Re: science for all?

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

That is a very good question, and I suspect that the answer varies according
to the school and the type of class.  The only way to find out is to give
them a test such as Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Thinking when they
enter.  As far as finger pointing goes, I think there is enough blame to go
around.  Many education professors think in terms of general techniques.
Unfortunately PER reveals that specific things need to be done when
educating physics students, and just generally following the correct
philosophy does not work all that well.  It used to be that students would
blame themselves, and confirm the teacher's opinion.  While some of the
blame can certainly lie with the students, I think that PER shows that
student success can be greatly enhanced by what the teacher does.  Education
should be a collaboration not a battle.

Despite the fact that many students enter testing at the concrete level, it
is possible to structure the course so that they improve their thinking.
This is now being routinely done in the intro. biology course at AzState.
Anton Lawson has been a prolific publisher of papers on the subject, and has
been pushing this idea for years.  One of the latest papers published by one
of Lawson's collaborators mentioned that the course at AzState pushed up
student thinking by about 1 STD, which is considered to be a very large
increase.  The article is Wycoff "Changing the culture of Undergraduate
Science Teaching", Jour of Coll. Sci. Teach.  XXX #5 pp306-312.

I can tell you the statistics for my course.  About 30% of the incoming
students are at the concrete level, but less than 15% are still at that
level when they leave.  Likewise only about 15% test as formal thinkers
coming in, and about 30% test as formal thinkers going out.  One might
presume that courses which have a large number of physics, engineering, or
pre-med students would have a high proportion of formal thinkers at major
universities.  I would guess 40-50% or more.  While at community colleges
the number would be more like 20%, and for physics for poets courses or
courses with a large number of elementary ed majors the number may be below
10%.  This is purely conjecture because to my knowledge this sort of survey
has not been systematically carried out.  About 30% of the students entering
the AzState general studies bio course tested at the formal level, but the
vast majority were at that level at the end of the course (if I read their
graph correctly in above mentioned paper).  If we can push thinking levels
up, and as a result have more success, shouldn't we do this?

Who is to blame????  If you look at the evidence and find it convincing, but
do not act you are at least partially to blame.  Are you to blame if you are
closed minded about the issue???  When an education professor says you are
to blame, ask him or her to come over and try teaching the physics course
more effectively.  Ask them why their students are not more successful in
teaching math and science (usually they are not).  Student opinions are a
very poor indicator of success.  Workshop Physics does not always get good
reviews, as students say they have learned nothing.  But the evaluation
tests show otherwise.  For more information go to physics.dickinson.edu

While I certainly can have an effect on my students, what about the larger
questions of physics teaching.  I feel that we need to communicate what the
research shows and get many heads working and thinking about the problems.
With awareness, perhaps things will change.  If you look back at the history
of science the same thing happened with most advances.  Boltzmann even
committed suicide when his ideas were not accepted.  While he probably had
such tendencies (bipolar disorder?), he might have lived if his ideas had
take root sooner.  Many people are in denial over the idea that they have
not been using good teaching techniques, just the same as doctors denied
initially denied that antiseptics were saving lives.  We need to advance the
state of the art.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John Clement [mailto:clement@HAL-PC.ORG]
> > Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 5:45 PM
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Unfortunately fully formal thinkers (Theoretical thinkers?)
> > usually do not
> > realize that what seems easy to them is difficult to others
> > who lack these
> > methods of thinking.  However it is possible to have students
> > develop these
> > ways of thinking, but it requires substantial effort and an
> > extended time.
> > Arons points out that up to 85% of adults seem to capable of
> > becoming formal
> > thinkers, but sadly only 30% achieve it in our society.  As a
> > result I would
> > put most to be at most 30%.
>
> What percent of those taking a first-year college-level physics course are
> formal thinkers?  If college-level physics requires formal thinking, we
> shouldn't be surprised when those who are not formal thinkers fail.  What,
> then, is an "expected" failure rate?  When 25% fail a
> college-level physics
> course, the education professors blame the teacher and the science
> professors blame the students.  Who is more correct?
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Robert Cohen           rcohen@po-box.esu.edu
> 570-422-3428         http://www.esu.edu/~bbq
> Department of Physics
> East Stroudsburg University
> East Stroudsburg, PA  18301
> --------------------------------------------