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Re: [Phys-l] learning, judgment, self-assessment, etc.

Our upper school is so curriculum driven, there's little/no time for
"reflection." Everyone is worried about APs a=or SAT II tests. Such a
shame. Teaching to a test. Gone is "learn for the sake of learning."

Physics is such a difficult subject for most students, they don't have the
time/patience to understand it. And, they don't know what they don't know.
I will say that in my experience, mostly GIRLS come for extra help. I
rarely see guys. Girls at least feel they don't understand a concept and
know they need help. Guys feel it will all make sense come test time. And
when we review the day before a test, it's like some students have never
seen these (math) problems before. I sometimes wonder how they survive
high school. Grade inflation? Extensions? Retests? Not like it was when I
was in school...

Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu> writes:
One difference between flying lessons and science classes is that flying
lessons are typically one-on-one.

When helping a single student, for example, I ask the student to tell me
how he/she approached the problem and why. John's post has given me
ideas for improving upon this. For eaxmple, I could ask "tell me what
you think was good about that approach, tell me what you think could be
improved." I do this when observing student teachers, but didn't
consider doing this with tutoring physics.

Any ideas on how to do this with a class full of students, rather than
one-on-one? I try to emphasize the importance of self-assessment in my
classes, and try to structure the class to encourage and develop
self-assessment, but now I am thinking about how to incorporate the
"tell me what you think was good about that approach, tell me what you
think could be improved" procedure.

----------------------------------------------------------
Robert A. Cohen, Department of Physics, East Stroudsburg University
570.422.3428 rcohen@po-box.esu.edu http://www.esu.edu/~bbq

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf
Of John Denker
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2011 4:01 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: [Phys-l] learning, judgment, self-assessment, etc.

Let's consider the following scenario:

It's the last part of a flying lesson. I'm the instructor.
The student and I have landed, parked, and tied down the
plane. Now it's time for the post-flight discussion. I say
"OK, replay the flight for me. Tell me what you did and what
you saw. Tell me what you think went well. Tell me what you
wish you had done differently."

Getting the student to analyze the flight has a tactical
advantage and a strategic advantage:

-- The tactical advantage comes from the fact that if
something bad happened, the conversation is more pleasant if
the student can say "that was really stupid" ... rather than
having me tell him how stupid it was.

-- Much more importantly, the strategic advantage comes from
getting the student to exercise judgment and self-awareness.
This is super- important because:
a) There is no way I will ever teach the student more than
some tiny
percentage of what he needs to know. The rest he will
have to learn
on his own. So my job is to get him to the point where he
can teach
himself.
b) I can hold him to high standards while I am there with him,
but there is no way I (or anybody else) can baby-sit him during
the other 99% of his flying career. He will be very, very much
on his own. So my job is to motivate him to hold himself to high
standards. All I can do is get him started down the right road.

========

This type of self-analysis is absolutely standard in the industry.
There is even a name for it: learner-centered grading, aka
student- centered grading. IMHO _self-assessment_ is a
better term, especially given that no "letter grades" are involved.

This approach is sometimes used in the science classroom ...
but only verrry rarely AFAICT. In particular, I've heard of
it being used in a "math for education majors" course taught
by a professor in the school of education. In any case, I
wish to call attention to how _rarely_ this approach is used
in the ordinary science classroom (at the high-school level
and at the undergraduate level).

More emphatically, I wish to call attention to the disparity:
How can a technique that is so highly valued in one
discipline (flight instructing) get such short shrift in
another discipline (ordinary classroom science)???

This is a non-rhetorical question. I don't know the answer.
I've thought about it some, but the main points still mystify
me. I hope this august group can shed some light on the issue.

One hypothesis starts from the observation that pilot
proficiency is a matter of life and death. This means
everybody involved has a goodly amount of built-in
motivation. A corollary is that any nonsense in the system
tends to get stomped out, vigorously. This is in contrast to
your typical physics assignment, which is generally not seen
as life-and-death. OTOH this hypothetical argument seems to
have some serious weaknesses. For one, motivation doesn't do
much good unless it is channeled into constructive
directions, so flight instructors spend just as much of their
time on motivational issues as physics teachers do.
Secondly, classroom teachers are not mindless wind-up toys,
so we ought to be able to stomp out nonsense /before/ it
reaches life-and-death proportions.

Maybe part of the answer is that judgment is explicitly
emphasized on the pilot-training syllabus, but not so much on
the physics syllabus.
One could argue that maybe it /should/ be on the physics syllabus.
Hmmm.

A possibly-related observation is that science instruction
(quite unlike flight instruction) tends to be a mile wide and
an inch deep.
Why do we tolerate this? Students can't develop any judgment
about what's important unless they are given the chance to do
something important with what they've been taught.

Similar words apply to certain teachers who have learned physics
out of a book and now teach physics out of a book, without having
much (if any) experience solving industrial-strength real-world
physics problems. It's hard for them to develop their own judgment.
Some of them manage to figure out what is important and why ... but
some of them don't.

In any case, all that is only tangentially connected to the
main issue, namely the fact that school cannot possibly teach
anyone more than a tiny percentage of what they need to know.
The rest they will have to teach themselves. Dealing with
this fact must be considered central to any educational
effort, whether or not it explicitly appears on the syllabus.
IMHO the most important goal of the education system is to
get students to love learning. This includes getting them to
the point where they know how teach themselves and are
motivated to do so.

Obviously state-wide high-stakes mile-wide-inch-deep
multiple-guess tests are quite unhelpful in advancing this
goal. Why do we tolerate this?

Some tiny percentage of the "inquiry learning" literature
talks about self-assessment, but usually it is only a tactic
... little more than an afterthought ... not a major
strategy, let alone an end unto itself.

Bottom line: Love of learning. Knowing /how/ to learn.
Self-awareness.
Judgment. My gut tells me we can do better in this area.
Some of it seems blindingly obvious, but some of it remains
very mysterious.
Suggestions, anyone?
_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l

_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l