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[Physltest] [Phys-L] Questions Active Learning - PART 1



PART 1

If you object to cross-posting as a way to tunnel through
interdisciplinary barriers, or have zero or less interest in "active
learning," please hit "DELETE." And if you respond to this long (25
kB) post, please don't hit the reply button unless you prune the
original message normally contained in your reply down to a few
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suffering list subscribers.

In her Dewey-L post of 28 Jan 2005 titled "Questions 'Active
Learning'," Celinda Scott (2005) quoted Joe Bernt, secretary of the
Ohio University AAUP chapter thusly [bracketed by lines "BBBBBB. . .
."]:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
. . . . the latest issue of Academe. . . [devoted to "Classroom
Cultures" <http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/index.htm>]. . .
, the national journal of the American Association of University
Professors, features a thought-provoking article by Kevin Mattson
[2005], professor of history and current president of the OU AAUP
Chapter.

Mattson's article questions the motivations driving the rhetoric of
university administrations nationwide regarding "active" or "engaged"
learning, a rhetoric permeating much of the discussion of "teaching
excellence," "writing across the curriculum," and proposed changes in
general education at Ohio University. Mattson, who views the active-
or engaged-learning movement as a potential threat to already
overworked professors, places this new educational rhetoric into its
historical, intellectual, economic, and political context in this
essay.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

Mattson's wrote [my **emphasis**]:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
You've probably heard the terms "active" or "engaged" learning at
your college. If you haven't encountered them yet, beware. Worry
especially if you teach at a big university with large classes. The
terms translate into the following command for professors: it is your
responsibility to pioneer new techniques that can "make large classes
seem small," as a set of educational researchers recently put it with
utmost seriousness. That is, simulate the feeling of a seminar, or
nurture "dialogical" processes, amid a sea of five hundred faces in a
large lecture hall. . . .

**There's a reason why "active learning" is such a popular idea.
Unlike other pedagogical fads that come and go, it has deep roots
within American educational thought, making it prone to constant
recycling. At the turn of the century, the granddaddy of American
pedagogy, John Dewey, studied what worked best among young students
and came up with a central principle of "active learning," framed by
his philosophy of pragmatism: the belief that thought and action,
ideas and the use of ideas, can never be separated.**

Dewey's views about "learning by doing" framed a broader movement for
"progressive education" during the early twentieth century. . . .
[for Dewey's views on science education see Ansbacher (2000) & Hake
(2005)].
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Regarding Mattson's reference to Dewey, Celinda Scott (2005) commented:

"Doesn't seem as though Dewey deserves the blame for some of the
problems addressed in the very long paper, but the problems
themselves deserve attention. What do others think - especially
people who are just starting out careers teaching in large
universities?"

I agree with Celinda [see the signature quote and also Ansbacher
(2000) & Hake (2005)].

In addition to placing some of the blame on Dewey, Mattson seems to
imply that the "educational bureaucracy" uses "active learning" as a
ruse to justify assigning lecturers to enormous halls occupied by
hundreds of students on bogus grounds that active learning can "make
large classes seem small." He writes:

"The educational bureaucracy has embraced the movement. Often,
administrative centers on campus will work across departments,
assuming titles like the Center for Teaching Excellence or the Center
for Writing Across the Curriculum. Staffed by administrators, these
centers teach professors better ways to teach, often through
'workshops'. "

Mattson ends his essay with [my **emphasis**]:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
I realize that we as Americans don't like to hear that if we want
something -be it active citizens, smart kids, people who can think
and be prepared for democratic action - we need to spend money on it
and recraft our institutions to reflect our goals. Many of us prefer
quick fixes or a change in attitude. We're willing to listen to
chatter about "paradigm shifts" . . .[Mattson indicts Barr & Tagg's
(1995) "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate
Education,"]. . . but not about spending more money and reforming
institutions. As professors, we have the responsibility of pressing
tough questions, not just on our students but on society as a whole.
We must shape the debate about the future of our profession and the
goal of educating young people.

**And if we really want active learning, we need to resist quick
fixes and ask some difficult questions about the future of higher
education.**

Our students and our society will benefit from our doing so. So will we.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I agree with Mattson that we need to "resist quick fixes and ask some
difficult questions about the future of higher education." One such
question, rarely asked in academia, is:

What IS "active learning"?

In a Math-Teach/PhysLrnR post [Hake (2003)], I argued that the term
is essentially meaningless, writing [bracketed by lines "HHHHHH. . ."]

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"JS" (Math-Teach post of 20 Jan 03 07:45:14-0500) asked:

"I am doing research on active learning of mathematics. I want to
know what active learning is from a teacher's perspective. How can
teachers know if active learning is taking place in their classes?"

In my opinion:

1. The term "active learning" (commonly applied to "reform" methods
of instruction) should be avoided because it's ambiguous and
misleading:

(a) If "learning" includes rote memorization and if "active" includes
mental activity, then all "learning" is "active," since without some
brain activity there can't be any "learning" (even of rote-memorized
material). With these definitions of "learning" and "active", the
answer to Lou Talman's question (Math-Teach post of 20 Jan 2003
11:39:19-0700): "How is 'active learning' different from 'learning'?"
is *"It's not!"* . . . [Mattson makes the same point, writing "Who
could deny the basic idea that learning is an active process (indeed,
isn't it oxymoronic to say otherwise)?"]. . .

(b) If "learning" means "understanding" and "active" means either
mentally or physically active or both, then no "learning" whatsoever
may occur in so-called "active learning" programs. . . .[such as some
of those discribed by Mattson]. . . Therefore the term "active
learning" can be misleading.

2. Instead of researching the ambiguous "active learning," it might
be better to simply research "teaching methods," and phrase the
research question (see e.g., Hake 1998a) as **"Can the use of
non-traditional teaching methods increase the effectiveness of
mathematics courses in promoting student understanding well beyond
that attained by traditional methods?"**
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

That the use of "interactive engagement" (IE) methods *can* increase
the effectiveness of introductory physics courses in promoting
student understanding well beyond that attained by "traditional" (T)
methods has been rather convincingly demonstrated by physics
education researchers (but *not* in halls of 300 students). They have
shown [for reviews see, e.g., Hake (1998a,b; 2002a,b)] that, unknown
to most of academia, IE methods yield normalized pre/post test gains
in conceptual understanding about two-standard deviations above those
produced by T methods. A solution to Bloom's (1986) famous "two sigma
problem," appears to be at hand, at least for introductory physics
instruction.

In the above:

(a) the average normalized gain <g> [independently used to
meaningfully analyze pre/post data by Hovland et al. (1949), Gery
(1972), Hake (1998a)] is the ACTUAL average course gain [<%post> -
<%pre>] divided by the maximum possible gain [100% - <%pre>] where
the angle brackets indicate the class averages;

(b) IE courses are OPERATIONALLY defined [even despite the
"anti-positivist vigilantes" (Phillips 2000)] as those designed at
least in part to promote conceptual understanding through interactive
engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually)
activities which yield immediate feedback through discussion with
peers and/or instructors; and

(c) T courses are OPERATIONALLY defined courses as those reported by
instructors to make little or no use of IE methods, relying primarily
on passive-student lectures, recipe labs, and algorithmic problem
exams.

That interactive engagement methods of instruction may not be *all*
bad is also suggested by the greatly increased normalized student
learning gains measured in introductory physics courses at Harvard
[Crouch & Mazur (2002)] and MIT [Dori & Belcher (2004)] when
instruction was shifted from T to IE. For references to similar
research in astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science,
economics, and engineering see Hake (2004a,b).


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>

"The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience
does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative."
John Dewey

REFERENCES are in PART 2
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