Please excuse this LONG cross-posting (if you reply please don't send
this entire post to the list yet again - once is more than enough!)
to discussion lists with archives at:
In his 5/4/01 Phys-L post "Re: Good lectures," Jim Ealy wrote
(slightly edited):
"A number of years ago I heard about the Minute Paper (MP) at the end
of class: students are asked to spend one minute in reflection about
the class, then list anything that was well done or that they found
confusing. I read these MP's and then spend the first part of the
next period clearing up problems indicated in them. I find that the
MP method works in the high school as well as the university. One
needs a thick skin at first - but MP's are well worth the discomfort
that student criticisms may inflict."
To which Joe Bellina responded:
"This . . . (the Minute Paper). . . is one of a group of "classroom
research" tools you can use to find out what is happening in your
class. . . . Others can be found in the books by Tom Angelo . .
.(among them ref. 1). . . THE IDEA ORIGINALLY CAME FROM PAT CROSS."
(My CAPS.)
WRONG!! The original idea of the Minute Paper did NOT come from Pat
Cross (or Tom Angelo or the Harvard Assessment Seminars) but instead
from BERKELEY PHYSICIST CHARLES SCHWARTZ!!!
As my previous Schwartzian account(4) of Minute Paper(MP) history
indicated, MP's were apparently first mentioned in the literature in
a 1986 paper(2) by Robert Wilson (RW):
"After the end of the term thirty-nine excellent teachers were
interviewed. Each interview focussed on the six to eight
questionnaire items that students rated as most descriptive of that
faculty member's teaching . . . . An example of the interview style
follows.
"An excellent teacher in physics . . .(ETIP). . . was given a mean
rating of 4.8 on a 5-point scale on item 15: 'knows if the class is
understanding him/her or not.' The ensuing dialogue was something
like the following:
RW: "Can you think of anything you do that would lead students to say
that it is so descriptive of your teaching that you know if the class
is understanding you?"
ETIP: (After a brief reflective pause.) "Yes. It's probably because
of my minute papers."
RW: "What's a minute paper?"
ETIP: "Well, I give my students a minute to answer two questions.
Four of five times during the term I come to class two minutes early.
I write two questions in the corner of the board: (1) What is the
most significant thing you learned today? (2) What question is
uppermost in your mind at the end of this class session? Then I go
ahead and give a 49-minute presentation. One minute before the bell
rings I tell the students to take out a piece of paper, sign it, and
answer the two questions in one minute. When the bell rings I ask
them to pass their papers to the aisle. I walk down aisle and pick
them up. I originally started this as a way of taking attendance and
would simply give the papers to my readers to check of the names.
Later, I started reading the papers and they, of course, do provide
excellent feedback on whether the students are understanding and
whether there are important questions to which I should respond."
Wilson did not identify the "excellent teacher in physics" (ETIP) in
accord with established protocol regarded the confidentiality of
survey respondents.
However, in 1989 I managed to ferret out the identity of Wilson's
ETIP by arranging for signs to be posted around the Berkeley physics
department:
"REWARD - Five dollars to the first person who identifies to us the
Berkeley physicist who originated the famous Minute Paper Method."
A few weeks after the posting, on 10/10/89, I received a telephone
call from Robert Wilson. He said that Schwartz had seen the reward
sign and called him to say that it would be OK for Wilson to disclose
his (Schwartz's) identity to me. On 11/5/89 I snail mailed notes to
people who had been referencing Minute Papers: Pat Cross of Berkeley,
Frederick Mosteller of Harvard, Sheila Tobias of the University of
Arizona, and Dorothy Gabel & Anita Roychoudhury of Indiana
University. I advised them of Wilson's call and suggested that
henceforth the reference to Minute Papers should give Schwartz the
credit he deserves. None of my notes was acknowledged. A fruitless
11-year campaign then ensued to get the Berkeley/Harvard people who
had been advertising Minute Papers as the greatest thing since sliced
bread(7-10) to state in print that Schwartz was their inventor.
In a recent battle of the Minute Paper Wars, on 3/29/01, I sent yet
another "Schwartz Invented Minute Papers" missive, this time to Jack
Chizmar(11) with a cc to the present cc list which includes Barbara
Gross Davis, Berkeley's Assistant Vice Chancellor, Student
Life-Educational Development.
Then on that very same day A MIRACLE OCCURRED! Barbara Gross Davis
sent an email stating that she had not heard of my campaign to
acknowledge Schwartz, readily admitted that he was the inventor of
Minute Papers, acknowledged that fact IN PRINT on her web page
description of the Minute Paper at
<http://www.uga.berkeley.edu/sled/compendium/Suggestions/file.95.html>,
and in a subsequent email(12) wrote:
"SO, ATTENTION ALL RESEARCHERS, AUTHORS, SPEAKERS, WRITERS, TEACHERS,
ETC.: WE HEREBY PROCLAIM THAT WHENEVER THE MINUTE PAPER IS MENTIONED
IN PRINT OR IN SPEECH, IT SHALL HENCEFORTH BE REFERENCED AS FOLLOWS:
I'll be sure to update the citation, as above, in my second edition
of "Tools for Teaching."(13) Hopefully, others will follow suit.
Who knows? MAYBE OVER TIME THE MINUTE PAPER MAY EVENTUALLY BECOME
KNOWN AS SCHWARTZ'S MINUTE PAPER." (My CAPS.)
According to Mike Zelik,(14) information on the Minute Paper, with
the above attribution, will soon be placed on the excellent NISE
(National Institute for Science Education) FLAG (Field-tested
Learning Assessment Guide) website.(15)
Can Minute Papers work in a physics classes other than Schwartz's?
During the last minute of physics "lectures" at Indiana University
(see the "IU" entries in Table IIc of ref. 4), students wrote down
and submitted answers to two questions:
(1) What is the most significant scientific idea that you learned
today in lecture?
(2) What physics question is uppermost in your mind as you leave the lecture?
My experience was that Minute Papers offer important advantages in that they:
(a) provide feedback on what the students are (or more usually are
not) learning in lecture - often indicating that students
misinterpret lectures and demonstrations so as to conform to their
own preconceptions - little wonder that the passive student lecture
is, for average students, almost totally ineffective in promoting
conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics.(4-6)
(b) supply a list of student questions to which the lecturer may wish
to respond,
(c) provide an attendance record (the small grade benefit given for
regular presence dramatically increases the lecture attendance),
(d) identify students who may need extra help or enriched material,
(e) encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning,
(f) motivate students to listen more actively.
Despite the widespread use(16) and enthusiasm (1-3, 7-10, 17) for
Minute Papers, rigorous testing(11,18) of their effectiveness in
promoting student learning is extremely rare. Chizmar and
Ostresky(11) wrote: "Our review of the literature uncovered NO
studies reporting empirical results of the effect of the one-minute
paper on learning." (My CAPS.)
In my opinion, the dearth(19) of high quality quantitative and
qualitative research in education severely impedes meaningful
reform.(6)
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
REFERENCES & FOOTNOTES
1. T.A. Angelo and K.P. Cross, "Classroom Assessment Techniques,"
(Jossey-Bass, 1993, 2nd ed.): "To the best of our knowledge, no other
Classroom Assessment Technique. . .(CAT). . . has been used more
often or by more college teachers than the Minute Paper." On page
153, it is pointed out (correctly, I think) that: ". . . versions of
the Minute Paper (CAT #6), and many other CATS, probably have been
invented and reinvented time and again by instructors in various
colleges at different times." Nevertheless, I think the Angelo/Cross
Minute Paper referencing is insufficient because it mentions only
refs. 2 and 3 with regard to the Berkeley reincarnation of written
post-lecture student comments
2. R.C. Wilson, "Improving Faculty Teaching: Effective Use of Student
Evaluations and Consultants," J. of Higher Ed. 57(2), 196-211 (1986);
See also D. Outcalt (chair) et al. "Report of the Task Force on
Teaching Evaluation," Univ. of California, 1990.
3. R.L. Weaver and H.W. Cotrell, "Mental Aerobics: The Half-Sheet
Response," Innovative Higher Education 10. 23-31 (1985). According to
Angelo and Cross (ref. 1) the term "half-sheet response" derives from
the practice of having students write answers to post-lecture
questions on half-sheets of scrap paper. Innovative Higher
Education's website <http://www.uga.edu/ihe/IHE.html> contains
abstracts of articles only back to volume 14(1) of Fall/winter 1989.
4. R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," on the Web at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/> and
submitted on 6/19/98 to the "Physics Education Research Supplement to
AJP"(PERS); see footnote #58. See also refs. 5 & 6.
5. R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66, 64-74 (1998); on the Web at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/> and also the Harvard Galileo
server at <http://galileo.harvard.edu/> under "Hands On Methods."
6. R.R. Hake, "Lessons from the Physics Education Reform Effort,"
submitted on 3/28/01 to "Conservation Ecology"
<http://www.consecol.org/Journal/>, a "peer-reviewed journal of
integrative science and fundamental policy research." On the web as
ref. 10 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
[ConEc-Hake-O32601a.pdf, 3/26/01, 172K) (179 references, 98
hot-linked URL's). 164K).
7. R.J. Light, "Explorations with students and faculty about
teaching, learning, and student life," The Harvard assessment
seminars, first report, 1990, Cambridge, Mass., Graduate School of
Education and Kennedy School of Government, 1990, page 35-36:
"Faculty members at an early Seminar were asked what single change
would most improve their current teaching. Two ideas swamped all
others. One is the importance of enhancing students' awareness of
'the big picture,'. . . .the second is the importance of helpful and
regular feedback from students so a professor can make midcourse
corrections. . . . .PATRICIA CROSS, NOW AT THE UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA AT
BERKELEY SUGGESTS A SIMPLE DEVICE CALLED THE ONE-MINUTE PAPER. . .
.This extraordinarily simple idea is catching on throughout Harvard.
Some experienced professors comment that it is the best example of
high-payoff for a tiny investment they have ever seen. . . .Professor
Fredrick Mosteller finds the idea so appealing he has use it in his
course on basic statistical methods. . . .(see ref. 9). . ." (My
CAPS.)
8. R.J. Light, "Explorations with students and faculty about
teaching, learning, and student life." The Harvard assessment
seminars, second report. Cambridge, Mass.; Graduate School of
Education and Kennedy School of Government, 1992; See also at
<http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/09.25/InClassroomSmal.html>.
9. F. Mosteller, "The 'Muddiest Point in the Lecture' as a Feedback
Device," in "On Teaching and Learning," vol. 3, April 1989.
(Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning) pp. 10-21. . .
Mosteller's adaptation of Minute Papers is designated "CAT #7" in
ref. 1.
10. New York Times News Service bulletin as presented in the
Louisville Courier-Journal of 3/5/90: "Minor teaching changes can
aid learning, study shows: . . . . according to a study released
yesterday by Harvard University . . . . (researchers recommend). . .
. that professors ask student to write a "one-minute paper" at the
end of each class describing 'the big point you learned today' and
'the main unanswered question you still have' ..... THE FINDINGS GREW
OUT OF HARVARD ASSESSMENT SEMINARS, a project initiated three years
ago by the university's president, Derek Bok..." (My CAPS.)
11. J.F. Chizmar & A.L. Ostrosky, "The One-Minute Paper: Some
Empirical Findings," Journal of Economic Education, Winter
29(1)(1998); online at
<http://www.indiana.edu/~econed/issues/v29_1/1.htm>: "A major finding
of the Harvard Assessment Seminars. . .(ref. 7,8). . . is that
'modest, relatively simple and low-tech innovations can improve
students' learning and active participation in class' (Light 1990, p.
35. . .ref. 7). One such innovation is the so-called one-minute paper
(Cross and Angelo 1988. . .(the 1st edition of ref. 1). . .; Bateman
and Roberts, 1992. . . (ref. 17). . . ; Wilson 1986. . .(ref. 2). . .
. The one-minute paper has become rather ubiquitous in higher
education." Chizmer and Ostrosky conclude: "The results of this pilot
project concerning the effectiveness of the one-minute paper confirm
our initial hypotheses and suggest others. The evidence suggests that
the one-minute paper does enhance economic knowledge by approximately
0.6 of a point on the postTUCE exam . . .(TUCE = Test of
Understanding of College Economics), ceteris paribus. . . .(other
things being equal). . . This result represents an approximate 6.6
percent increase in economic knowledge relative to the mean preTUCE
level, a practically significant return for a modest investment of
time.
12. Email communication, B.G. Davis to R.R. Hake, 3/29/01, with cc's
to the present cc list.
13. B.G. Davis, "Tools for Teaching" (Jossey-Bass, 1993).
14. Email communication, M. Zeilik to R.R. Hake, 3/30/01.
16. A search for "Minute Paper" with the powerful Google search
engine <http://www.google.com/> netted 1.05 million hits in 0.25
seconds!
17. G.R. Bateman & H.V. Roberts, "What we think we're learning from
the teaching lab: Extended discussion." Graduate School of Business,
University of Chicago, 1992; "TQM . . . (Total Quality Management) .
. . for professors and students." Graduate School of Business,
University of Chicago, 1992.
18. E.D. Almer, K. Jones, & C. Moeckel, "The Impact of One-Minute
Papers on Learning in an Introductory Accounting Course," Issues in
Accounting Education 13(3), 485-497 (1998); abstract online at
<http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/pubs/is8-98.htm#aa>: "Overall
results indicate that performance on subsequent essay quizzes was
significantly higher by students who wrote one-minute papers than
performance by students who did not write the papers. Of particular
interest to instructors was that the increase in quiz scores when
one-minute papers were not graded was significantly higher than when
the one-minute papers were graded. Results of this study should be
useful to instructors interested in an efficient and effective
pedagogical tool."
19. E.C. Lagemann, "An elusive science: the troubling history of
education research" (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000).