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Hostility to Interactive Engagement Methods



If you respond to this long (20K) post PLEASE DON'T HIT THE REPLY
BUTTON - the bane of discussion lists - and thereby inflict it yet
again on list subscribers.

In her PhyLrnR post titled "Active learning in theory, active
learning in practice, or both?" Carol Koleci (2003a) wrote
(bracketed by
lines "KKKKK. . . "):

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
. . .the intent of my initial email [Koleci (2003b] was to remind us
of the types of attitudes, beliefs, expectations, etc. surfacing in
our introductory physics courses. . . . 'Bobby' is a first-year
college student and much like other college students he appears to be
basing his views on past experiences. . . . . I believe 'Bobby's'
commentary

["In theory, this . . .[Harvard Peer Instruction method - see Mazur
(1997), Crouch & Mazur (2001), Fagen et al. (2002)]]. . . would be
an ideal way to teach a course, where the students are teaching
themselves. My feeling on it is similar to my feelings of communism,
looks great in theory but is totally impractical in practice."]

is further testimony that students come to our classrooms with such deeply held
attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of how and why the world behaves that we
ought _NOT_ to ignore these symptoms. Furthermore, while it would be nice to
learn of the reason for his beliefs, attitudes, etc., the point is they exist
and how can we as physics educators help (from the teaching of
physics content & procedural knowledge to the teaching of becoming a
good, open-minded, and respectful scientist)?
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK


Student hostility to interactive engagement (IE) methods
[i.e.,"heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities which
yield immediate feedback through discussion with peers and/or
instructors (Hake 1998a)"] has, of course, been much discussed in the
literature. For example, in the unjustifiably suppressed Hake (1998b)
I wrote (slightly edited):

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The [implementation] problems indicated above by Reif (1995) are:

(a) lack of student motivation [Reif & Larkin (1991), Cullota (1992),
Hammer (1994)]. This is especially severe for students in interactive
engagement courses who dislike any departure from the traditional
methods to which they have become accustomed and under which their
grades, if not their understanding, may have flourished [Laws (1989,
1991, 1997); Mazur (1997); Meltzer & Manivannan (1996); Cullota (1992]

(b) naive student beliefs about the nature of science and learning
[Reif & Larkin (1991), Hammer (1994)]; . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(f) organizational problems [college level - Tobias (1992),
high-school level - Sizer (1985,1992, 1996)] such as: inertia,
bureaucracy, inadequate funding, lack of enthusiasm for
non-physics-major education, grade inflation, the administrative
misuse of student evaluations to gauge the cognitive (rather than
just the affective) impact of courses, and the indifference or
animosity of colleagues and administrators towards new instructional
methods.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Among more recent discussions of such implementation problems are:

(a) Crouch & Mazur (2001) who write: "It has been established (Sadler
1998) that students often require a period of adjustment to new
methods of instruction before their learning improves. In the same
fashion, when learning a new way to grip a tennis racquet, a tennis
player is likely to play worse at first, and improve only after
becoming comfortable with the new (and presumably better) grip. At
such times it is the coach's responsibility to encourage the player
that this decline is a normal part of the learning process. Likewise,
in the classroom, the instructor must not be discouraged by
complaints such as: "When are we going to get to do some REAL
physics?" and must continue to explain to students the reason that
the course is taught this way (Felder & Brent 1996)."

(b) John Belcher's (2003) PhysLrnR post in which he references
positive (Chen 2001), mixed (Li 2003), and negative (Agarwal 2003,
LeBon 2003), student commentary on his interactive engagement (IE)
TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning) project at MIT. Students
petitioned the administration to terminate TEAL (LeBon 2003), despite
the fact that average normalized learning gains <g> for TEAL were
about twice those of the traditional course, as is usual for IE
physics courses (Hake 2002).

(c) David Gavrin's (2003) facinating article "Making the Case,"
regarding problems attending the early initiation of the "Case
Method" at Harvard. [Thanks to Lori Breslow and John Belcher for
bringing this article to my attention.]
Gavrin wrote:

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Christopher Columbus Langdell, the pioneer of the case method,
attended Harvard Law School from 1851 to 1854. . . . In 1870, Harvard
president Charles William Eliot appointed Langdell. . . professor and
then dean of the law school. Langdell immediately set about
developing the case method. . . . Langdell's innovations initially
met with enormous resistance. Many students were outraged. During the
first three years of his administration, as word spread of Harvard's
new approach to legal education, enrollment at the school dropped
from 165 to 117 students, leading Boston University to start a law
school of its own. Alumni were in open revolt."
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

REFERENCES
Agarwal, A. 2003. "The Real Deal on 8.02 TEAL" The Tech 123(16); online at
<http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N16/arun16.16c.html>:"Basically, the
idea behind TEAL, is that students 'learn on their own.' Before each
session we have required reading, and we then go in and have short
presentations on the topics in the reading, and then perform
experiments and workshops. The presentations don't hold a candle to a
lecture, because they simply highlight issues from the reading,
through quick board work and some PowerPoint."

Belcher, J.W. 2003. "MIT faculty newsletter article - comments solicited."
PhysLnrR post of 22 Sep 2003 11:50:56-0600; online at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0309&L=physlrnr&O=A&X=2383F7367D65637FFC&Y=rrhake@earthlink.net&P=14961>.
[Paradoxically for a list that seeks to promote physics-education
research and disseminate its results, one must subscribe to PhysLnrR
to access its archives, but that can be done in a minute or so by
going to the archives, clicking on "Join the list or change settings"
and then subscribing. Busy people may wish to subscribe in the NOMAIL
option under "Miscellaneous" since then, as subscribers they may
access the archives or post at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from
the list.]

Chen, V. 2001. "TEAL Project a Success; May Expand Next Year," The
Tech 121(54); online at
<http://the-tech.mit.edu/V121/N54/54_teal.54n.html>.

Crouch, C.H. & E. Mazur. 2001. "Peer Instruction: Ten years of
experience and results," Am. J. Phys. 69: 970-977; online at
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/library/pubs.taf?function=search>:

Cullota, E. 1992. "The Calculus of Educational Reform: New teaching
methods promise to revitalize a dull course, but students raised on
tradition remain skeptical; their reaction holds broad lessons for
curriculum reform," Science 255, 1060-1062 (1992).

Fagen, A.P., C.H. Crouch, & E. Mazur. 2002. Phys. Teach. 40(4):
206-209; online at
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/library/pubs.taf?function=search>.

Felder, R.M. & R. Brent. 1996. "Navigating the Bumpy Road to
Student-Centered Instruction," College Teaching 44: 43-47; online at
<http://www.ncsu.edu/effective_teaching/Papers/Resist.html>.

Garvin, D.A. 2003. "Making the Case." Harvard Magazine,
September/October; online at
<http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/090322.html>. [A footnoted
pdf is available at this site.]

Hake, R. R. 1998. "Interactive-engagement vs. traditional methods:
A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66 (1): 64-74 ; online as ref. 24 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online as ref. 25 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. SUBMITTED on 6/19/98 to the
"Physics Education Research Supplement to AJP" (PERS). In this SADLY
UNPUBLISHED (Physics Education Research has NO archival journal!)
crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a): average pre/post test
scores, standard deviations, instructional methods, materials used,
institutions, and instructors for each of the survey courses of Hake
(1998a) are tabulated and referenced. In addition the paper
includes: (a) case histories for the seven IE courses of Hake (1998a)
whose effectiveness as gauged by pre-to-post test gains was close to
those of T courses, (b) advice for implementing IE methods, and (c)
suggestions for further research.

Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>. "Conservation Ecology," is
a FREE "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and fundamental
policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.

Hammer, D. 1994. "Epistemological beliefs in introductory physics,"
Cogn. Instruct. 12(2): 151-183; online as a pdf at
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/papers/hammer/index.html>

Koleci, C. 2003a. "Active learning in theory, active learning in
practice, or both?" PhysLrnR post of 6 Oct 2003 11:01:28-0400; online
at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0310&L=physlrnr&O=A&X=50851954A03A4F47BA&Y=rrhake@earthlink.net&P=2373>.

Koleci, C. 2003b. "Active learning in theory, active learning in
practice, or both?" PhysLrnR post of 25 Sep 2003 22:21:58-0400;
online at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0309&L=physlrnr&F=&S=&X=3F2C2124D5F77C91D9&Y=rrhake@earthlink.net&P=18322>.

Laws, P. 1989. "Workshop physics: Replacing lectures with real
experience" in "Proc. Conf. Computers in Physics Instruction", ed. by
E. Redish & J. Risley (Addison-Wesley, 1989), pp. 22-32: "At the end
of the first semester a significant number of students complained
that they had done more work in the course than in all their other
courses put together."

Laws, P. 1991. "Calculus-Based Physics Without Lectures," Phys. Today
44(12): 24-31 (1991): "Some students complain that Workshop Physics
courses are too complex and demand too much time. . . .A small
percentage of students thoroughly dislike the active approach. Some
students state emphatically that they would prefer a return to the
lecture approach.

Laws, P. 1997. "Millikan Lecture 1996: Promoting active learning
based on physics education research in introductory physics courses,"
Am. J. Phys. 65: 13-21: "...many college students have had little
practice in the art of logical reasoning in their previous schooling.
Although these students are often very capable intellectually, many
of them find thinking and taking intellectual risks to be a painful
process. Students who contend that they prefer lectures say they
resent having to "teach themselves everything."

LeBon, L. E. 2003. "Students Petition Against TEAL," The Tech
123(14); online at
<http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N14/14802T.14n.html>: "Juliana D.
Olmstead '06 started the petition. "I got fed up and thought 'why
isn't anyone doing something about it?' so I decided that I might as
well," Olmstead said. The statement reads: "8.02 TEAL does not
provide us with the intellectual challenge and stimulation that can
be expected from a course at MIT."

Li, W. 2003. "The Educational Airplane," The Tech 123(15); online at
<http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N15/li_col_15.15c.html>.

Mazur, E. 1997. "Peer instruction: a user's manual." Prentice Hall;
online at <http://galileo.harvard.edu/>: "Students are not likely to
accept a change in lecture format with open arms. They are used to
the traditional lectures and will doubt the new format will help them
achieve more (i.e., obtain a higher grade in the course). . .it is
important to motivate students early on."

Meltzer, D.E. & K. Manivannan. 1996. "Promoting Interactivity in
Physics Lecture Classes," Phys. Teach. 34, 72- 76 (1996); online at
<http://www.physics.iastate.edu/per/articles/index.html>.

Reif, F. 1995. "Millikan Lecture 1994: Understanding and teaching
important scientific thought processes," Am. J. Phys. 63: 17-32
(1995).

Reif F. J.H. Larkin. 1991. "Cognition in Scientific and Everyday
Domains: Comparison and Learning Implications," J. Res. Sci. Teach.
28, 733-760.

Sadler, P.M. 1998. "Psychometric Models of Student Conceptions in
Science: Reconciling Qualitative Studies and Distractor-Driven
Assessment Instruments," J. Res. Sci. Teach. 35(3): 265-296.

Sizer, T.R. 1985. "Horace's Compromise." Houghton Mifflin.

Sizer, T.R. 1992. "Horace's School." Houghton Mifflin.

Sizer, T.R. 1996. "Horace's Hope." Houghton Mifflin.

Tobias S. 1992. "Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things
Work and Most Don't." Research Corporation, Tucson, AZ.