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I know there are those on this list who will strongly disagree, but I would
say this statement can also be phrased as "Anything works when the students
work."
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While the first statement has a germ of truth that when students work they
do better. But this paraphrase is worse. Certain things work, and others
definitely do not. Certain things work much better while others work
significantly less.
Many students have "cognitive deficits" as categorized by Reuven Feuerstein.
Those students just will do worse no matter how motivated or what you do.
But some of these deficits can be treated by changing the style of pedagogy.
The research of Karplus and Lawson have documented this. Feuerstein has
also produced dramatic improvements with his pedagogy which resembles
nothing that is currently done in school. Feuerstein is known for his
ability to raise students significantly on an IQ scale, and when his
students go to college they usually study psychology because they want to do
to others what he did to them.
Notice the phrase that teachers always use "try harder". There is a very
interesting variant on that in the Fat City Workshop, "How difficult can
this be". The "students" are presented with a picture that they can't
figure out. So the instructor says "look harder", which of course is
useless. So he then helps them by pointing out some of the features, and
finally putting a transparency in front with a clearer picture.
Beyond the "try harder" is that students have to have the correct paradigm
of learning. I have seen Asian students who are very good a memorizing who
try to memorize all of the graph shapes rather than using analysis. I have
seen them work very hard, but using the wrong paradigm. Paradigm change is
difficult to effect, but there is some evidence that it may happen during
PER courses, but not during conventionally taught courses. Certainly we
know from evidence that the long term Modeling workshops change the
teacher's paradigms, and that they then teach in a very different fashion.
So while having students work is one element of getting good results, by
itself it will often not produce good results. If you are having a problem
that you can't seem to overcome, you eventually give up. This is happening
with a large number of students. They have beaten their head against the
wall soooo much that they stop doing it. I have a mild dyslexia that
interferes with remembering names, so I have tried all kinds of things, and
now I just give up. So motivations is improved much more by success than by
pep talks, but what do you always get as a motivational exercise?
Students working may be a necessary ingredient, but it is not sufficient.
Good pedagogy is necessary for high overall gain, but it is not sufficient.
Proper student paradigms are necessary for high gain, but not sufficient.
Lack of cognitive deficits is necessary, but not sufficient.
Good prior preparation is necessary, but not sufficient.
We can not single out just one thing and place the blame there. We must
change those things we can, and understand that there are some things that
are not our problems.
There is some evidence that the current system is working just as well as it
always did. But there is abundant evidence that its efficiency is low and
that it acts as a filter to keep out the unworthy, rather than helping
students. There is also some evidence that recent changes associated with
the high stakes testing may be driving students to lower level of thinking
and lower ability to transfer. The recent high stakes testing and review
mania in HS seems to be actually making students more passive and killing
motivation. We know this happened in the UK after they implemented more
draconian measures to improve education, but we do not have any firm
connection between the measures and the lowered student ability. As to
looking at the long historical record, remember that in the 50s the dropout
rate was enormous, and nobody did anything to fix it. So the students who
arrived in HS and college were only the "good" students.
I will give an interesting truism. "The more you do in a conventional
course, the less the students do." PER actually puts the onus on the
students to do more by pushing them to do the thinking themselves and make
the necessary connections rather than sitting back and pretending to learn
during lectures. In the end it actually ends up being the same amount of
work for the instructor after the first time. Actually in some ways PER is
less work outside of class, but intensively exhausting in class. You have
to think on your feet all the time instead of delivering canned lectures.
You have to react to students and give continuous feedback. I find lectures
to actually be much easier.
John M. Clement
Houston, TX
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Forum for Physics Educators
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