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[Phys-l] Guided and Independent Practice vs Guided Inquiry: Nobelists Support the Latter



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ABSTRACT: A high-school physics teacher writes that his new superintendent (partial to guided practice, independent practice, and research-based instructional processes) is forming an "instructional design team" to evaluate instructional practices and find out what makes a teacher effective. I contrast guided and independent practice with "guided inquiry," give three physics Nobelists' comments supportive of the latter, and conclude that teachers, to be effective, need to use a wide variety of pedagogical methods to suit classroom occasions, subject matter, and the diverse natures of their students. **************************************************

Rob Spencer (2007) in his PhysLrnR post "soliciting suggestions" wrote [bracketed by lines "SSSSS. . . ."]:

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I teach high school physics and have been an eager follower of advances made by physics education research for about 7 years now. Today I attended the first meeting of a committee of teachers and administrators in our school corp. called the "Instructional Design Team." This committee is the brainchild of our new superintendent. He would like to evaluate the instructional process and develop an understanding of what makes a teacher effective.
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So, I would appreciate any information, links, directions toward this type of information. He is especially interested in "research-based" instructional processes.

He has mentioned his bias toward "guided practice" and "independent practice." While these sound similar to guided inquiry, I am reserving judgement until I see more of what his approach turns out to be.
Does anybody recognize these buzzwords from ed. psych. possibly?"
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Google is great for researching buzzwords. A Google search for:

1. ["guided practice" education] (with the quotes but without the square brackets) yields 165,000 hits. One that appears reasonable is <http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1guid.htm> from the "North Central Regional Educational Laboratory." NCREL <http://www.learningpt.org/page.php?pageID=243> states:

"Posing questions that gradually lead students from easy or familiar examples to new understandings is a teaching strategy known as Guided Practice (Rosenshine, 1979, 1983). The strategy is effective for teaching thinking skills as well as content."

Since Rob's new superintendent is especially interested in "research-based" instructional processes, it would be interesting to know the research basis for the claim that "the strategy is effective for teaching thinking skills as well as content." I suspect that the "research" may be rather thin - see e.g., "An Elusive Science: The troubling history of education research" [Lagemann (2000)].

In addition to the two Rosenshine references, NCREL, to its credit, gives about 50 other academic references relevant to "guided practice" at <http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1refer.htm>.
2. ["independent practice" education] (with the quotes but without the square brackets) yields 323,000 hits. One such is <http://k6educators.about.com/od/lessonplanheadquarters/g/independent_pra.htm> where one Beth Lewis writes:

"Through Independent Practice, students have a chance to reinforce skills and synthesize their new knowledge by completing a task on their own and away from the teacher's guidance.. . . . Independent Practice can take the form of a homework assignment or worksheet, but it is also important to think of other ways for students to reinforce and practice the given skills."

Thus it appears that both "guided practice" and "independent practice" are:

(a) well ensconced in the educational literature,

(b) a far cry from "guided inquiry."

For a cogent discussion of "guided inquiry" see the "Foreword: A Scientist's Perspective on Inquiry," pages xi -xiv, of "Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards [NRC (2000)] by biologist Bruce Alberts, former president of the National Academy of Sciences. Alberts writes:

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Teaching science through inquiry allows students to conceptualize a question and then seek possible explanations that respond to that question . . . . . . Inquiry is in part a state of mind-that of inquisitiveness. Most young children are naturally curious. They care enough to ask "why" and "how" questions. But if adults dismiss their incessant questions as silly and uninteresting, students can lose this gift of curiosity. Visit any second grade classroom and you will generally find a class bursting with energy and excitement, where children are eager to make new observations and try to figure things out. What a contrast with many eighth-grade classes, where the students so often seem bored and disengaged from learning and from school!

The "National Science Education Standards" . . . .[NRC (1996)]. . . released by the National Research Council in 1995 provide valuable insights into the ways that teachers might sustain the curiosity of students and help them develop the sets of abilities associated with scientific inquiry. The "Standards" emphasize that science education needs to give students three kinds of scientific skills and understandings. Students need to learn the principles and concepts of science, acquire the reasoning and procedural skills of scientists, and understand the nature of science as a particular form of human endeavor. Students therefore need to be able to devise and carry out investigations that test their ideas, and they need to understand why such investigations are uniquely powerful. Studies show that students are much more likely to understand and retain the concepts that they have learned this way."
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I'm guessing that Rob Spencer's new superintendent may be an education specialist, and may not be easily persuaded that "guided inquiry" or "interactive engagement" methods (if you'll pardon the term) are more effective than "guided practice" or "independent practice" in promoting students' conceptual understanding of science.

Nevertheless, sometimes even education specialists, physicists, chemists, and biologists will at least briefly consider the pro-guided-inquiry opinions of Nobel Award winners such as 1982 physics Nobelist Ken Wilson, 1988 physics Nobelist Leon Lederman, and 2001 physics Nobelist Carl Wieman.

Wilson & Daviss (1994, p. 176) wrote: "Drawing on the work of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget and incorporating insights from computer science, cognitive theorists have evolved a view of learning as uniquely subjective and personal. Their ideas, collectively known as constructivism, are being corroborated by ongoing experimental work worldwide."

Lederman (1976) wrote: "We are strong believers in paying attention, in the Physics-Chemistry-Biology sequence, to storytelling or, more formally, to the process, in addition to the content, of science. How does it work? How do we know? What are the common laws, . . . . . "

Wieman (2007) wrote:

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Lectures were created as a means of transferring information from one person to many, so an obvious topic for research is the retention of the information by the many. The results of three studies-which can be replicated by any faculty member with a strong enough stomach-are instructive. . . . . .[Hrepic et al. (2007)]. . . asked 18 students from an introductory physics class to attempt to answer six questions on the physics of sound and then, primed by that experience, to get the answers to those questions by listening to a 14-minute, highly polished commercial videotaped lecture given by someone who is supposed to be the world's most accomplished physics lecturer. On most of the six questions, no more than one student was able to answer correctly. . . . . . These results do indeed make a lot of sense and probably are generic, based on one of the most well-established-yet widely ignored-results of cognitive science: the extremely limited capacity of the short-term working memory. The research tells us that the human brain can hold a maximum of about seven different items in its short-term working memory and can process no more than about four ideas at once. Exactly what an "item" means when translated from the cognitive science lab into the classroom is a bit fuzzy. But the number of new items that students are expected to remember and process in the typical hour-long science lecture is vastly greater. So we should not be surprised to find that students are able to take away only a small fraction of what is presented to them in that format.
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Modesty forbids mention of a meta-analysis [Hake (1998a,b)] discussed by Wieman (2007) and Wieman & Perkins (2005), and consistent with the above.

I hope the "instructional design team" formed by Rob's superintendent will realize that teachers, to be effective, need to use different approaches (e.g., coaching, guided practice, independent practice, collaborative discussions, Socratic dialogue, and even - on rare occasions - didactic lectures) to fit the classroom occasions, subject matter, and diverse natures of their students. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses for each type of student, but in the hands of a *skilled teacher* each can be made to compliment the other methods so as to advance *every* student's learning. A skilled teacher might *lecture* on material that can be rote memorized, *coach* skills such as typing or playing a musical instrument, and use *Socratic dialogue or collaborative discussions* (or other "guided inquiry" or "interactive engagement" methods) to induce students to construct their understanding of conceptually difficult material. The complementarity of various pedagogical methods is insightfully discussed by David Perkins (1995) in "Smart Schools."


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>

"Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge. This an art very difficult to impart. We must beware of what I will call 'inert ideas' that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized or tested or thrown into fresh combinations."
Alfred North Whitehead (1967) in "The Aims of Education."

REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
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(1): 64-74; online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf> (84 kB).

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics courses," online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/IEM-2b.pdf> (108 kB) - a crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a).

Hrepic, Z., D. Zollman, & N. Rebello. 2006. "Comparing students' and experts' understanding of the content of a lecture," to be published in Journal of Science Education and Technology. A pre-print is available at <http://web.phys.ksu.edu/papers/2006/Hrepic_comparing.pdf> (96 KB).

Lagemann, E.C. 2000. "An Elusive Science: The troubling history of education research." Univ. of Chicago Press. Publishers information at
<http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/13993.ctl>.

Lederman, L.M. 2006. "An Invitation to Conversations about 'The Cornerstone-to-Capstone Approach'," Biological Sciences Curriculum Study; online at <http://www.bscs.org/pdf/capstoneinvitation.pdf> (1 MB).

NRC. 1996. "National Education Standards." National Academy Press; online at <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=4962>.

NRC. 2000. "Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning," National Academy Press; online at <http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9596.html>.

Perkins, D. 1995. "Smart Schools." Free Press; Reprint edition; Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/yptoyq>. Note the "Search Inside" feature.

Rosenshine, B. 1979. "Content, time and direct instruction," in P. L. Peterson & H. J. Walberg, eds., "Research on teaching." Berkeley: McCutchan.

Rosenshine, B. 1983. "Teaching functions in instructional programs," The Elementary School Journal 83: 335-351.

Spencer, R. 2007. "soliciting suggestions" PhysLrnR post of 26 Nov 2007 22:04:25-0700, online at <http://tinyurl.com/2a68hq>.

Whitehead, A.N. 1967. "Aims of Education, " Free Press. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/yo6k6c>. Note the "Search Inside" feature.

Wieman, C. & K. Perkins. 2005. "Transforming Physics Education," Phys. Today 58(11): 36-41; online at <http://www.colorado.edu/physics/EducationIssues/papers/PhysicsTodayFinal.pdf> (292 kB).

Wieman, C. 2007. "Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?" Change Magazine, September/October; online at
<http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Wieman-Change_Sept-Oct_2007.pdf> (804 kB). See also Wieman & Perkins (2005).

Wilson, K.G. & B. Daviss, "Redesigning Education" (Henry Holt, 1994); for a description see <http://www-physics.mps.ohio-state.edu/~kgw/RE.html>.