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Re: [Phys-l] Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2

This comment from Jane Jackson was interesting, regarding education in China.

Fascinating comments at the end of the article on Bill Gates (URL below). An excerpt from an Asian who is living in the U.S. is:
"For a while I considered moving back to Asia and for a variety of reasons stayed here. One of those reasons was the school system here versus in Asia. The thing with the American system is that it's problems can be easily countered with parental involvement. In Asia, on the other hand, there is little that can be done to address the problems there. Asian schools still suffer the problem of focusing on rote memorization, parroting the teacher, and a fixation on taking tests. Study schools are still huge there. After school kids go to these cram schools in the evening with the purpose of studying to pass tests more effectively. School there is a lot more oppressive."

This comment is similar to the July 16, 2011 post to PHYSLRNR of Bill Dunwoody, who began his long post as follows: "Having been in China and Taiwan for the last 9 years my experience is that probably 90% of all teaching is done by lecture. But also note that their education systems are all based on rote memorization. The lecturer stands up front, I hate to call them teachers, with a microphone and lectures. The students take notes. No questions are asked of the lecturer. It's not proper for the students to ask questions. Many times a student will be punished for asking a question. They don't want the lecturer to "lose face" because they either didn't explain it well, they didn't make sense, or they are wrong. Once the lecture is over the students memorize their notes. In the end their entire life is dependent on the taking of the largest standardized test in the world."

Last week I met my new next-door neighbors. They are Chinese citizens, and they live and work in China. I asked them why they are moving to the U.S. They said, "for our children's education". Their first and almost only question was, "How close is the school bus stop?" (The woman is a Ph.D. biochemist who used to be a postdoc at ASU; her husband is an accountant. Their children, age 6 and 14, were born in the U.S. and hence are American citizens.)

Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept. of Physics, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7565 <http://modeling.asu.edu>
Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Retired Professor of Physics
Co-Director
Northern Indiana Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Collaborative
574-276-8294
inquirybellina@comcast.net




On Aug 5, 2011, at 9:23 PM, carmelo@pacific.net.sg wrote:


In Lei Bao et al.’s (2009) study, comparisons of Chinese and U.S.
students show that content knowledge and reasoning skills diverge.
This research examined if content knowledge concerned with science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) impacts the development
of scientific-reasoning ability. (Source: Science; 1/30/2009, Vol.
323, Issue 5914, 586-587.) Hence, the effectiveness of lecture may
vary depending on whether students come from Brazil, China, India,
U.S. and so on.

Physics Education Research may still be “Physics Exaggeration
Research” when they generalize their claims, for example, on the
ineffectiveness of lectures without carrying more extensive studies on
students worldwide. How rigorous are these research studies? Can
education research studies deduce the effect of gender? What if there
are 90% female students and 10 male students attending the physics
lectures? Can education research studies calculate the effect of 50%
American students, 50% chinese students?

The Mozart effect (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993) is the purported
increase in spatial-reasoning performance immediately after exposure
to a Mozart piano sonata. The experiment found a modest and temporary
IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task
while listening to a Mozart sonata, but there was no research studies
carried out on babies. (The Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, proposed
a budget to provide every child born in Georgia with a CD of classical
music.) The finding was proved to be a mystery after a 1999 review
showed that over a dozen studies failed to verify the 1993 experiment.
Is the ineffectiveness of lectures replicated worldwide? To what
extent? If lectures are indeed ineffective, can physics education
researchers calculate the cultural effects on the ineffectiveness of
lectures?

Lastly, what is the ineffectiveness of lectures when simulations,
videos, live demos are incorporated? Because traditional lectures have
been found to be ineffective, interactive lectures should be abolished
as well? Are there studies conducted to confirm that Redish’s proposal
on interactive lecture demonstrations are equally ineffective?

The greater concern is not the effectiveness of lectures, but the
rigor of physics education research and its claim.


Best regards,
Alphonsus


Quoting Joseph Bellina <inquirybellina@comcast.net>:

I agree completely that when an 82 year old man marries a 28 year
old woman, there is motivation involved. I will agree that
motivation is a necessary component, but you have provided not
evidence that it is sufficient.
Again, are you claiming that the chinese mind is evolutionarily
different and that is why they appear to learn well by lecture?


joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Retired Professor of Physics
Co-Director
Northern Indiana Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Collaborative
574-276-8294
inquirybellina@comcast.net


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