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

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

The MPEX shows that studio style courses improve attitudes toward learning.
As to inquiry being addictive, it should be.  Once you learn that you can
figure things out rather than being told everything, one would think that
students would become more independent.

Redish showed that standard courses tend to make students more novice like,
so I would think that this is an indicator that PER is moving them in the
right direction.

As to whether they are more self directed, that is certainly a good point to
investigate.  The accounts of Chinese learning would indicate that the
Chinese tend to want external authority rather than internal thinking.  One
can readily see that students often want you to tell them the answers rather
than seeking them on their own, so the current educational system is driving
them into novice like attitudes.

There are accounts by Modelers that their students are more self directed,
but one needs to quantify this and test for it in some fashion.  Anecdotal
evidence is nice, but some sort of testing for this is needed.

If it is true that most of the really top people were self taught, then
lecture is probably fairly irrelevant for them.  I did have one student who
thought the lectures at A&M were poor so he stayed home and read the book.
He was able to pass with flying colors.  But he went into his college
physics with 100% on the FMCE coming out of my course.

Incidentally the Bao results showed higher FCI scores in China because as
the paper explained Chinese students have several years of physics, vs. the
at most 1 year for US students.  But again, the thinking skills as measured
on the Lawson test were the same for both groups.  So one can not come up
with any evidence for superior teaching in China, just more exposure.

The idea that students need to use their own reasoning rather than just
relying on authority is an important concept in PER, so it should contribute
to greater autonomy.  Perhaps some of the tests devised by Reuven Feuerstein
would be useful there.

The work of Shayer & Adey which is similar to PER points to students having
greater capability and are accelerated after the program.  Hence their
program is billed as cognitive acceleration.  In other words they build
better students who subsequently do better in conventional classes and on
conventional exams.

I submit that the standard lecture system makes students dependent on being
told things by authority and dampens the thinking.  Interactive lectures
combat this partially by getting students to come to conclusions by
discussion with peers.  So I would say the reverse problem is what students
current generally suffer from, addiction to lectures.

But again others can do experiments and see what happens.  That is what
should be going on in the classroom "action research" with results reported
and debated.  So anyone who doubts PER should try some experiments.  I have
witnessed what I would call growth and have some data and anecdotal evidence
that lines up with this hypothesis, so obviously I firmly believe that PER
is on the right track.  But it by no means has a perfect system, if such a
thing could exist.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> Well said! Would physics students become obsessed in inquiry, living  
> in a world of their own? Has PER considered character development in  
> physics lessons?