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Re: [Phys-l] differentiated instruction




You might also get by with the usual approach in the regular class,
because all material is presented at lower level with lower expectations.
Thus, if the selection process is well done, most students' needs will be
met by the usual lecture, labs, problem sets, group work, etc at this
lower level. However, you'll probably have a few more students who are
struggling, and you'll need to figure out if they need a special approach
(and then use that approach for them) or if the struggles are caused by
apathy or otherwise not putting in the required effort (then you'll need
to light a fire under them or somehow solve the apathy problem).

Sorry, but the usual approach does not really work well at any level. The
usual lecture, verification lab approach fails to improve the conceptual
understanding, and the usual problem solving will produce novice like
behavior. Indeed the usual instruction will doom the students to lower
levels of thinking. This has been shown in a number of experiments by
Karplus, Lawson and others that span decades of research. By contrast the
learning cycle or guided inquiry has been found to raise thinking levels and
conventional IQ tests.

My big question which has not been answered is do the people who promote
differentiated instruction understand the work that has been done in science
and physics education? Are they even aware of it? From the presentations
on differentiated instruction that I have seen, the strategies that have
been promoted are not consistent with the research.

Shayer and Adey have actually broken down their intervention into low and
high performers, and as I recall they found that all gained from their form
of cognitive acceleration. I also recall that some other PER methods have
also investigated this and have found that all levels benefited. The test
of PER in a Premed class vs a conventional class yielded the results that
the women gained but the men did not on the MCAT. Essentially it brought up
the women, who traditionally score low, without harming the men on the MCAT.
Their program has been mainly used in schools which were low performing, and
it always raised them to average or above. In one case it raised the
performance to very superior.

The series of books Minds-on-Physics acknowledges differentiated instruction
of this kind and actually suggests that parts of the books could be used for
lower level classes, while some parts might only be used for upper level
classes.

So I submit the strategies for learning have to be the same for all levels,
but the particular tasks might be different, and the level of support for
guided inquiry would be different. For example you might have to initially
supply fill in data tables for the lower students, but fade this out and
have them make their own after a while. The questions asked would have to
be different, but under no circumstances would purely recall questions be
asked on a regular basis for any group.

As to what to do in the affective domain, that is not really well
understood. Most prescriptions come from "common knowledge" which is not
well researched. But there is one thing that I can say from the research
point of view. Never say that a student is intelligent so they should do
well. This has been shown to actually kill performance. If praise is used
it must only be for specific tasks involving effort. Actually the people
who look at executive functioning disapprove of any sort of external rewards
in the lower grades. It is also well known from research that effort that
comes from within and is rewarded by self satisfaction is the best kind.
Effort that is forced from without is short term, and quickly fades. The
same thing happens with morality. Morality which comes from just fear of
punishment will let people do completely immoral things when they think that
there is little chance of being caught.

So the bottom line is that if you can hook the tasks in some way to what
students are already interested in, you might be able to combat apathy. But
they have to see that what they are doing is interesting and that it has a
true connection to their interests. But there are probably two kinds of
apathy that might be easier to solve. One is the high level thinker who is
bored to tears. They can be helped by giving them challenging interesting
things to do. The other is the low level thinker who has beaten their head
against the wall and has given up. These can really only be helped by
giving them tasks that raise their level of thinking, but are also possible
for them to do. Once they see success the apathy will lesson. But then
what do you do with the ones who just don't like school and wish to be
elsewhere? These probably need a completely different setting such as a
trade school, or apprenticeship program. This is done in many European
schools, and would appear to be successful.

Actually the important factor is curiosity. Lawson has shown that the most
important factor in reasoning is the ability to ask what if questions. Many
physical situations are more easily explored by asking this type of
question. Actually, I am convinced that "intelligent" people trained
themselves to think by being curious and asking what if questions. If you
can get students in being curious, then apathy is solved. But
unfortunately, by HS, most of the curiosity has been beaten out of the
children by the schools, and the excessive exposure to curriculum material
in the very low grades has prevented the development of executive
functioning. The latest NY Times has a long article about executive
functioning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?ref=education

It may be almost impossible to improve executive functioning in a HS
classroom. But it is possible if the student has separate training in
Feurstein's Instrumental Enrichment. This program has been successful in
raising low performing students as late as the teen years. It essentially
is a form of cognitive enhancement. This type of thing is never considered
by the vast majority of schools, but it does help substantially. The big
scale controlled experiment by Feuerstein showed that his program raised IQ
on a general test around 20-30 points, as compared to a teacher designed
enrichment class. The numbers are an estimate from what I remember of his
graphs. Raising IQ can improve apathy, and make school possible. But FIE
can only be delivered by people trained in it, and always in a separate
class.

So I submit that the strategies for good learning are not all equal no
matter what the differences are. The good strategies have to be used for
all students, and some strategies should never be used. But one can vary
the level of these strategies to help the lower ones, and challenge the
higher ones. The big problem is that the amount of curriculum material is
usually quite excessive, and giving the necessary time for the lower
students might not be possible.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX