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Re: [Phys-l] Lack of rigor: low increase in crit. thinking

By now it is fairly common knowledge based on a lot of the CAT scan work and NMR imaging work in cognitive development

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2006/02/06.html

i.e.

http://tinyurl.com/ydpauh5

for one.




_________________________

Joel Rauber, Ph.D 
Professor and Head of Physics
Department of Physics
South Dakota State University
Brookings, SD 57007
Joel.Rauber@sdstate.edu
605.688.5428 (w)
605.688.5878 (fax)


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of arnulfo castellanos
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 10:46 AM
To: 'Forum for Physics Educators'
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Lack of rigor: low increase in crit. thinking

How do you know that?

Arnulfo Castellanos-Moreno



-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Jack
Uretsky
Sent: Lunes, 05 de Septiembre de 2011 10:14 p.m.
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Lack of rigor: low increase in crit. thinking

The human brain isn't complete earlier than age 25. What do you
expect?
Regards,
Jack

"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Mon, 5 Sep 2011, John Clement wrote:

The important part of the article in the link is:
"Students study in Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington
in
Seattle. The authors of Academically Adrift find that in the first
two
years
of college, "with a large sample of more than 2,300 students, we
observe
no
statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex
reasoning
and
writing skills for at least 45 percent of the students in our study."

But is this different from what used to happen in college? I suspect
it
is
not. We know that thinking skills do not generally rise in most
standard
college courses, but Lawson and others have shown that a learning
cycle
based course does show improvement. Computer science education has
shown
that CS courses do not improve the ability to use formal reasoning as
measured on the PLT propositional logic test.

The authors attribute this to a decrease in writing, but I do not
remember
doing all that much writing 50 years ago. On the other hand Shayer &
Adey
have shown an increase using Thinking Science which improve English,
math
and science skills, but does not have much writing. But it does
target
specific thinking skills.

There is no evidence that "rigor" improves the thinking skills. One
needs
to compare students before and after "rigorous" courses. Usually
rigor
denotes harder material, but if you want to improve thinking, then
the
material does not necessarily have to be harder, but targeted at the
skills
you want students to achieve. And it has to be done in a research
based
fashion. In the past "rigorous" courses may have weeded out lower
students,
but it is not know if they improved thinking. Filtering is not
improving.

The authors have not shown that skills have decreased, but merely
that
skills are low. That is not the same thing. When you have
politicians
who
can go through universities, including Ivy League schools and scoff
at
evolution, you know there is a problem with what they are learning.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX






-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf
Of Bernard Cleyet
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 4:26 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators; The Physics Learning Research List
Subject: [Phys-l] Lack of rigor: low increase in crit. thinking

Alluded to, but I don't remember the study's report's link posted.

In College, A Lack Of Rigor Leaves Students 'Adrift' : NPR |
LinkedIn


http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=363377354&id
s=0Ud34Ne3cPc3sIc3wUc3oVcj0Tb3sVdjsMe34MdOMTej4TdP4Pc3sId3kPdP
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bc
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_______________________________________________
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