Re: improving textbooks -- some modest proposals

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

Well whether or not foreign students actually are better is a debatable
question.  Since most European school systems segregate lower students into
a different track it is hard to actually compare the two groups.  It is my
impression that foreign students are often pushed more to achieve and that
they hold their teachers in higher esteem.  I suspect that the minority
students in most foreign countries do not appear on the tests, unlike our
minorities.  One thing that did emerge from the TIMMS is that foreign
teachers ask an order of magnitude more high level thinking questions.  In
other words factors other than the texts were the important ones.

I have had 2 students from Germany as a comparison.  One has already
graduated and is on a 1 year exchange program.  He scores very high on
Lawson's test of Scientific Reasoning.  He came in essentially with no
understanding of physics, but has shown very good gain on the FMCE.  The
other student has low thinking skills and shows very low gain.  My sampling
is of course very small.  As I understand Germans integrate all of the
sciences in their instruction and also do the same with math.  The
integrated method appears to have produced very low conceptual
understanding.  The more recent student with the most language difficulty is
the high achiever.

The difference between countries is actually not that great when you look at
the means and SDs of the test scores.  However when you look at the
difference between the means and SDs of FCI or FMCE scores for conventional
or reformed classes the difference is quite large.  I submit that reformed
science education when properly implemented can raise test scored
dramatically.  The effect could be much larger than any other factors.
There is confirmation of this in the data accumulated by Shayer and Adey.
They report intake scores for the test schools which are below the English
norm, but output scores which are typical of "much better" schools.  The
shift in test scores is quite dramatic.  Incidentally Shayer & Adey take no
position on whether schools and students have worsened.  They propose that
it is possible to dramatically raise student ability much more than the
perceived loss.

I don't know how great an effect size will result from accurate texts, but I
suspect it will not be very high.  On the other hand effect sizes greater
than 1.0 result from properly implemented reformed physics instruction.  In
other words the best way of achieving better results is by using good
research based material by a teacher who knows how to use it.  In the
meantime just getting better material into the hands of most teachers should
help the situation some.  Since some teachers will never adapt to reformed
materials, they can at least do better with good accurate conventional
texts.  This latter situation is probably the case in middle or high school.
The elementary teachers on the other hand are much more willing to use
different material.  The main problem they have is that a large number score
as concrete reasoners on Lawson's test.

Texts are just one part of the problem.  Since only a small fraction of HS
teachers are using reformed physics education methods their impact on the
overall population is likely to be small.  The fraction of MS teachers using
good reformed methods is probably even smaller than the fraction of reform
minded physics teachers.  As a result just getting accurate books can help.
If the number of reform minded teacher grows sufficiently the text issue may
become moot.  That may take a while.  Other vital issues are teacher
education, distortions produced by high stakes testing, large class sizes,
and the worsening teacher shortage.  Many of the proposed solutions to some
of these problems actually worsen some of the other problems.  The text
problem may be solvable independently from the other problems.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> HI,
>         If the desired results of education reform is to
> seek equality for US students with students in
> other countries, why do we not just use their
> methods and translate ( if necessary) their text
> books?
>
>         I would bet that most of those countries that do
> so well on the international test use a pretty cut
> and dry, study hard approach.
>
> Thanks
> Roger Haar
>
>
> ***********************************************************************
>
> Jane Jackson wrote:
>
> >      The need for new approaches to curriculum and instruction is
> > clear. Over the past fifteen years educators have been taking a
> > hard look at American students' academic performance. In
> > the realms of mathematics and science, we have learned that
> > American students are outperformed by peers in many other
> > countries.
> >      Educators and employers alike express concerns
> > about the literacy skills of America's youth. Within the last
> > decade each major subject area has developed academic standards
> > that raise the bar for student achievement and performance.
> >     In order to meet these standards, teachers face new academic
> > and pedagogical challenges. They must teach more
> > challenging and extensive subject area content, they must
> > develop different instructional strategies, and they must reach
> > a wider range of students. Having a high-quality curriculum to
> > guide instruction is a key to meeting these challenges.