficient preparation of classroom teachers to *effectively* implement non-traditional science pedagogy. Better prepared teachers might be attracted to classrooms if their salaries and working conditions were drastically upgraded and they were treated as the valued professionals they are.
If you reply to this very, long (30 kB) post please don't hit the reply button unless you prune the copy of this post that may appear in your reply down to a few relevant lines, otherwise the entire already archived post may be needlessly resent to subscribers.

In his PhysLrnR post of 14 April 2006 titled "WSJ on Active Physics," Sanjoy Mahajan (2006) wrote [bracketed by lines "MMMMMMMMMM. . . .; my inserts at ". . . [.....]. . ."]:

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"An interesting article. . . .["Textbook Battle: Top High Schools Fight New Science As Overly Simple; San Diego's Physics Overhaul Makes Classes Accessible, Spurs Parental Backlash; Test Scores Barely Budge" Tomsho (2006a)]. . . on what must be an interesting curriculum change.

From the article:

Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, a Washington-based
advocacy group for at-risk students, says parents in affluent schools
often resist changes that affect students who are already thriving. . .
. . [probably in term of grades rather than actual learning]. . ..

Alfie Kohn .. . .[(1998)]. . . has an article on this topic . . . ."
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Doubtless to the consternation of those who are blind to the Fair Use provision of the U.S. Copyright Code [see CLS (2006)], Sanjoy had the good sense to copy the entire article into the PhysLrnR archives. I did much the same for a previous provocative Tomsho (2006b) article "What's the Right Formula? Pressure From New Tests Leads Educators to Debate How Best to Teach Science."

In addition to the passage quoted by Sanjoy above, Tomsho (2006a) also wrote [My inserts at ". . . [.....]. . ."] :

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When San Diego's school district began overhauling its science-education curriculum five years ago, it wanted to raise the performance of minority, low-income and immigrant students.

But parents in middle- and upper-income areas, where many students were already doing well, rebelled against the new curriculum, and a course called Active Physics in particular. They called it watered-down science, too skimpy on math.
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Kim Bess, a former teacher, says she was struck by disparities in the San Diego school district when she became director of its science department in 2000. San Diego high-school teachers were largely free to teach what they wanted. While top-performing schools offered specialties like marine science, those in low-income neighborhoods offered less challenging fare such as a course in cooking with chemistry aimed at preparing students for food-service jobs.

Under pressure to boost reading and math achievement, some elementary and middle schools had stopped teaching science altogether. At many schools, classroom experiment kits went unused.

One spark for the curriculum overhaul was a 2000 district study showing that less than one-third of recent graduates had completed the course work required to gain admission to California's state universities. The district also found that about one-third of its freshmen failed biology, and that fewer than 20% took chemistry or physics.

In many ways, the changes San Diego decided to make followed strategic lines long advocated by groups such as the National Science Foundation. The new program de-emphasized textbook learning in favor of hands-on activities designed to engage students with little science background or limited English skills
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The curriculum San Diego chose for ninth-graders was Active Physics. . . [consistent with Leon Lederman's (2001) "Physics First" approach to science education]. . . Developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, its approach was far from conventional. The course employed breezily written booklets focused on physics in arenas such as sports and medicine. They were full of short blocks of text and cartoons, including recurring images of a pint-sized scientist with wild Einstein hair.

The course also included kits containing boccie balls, toy cars and other items for classroom activities. To explore Newton's laws of motion, one suggested exercise had one student gently pushing another while both stood on skateboards.

Arthur Eisenkraft, a professor of science education at the University of Massachusetts. . .[- Boston <http://www2.www.umb.edu/directory/person_detail.php?id=6284>]. . . who designed the Active Physics curriculum, says he aimed to create a course that could provide all students with an appreciation for physics, even those who didn't have the math skills usually demanded by the conventional course.
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Among references to Eisenkraft and his "Active Physics," are:

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(a) a New York Times report [Slater (1998)]:
" 'The course [Active Physics] is taught in individual chapters,' said Dr. Eisenkraft, who headed the active physics project, which resulted in the textbook made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. 'It took six years and was tested on 5,000 students.' Dr. Eisenkraft supervised a group of about a dozen college teachers across the United States in honing the text. The students were also selected nationwide. . . . . Dr. Eisenkraft, who began his teaching career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, either wrote or edited each chapter of 'Active Physics' as head of the project. He received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching in 1986 at the White House and five years later was given a $2,500 grant as Science Teacher of the Year by the Disney Corporation in their American Teacher Award Program, which was started in 1990."

(b) a blurb from "It's About Time" at
<http://www.its-about-time.com/iathome2/aboutus.html>: "It's About Time," the publisher of "It's About Time is an innovative company that specializes in developing math and science programs that are research-based, and have delivered solid, positive results for all students. MANY OF OUR PROGRAMS ARE FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, AND ALL FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF MATHEMATICS. [My CAPS.] We publish these programs because our primary concern is increased learning in math and science for all students. It's About Time believes that students learn math and science the way that practicing scientists and mathematicians do. They learn when something grabs their attention...when the content is relevant to their lives. They learn when we allow them, in fact encourage them, to talk to one another and question each others' results. They learn when we permit them to get their hands on the subject matter. In short, when we allow students to use all of their senses, they make sense of math and science."

(c) Arthur Eisenkraft (1998): "[Active Physics was] never met to replace the course that has been successful. . .[what's the evidence ??]. . for 20% of high school graduates who traditionally study physics. . . [it's] providing an opportunity for inquiry-based science for the other 80% of our high school population."

(d) John Roeder (1998), a member of the AAPT publications committee: "Active Physics has been used as a ninth grade physics course for the past four years. The Calhoun School was originally drawn to the curriculum because of its activity-based approach and its relevance to students' lives and social concerns. During our years of implementation, Active Physics has proved successful as evidenced by the quality of student work and the influence that its philosophy has had on other courses."

(e) Education Week reporter David Hoff: "Active Physics, the curriculum Mr. Callahan uses with all of his freshmen and juniors, is recommended by Ohio and West Virginia for use in those states' high schools, according to Thomas A. Laster, the executive vice president of It's About Time, the Armonk, N.Y. based publisher of the curriculum. Other states are requesting added physics content as they approve 9th grade science textbooks. . . . Just how much physics 9th graders should learn is the subject of debate throughout the science education community. Leon M. Lederman, the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics, has been pushing schools over the past five years to put that discipline ahead of biology and chemistry in the high school curriculum. Physics, he and others argue, is the foundation of all science and is the easiest to observe through experiments with gravity, waves, and objects in motion, such as the bungee-jumping dolls in Mr. Callahan's class. All of that can be taught without the algebra and trigonometry that have come to be the basis for the physics courses taught in U.S. high schools. 'Conceptual physics is relatively unmathematical,' said Mr. Lederman, the resident scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a state magnet school in Aurora, Ill., who won his Nobel Prize for research he conducted at the nearby Fermi Laboratory. 'You can use only the math that students are learning in the 9th grade or have learned in the 8th grade.' A few schools are making the switch, although not as quickly as Mr. Lederman would like."

(f) Texas John Clement (2006): "I would not hold a brief for Active Physics. From what I saw of it, the units were very uneven and they did not seem to me to use a learning cycle. I was at an AAPT meeting where one group tested Active Physics and reported that they did not see very good gain." I assume that Clement may be using "gain" to mean *normalized gain" on some physics diagnostic test such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) of Hestenes et al. (1992) or the Force Motion Concept Evaluation (FMCE) of Thornton & Sokoloff (1998). Of course, a relatively low normalized gain could be due to faulty implementation rather than deficiencies in Active Physics, and more data over many courses and instructors would be required to assess the general effectiveness of Active Physics.
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Joe Bellina (2006) responded to Sanjoy's post as follows [my insert at ". . . [.....]. . ."] :

" . . . . . . Curiously, in this same region the country, the El Centro school district, there have been amazing gains in student learning in science and writing at the elementary level using student centered curricula with a emphasis on keeping science notebooks. . . .[I *assume* Bellina is referring to the study by Klentchy et al. (2002). Tomsho DID refer to that work in Tomsho (2006b), but then stated "But there are few large studies, educators say." NONSENSE - see the references on pages 5 & 6 of Hake (2005)]. . . The wsj has no mention of the successes, only the negative pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

It's extremely unfortunate that the impressive data of Klentchy et al. was evidently never published in the peer reviewed literature. [Please correct me if I'm wrong.]

Among factors that could be partially responsible for the San Diego backlash, in addition to that cited by Kati Haycock, are:

1. Ignorance of many parents and teachers of the mountain of evidence [see the references on pages 5 & 6 of "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct Instruction of Science?" Hake (2005)] showing that interactive engagement methods of science instruction are vastly superior to traditional methods in promoting students' understanding of the concepts and nature of science.

2. Insufficient preparation of classroom teachers to *effectively* implement non-traditional science pedagogy. This is due in part to the general failure of higher education to properly educate K-12 teachers. It is generally appreciated that the *effective* implementation of interactive engagement methods of science instruction - such as might use "Active Physics" [Eisenkraft (2000)] as a starting point - require teachers with considerable teaching experience and both content and "pedagogical content" knowledge.
What's "pedagogical content knowledge"? Lesson #7 of the generally ignored "Lessons from the physics education reform effort" [Hake (2002c)] is [see that article for the references]:

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L7. TEACHERS WHO POSSESS *BOTH* CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND "PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE" ARE MORE APT TO DELIVER EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION.
"Pedagogical content knowledge" is evidently a term due to Shulman (1986, 1987), but its importance has long been well known to effective classroom teachers. The difference between content knowledge and "pedagogical content knowledge," can be illustrated by consideration of the Halloun-Hestenes-type question given in the Introduction. CONTENT KNOWLEDGE informs the teacher that, according to Newton's First Law, while the brick is moving vertically upward at a constant speed in the inertial reference frame of the lab, the magnitude of the force on the brick by the student's hand is constant in time and of magnitude W, so that the *net* force on the brick is zero. On the other hand, PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE would inform the teacher that students may think that e.g.: (a) since a net force is required to produce motion, the force on the brick by the student's hand is constant in time and greater than W; or (b) since the weight of the brick diminishes as it moves upward away from the Earth, the force on the brick by the student's hand decreases in time but is always greater than W; or (c) no force is exerted on the brick by the student's hand because as the students hand moves up the brick must simply move up to stay out of the hand's way. In addition, pedagogical content knowledge provides a hard-won toolkit of strategies (see, e.g., the list of "Popular IE Methods" in II-C above) for guiding the student away from these misconceptions and towards the Newtonian interpretation. Unfortunately, such knowledge may take many years to acquire (Wells et al. 1995).
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What can be done to improve K-12 teachers' effectiveness? In the generally ignored "Direct Science Instruction Suffers a Setback in California - Or Does It? " [Hake (2002)] I wrote:

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In conclusion, I strongly urge the California State Board of Education, Governor Schwarznegger, Secretary of Education Riordan, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, and members of the California legislature to place the educational, social, technological, and business interests of California and the U.S. above a blind and unscientific faith in the efficacy of "direct instruction," and take immediate action to:
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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3. Attract outstanding teachers into California's classrooms by treating them as the valued professionals they are. This means giving them control of their own teaching materials & practices (rather than top-down dictation through adoption of only direct-instruction-oriented texts and materials), and drastically upgrading their salaries and working conditions.
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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>

" . . . I know from both experience and research that the teacher is at the heart of student learning and school improvement by virtue of being the classroom authority and gatekeeper for change. Thus the preparation, induction, and career development of teachers remain the Archimedian lever for both short- and long-term improvement of public schools."
Larry Cuban. 2003. "Why Is It So Hard To Get Good Schools?" Teachers
College Press.

REFERENCES [Provided by Ricardo's Ready References Software Inc. Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]

Bellina, J. 2006. "Re: WSJ on Active Physics," PhysLrnR post of 14 Apr 2006
09:34:51-0400; online at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=physlrnr&O=D&X=02BA4873EF273DC948&Y=rrhake%40earthlink.net&P=5530> or more compactly at <http://tinyurl.com/flpeh>. One must subscribe to PhysLnrR to access its archives, but it takes only a few minutes to subscribe by following the simple directions at<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html> / "Join or leave the list (or change settings)" where "/" means "click on." If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!

Clement, J. 2006. "Re: WSJ on Active Physics," PhysLrnR post of 14 Apr 2006 10:40:13-0500; online at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=physlrnr&X=1E6F1B2E13D073BF8F&Y=rrhake%40earthlink.net&P=5630> or more compactly at <http://tinyurl.com/k7nes>.

CLS. 2006. Cornell Law School at
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html> or more compactly <http://tinyurl.com/3z3r6>.

Eisenkraft, A. 1998. "Active Physics," AAPT Announcer 28 (2): 120.

Eisenkraft, A. 2000. "Active Physics." Published by It's About Time Inc. "A Leading Publisher of National Science Foundation Inquiry-based Programs" [see
<http://www.its-about-time.com/index.html>, &
Amazon.com information is at <http://tinyurl.com/ggjbu>.

Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Physics First: Opening Battle in the War on Science/Math Illiteracy?" Submitted to the American Journal of Physics on 27 June 2002; online as ref. 20 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>, or download directly by clicking on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/PhysFirst-AJP-6.pdf> (220 KB).

Hake, R.R. 2002b. "Physics First: Precursor to Science/Math Literacy for All?" APS Forum on Education Newsletter, Summer 2002; online at
<http://www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2002/index.html>.

Hake, R.R. 2002c. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort," Ecology and Society 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol5/iss2/art28/>. Ecology and Society
(formerly Conservation Ecology) is a free online "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and fundamental policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.

Hake, R.R. 2004. "Direct Science Instruction Suffers a Setback in California - Or Does It?" AAPT Announcer 34(2): 177; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/DirInstSetback-041104f.pdf> (420 KB)
[about 160 references and 180 hot-linked URL's]. A pdf version of the slides shown at the meeting is also available at ref. 33 or can be downloaded directly by clicking on <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/AAPT-Slides.pdf> (132 kB).

Hake, R.R. 2005. "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct Instruction of Science?" Am. Phys. Soc. 50: 851 (2005); APS March
Meeting, Los Angles, CA. 21-25 March; online as ref. 36 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or download directly by clicking on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/WillNCLBPromoteDSI-3.pdf> (256 kB).

Hestenes, D., M. Wells, & G. Swackhamer, 1992. "Force Concept Inventory," Phys. Teach. 30: 141-158; online (except for the test itself) at
<http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/Research.html>. The 1995 revision by Halloun, Hake, Mosca, & Hestenes is online (password protected) at the same URL, and is available in English, Spanish, German, Malaysian, Chinese, Finnish, French, Turkish, Swedish, and Russian.

Hoff, D.J. 2000. It's Not Your Father's Physics Class," Education Week 19(40): pp. 1, 12-14, 14 June, online at
<http://www.its-about-time.com/htmls/ap/educationweek.html>.

Klentschy, M., L. Garrison, & O.M. Amaral. undated. "Valle Imperial Project in Science (VIPS) - Four-Year Comparison of Student Achievement Data 1995-1999," unpublished; online at <http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/foss/scope/research/biblio.html>, or download directly at
<http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/foss/scope/research/VIPSStudy.pdf> (36 KB). Thanks to Larry
Woolf for the online URL of this obscure article.

Kohn, A. 1998. "Only for My Kid: How Privileged Parents Undermine School
Reform," Phi Delta Kappan 79(8): 568-577., April 1998; online at Alfie Kohn's website <http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.html> / "Articles" where "/" means "click on" or download directly by cliking on <http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/ofmk.htm>.

Lederman, L. 2001. "Revolution in Science Education: Put Physics First." Physics Today 54(9): 11-12; online at
<http://physicstoday.org/pt/vol-54/iss-9/p11.html>: "Laboratory work must be inquiry dominated (the opposite of cookbook labs) and designed to illuminate concepts. . . . The three-year sequence must include a lot of process in addition to content. How does science work? How did we discover some of these things? Why is science such a universal culture? How do the traits of skepticism, curiosity, openness to new ideas, and the joy of discovering the beauty of nature affect the process of science? Long after all the formulas,
Latin words, and theories are forgotten, the process will be remembered. The goal of teachers using the new curriculum would be to produce high-school graduates who will be comfortable with a scientific way of thinking." See also "Physics First: Opening Battle in the War on Science/Math Illiteracy?" and "Physics First: Precursor to Science/Math Literacy for All?" [Hake (2002a,b)].

Mahajan, S. 2006. "WSJ on Active Physics," PhysLrnR post of 14 Apr 2006 01:03:15 -0400; online at <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=physlrnr&O=D&X=1A9F775F03150C9729&Y=rrhake%40earthlink.net&P=5430> or more compactly at <http://tinyurl.com/m844m>.

Roeder, J. 1998. "Active Physics - A Classroom Perspective," AAPT Announcer 28 (2): 120. See also
<http://www.its-about-time.com/htmls/ap/apcsjohnroeder.html>.

Slater, C. 1998. "Physics for Immovable Objects (Students)," New York Times, 29 November, online at <http://www.its-about-time.com/htmls/ap/ap_pres5.html>.

Thornton, R.K. & D.R. Sokoloff. 1998. "Assessing student learning of Newton's Laws: The force and motion conceptual evaluation and the evaluation of active learning laboratory and lecture curricula," Am. J. Phys. 66(4): 338-352.

Tomsho, R. 2006a. "Textbook Battle: Top High Schools Fight New Science As Overly Simple; San Diego's Physics Overhaul Makes Classes Accessible, Spurs Parental Backlash; Test Scores Barely Budge," Wall Street Journal, 13 April; freely online for only about a week at <http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB114488997269924686-lMyQjAxMDE2NDE0MzgxODM5Wj.html>, or more compactly at <http://tinyurl.com/rn7cn>. For a more permanently available copy see Mahajan (2006). I thank Keith Tipton, manager of Physhare, for bringing this Tomsho's report to my attention.

Tomsho, R. 2006b. "What's the Right Formula? Pressure From New Tests Leads Educators to Debate How Best to Teach Science" Wall Street Journal, 19 January; freely online at <http://tinyurl.com/cn4kx> for a few days and more permanently for educators at <http://tinyurl.com/apmp9> (scroll to the APPENDIX).