Re: [Phys-L] science education articles

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 09/23/2015 05:35 AM, Anthony Lapinski wrote:
> I am looking for online journal articles about science education research.
> Our department (middle/high school) wants to have discussions about these
> this year so we can become more effective educators. Current ideas to
> improve the way we teach -- how to asses science literacy, thoughts about
> team teaching, interdisciplinary teaching in science, cooperative
> learning, effective ways to teach/assess students, etc.
>
> Does anyone know any useful websites for this purpose?

> From the keen-grasp-of-the-obvious department:  Here's my
favorite web site.  I doubt you'll find anything better:

  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q="team+teaching";
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=assessment+validity+physics
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=interdisciplinary+teaching+science
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=assess+science+literacy+validity
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=flipped+classroom
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=active+engagement+teaching

++ Some fraction of the hits point directly to online PDFs.
++ As for the others, you can read the abstracts online
  and then decide whether you want to get the full article.
  The local university library might help you get access.

Beware that the signal-to-noise ratio in this area is 
extremely poor.  In the PER literature can find any idea
you want /and its exact opposite/.  This is great if you
are trying to stir up a feckless academic discussion, 
but not so great if you're looking for useful answers.

Think about all the trouble that drug companies to go 
when doing experiments on human subjects:
 -- double blinding
 -- randomized controls
 -- long-term longitudinal studies
 -- etc. etc. etc.

That's difficult and expensive ... but they do it anyway,
because otherwise the results won't be valid.  Evaluating
a teaching method is /at least/ as hard, but when was the
last time you saw anybody bother with even rudimentary 
controls?  You know in your bones that the results cannot
possibly be valid.

Obtaining valid results is hard, but that's no excuse for
publishing invalid results.