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[Phys-L] Re: Research that shows chalk-and-talk is ineffective?



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In his IT-Forum post of 24 Jun 2005 titled "Research that shows
chalk-and-talk is ineffective?" Mark Peterson (2005) asked three good
questions Q1,2,3 that I repeat below followed by my answers A1,2,3
(with apologies to those who have heard these answers many times
before):

****************************************
Q1. Does anyone know of any research to support [the ineffectiveness
of chalk-and-talk]?

A1. Good evidence for the relative ineffectiveness of the traditional
chalk-and-talk lecture, insofar as promoting student understanding in
**conceptually difficult areas**, comes from physics education
researchers (PER's) who have shown that "interactive engagement" (IE)
methods CAN produce average normalized pre/post test gains in
conceptual understanding (as measured by the valid and consistently
reliable "Force Concept Inventory" [Hestenes et al. (1992)] that are
about two standard deviations greater than those achieved in
traditional (T) courses.

Here:

(a) IE methods are those designed at least in part to promote
conceptual understanding through interactive engagement of students
in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities that yield
immediate feedback through discussion with peers and/or instructors.

(b) T courses utilize passive-student lectures, algorithmic problem
exams, and recipe labs.

(c) The average normalized gain <g> for a course is the actual gain
[<%post> - <%pre>] divided by the maximum possible gain [100% -
<%pre>], where the angle brackets indicate the class averages. See
e.g. Hake (1998a,b; 2002a,b) and references therein to the research
of many other groups in many different institutions that have shown
similar results.

BTW, I know of no definitive pre/post testing that might gauge the
relative effectiveness of distance-learning courses.


****************************************
Q2. Are there researchers out there advocating for the chalk-and-talk
traditional style lecture?

A2. As far as I know there are no *serious* researchers who advocate
chalk-and-talk traditional style lecture for conceptually difficult
instructional areas (even despite the rampant misinterpretations of
the work of David Klahr - for a discussion see Hake (2005).
Nevertheless, a powerful direct instruction lobby, led by the likes
of Douglas Carnine (2000) [on the Technical Advisory Group for the
U.S. Dept. of Education's "What Works Clearinghouse
<http://www.w-w-c.org/>] currently appears to be influential in the
U.S. Dept. of Education [see e.g., Hake (2005)].

****************************************
Q3. Is it generally accepted amongst open-minded people that
[chalk-and-talk] is not the right approach?

A3. It is certainly the case that it is generally accepted amongst
open-minded physics education researchers that chalk-and-talk is not
the right approach *in conceptually difficult* areas. Nevertheless, I
would guess that 80 or 90 percent of physics professors - yes, even
at Indiana University - continue to use the time-honored
chalk-and-talk method, even despite the fact that it has been
abandoned in introductory physics courses at Harvard [Crouch & Mazur
(2001) and MIT (Dori & Belcher (2004)]. As MIT mechanical engineering
professor Woodie Flowers (2000) says "Why change, Been doin' it this
way for 4000 years! . . .[with a brief hiatus for the historical -
non-Platonic - Socrates]"

Of course, traditional chalk and talk may still be beneficial in some
non conceptually difficult areas. In Hake (2003) I wrote [bracketed
by lines HHHHHH. . . ." :

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
As regards the rather polarized Physhare discussion on whether
lectures are GOOD or BAD, I think it all depends on the subject
matter, the nature of the students, and the goals of the teacher. As
indicated in Hake (2002d), a major strength of the Paideia (2005)
Method is its use of different approaches to fit the occasion
(didactic lectures, coaching, and Socratic dialogue). Each method has
its strengths and weaknesses but in the hands of a skilled teacher it
can be made to compliment the other methods so as to advance student
learning. A skilled teacher might LECTURE on material that can be
rote memorized [but s(he) might be better off using the Gutenberg
Method [Morrison (1986), Hake (2002c)] that recognizes the invention
of the printing press], COACH skills such as typing or playing a
musical instrument, and use SOCRATIC DIALOGUE (or some other IE
method) to induce students to construct their conceptual
understanding of Newton's Laws.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


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
Carnine, D. 2000. "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices
(And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine),"
online as a 52kB pdf at
<http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/found.cfm?author=72&keyword=&submit=Search>.
The Fordham Foundation's Chester Finn introduces Carnine's paper by
eulogizing: "After describing assorted hijinks in math and reading
instruction, Doug devotes considerable space to examining what
educators did with the results of 'Project Follow Through,' one of
the largest education experiments ever undertaken. This study
compared constructivist education models with those based on direct
instruction. One might have expected that, when the results showed
that direct instruction models produced better outcomes, these models
would have been embraced by the profession. Instead, many education
experts discouraged their use." But according to Lagemann (2000), the
results of Project Follow Through were inconclusive. She writes:
"Some experiments ended inconclusively. One of these was the 'planned
variation' strategy used in implementing Project Follow Through in
the late 1960s . . . . as education researcher David K. Cohen . . .
[1970]. . . concluded, all the Follow Through experiment really
demonstrated was that power in education was so decentralized that
the controls necessary for experimentation were virtually impossible
to maintain."

Cohen, D.K. 1970. "Politics and Research: Evaluation of Social Action
Programs in Education," Review of Educational Research 40: 231.

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.php>, search "All Education
Areas" for author "Crouch" (without the quotes).

Dori, Y.J. & J. Belcher, J. 2004. "How Does Technology-Enabled Active
Learning Affect Undergraduate Students' Understanding of
Electromagnetism Concepts?" To appear in The Journal of the Learning
Sciences 14(2), online at
<http://web.mit.edu/jbelcher/www/TEALref/TEAL_Dori&Belcher_JLS_10_01_2004.pdf>
(1 MB).

Flowers, W. "Why change, Been doin' it this way for 4000 years!"
ASME Mechanical Engineering Education Conference: Drivers and
Strategies of Major Program Change, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, March
26-29, 2000; on the web as PowerPoint plus video at
<http://hitchcock.dlt.asu.edu/media2/cresmet/flowers/>. (Download the
free RealPlayer.):

Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66: 64-74; online as ref. 24 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or simply click on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf> (84 kB).

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online as ref. 25 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or simply click on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/IEM-2b.pdf> (108 kB) - a
crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a).

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

Hake, R.R. 2002b. "Assessment of Physics Teaching Methods,
Proceedings of the UNESCO-ASPEN Workshop on Active Learning in
Physics, Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2-4 Dec. 2002; also online
as ref. 29 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>, or download directly by clicking on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/Hake-SriLanka-Assessb.pdf> (84 kB).

Hake, R.R. 2002c. "Re: The college lecture may be fading," post of 21
Aug 2002 15:34:25-0700 to various discussion lists; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0208&L=phys-l&P=R17115>.
Excerpts from Morrison (1986) are given.

Hake, R.R. 2002d. "Re: Physics and the Paideia Process," post to
Physhare, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and AP-Physics of 8 Feb 2003
13:45:56-0800; online at
<http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0302&L=physhare&O=A&P=5301>.

Hake, R.R. 2003. "Re: Physics and the Paideia Process," online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0302&L=phys-l&P=R10386>. Post
of 11 Feb 2003 15:24:33-0800 to Phys-L, Physhare, and PhysLrnR.

Hake, R.R. 2005. "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct
Instruction of Science?" Am. Phys. Soc. 50: 851 (2005); APS March
Meeting, Los Angles, CA. 21-25 March; online as ref. 36 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or download directly by
clicking on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/WillNCLBPromoteDSI-3.pdf> (256
kB).

Halloun, I., R.R. Hake, E.P Mosca, D. Hestenes. 1995. Force Concept
Inventory (Revised, 1995); online (password protected) at
<http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/Research.html>. (Available in English,
Spanish, German, Malaysian, Chinese, Finnish, French, Turkish,
Swedish, and Russian.)

Hestenes, D., M. Wells, & G. Swackhamer, 1992. "Force Concept
Inventory." Phys. Teach. 30: 141-158; online (except for the test
itself) at <http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/Research.html>. For the 1995
revision see Halloun et al. (1995).

Lagemann, E.C. 2000. "An Elusive Science: The troubling history of
education research." Univ. of Chicago Press.

Morrison R. 1986. "The Lecture System in Teaching Science," in
"Undergraduate Education in Chemistry and Physics, Proceedings of the
Chicago Conferences on Liberal Education," No. 1, edited by M.R. Rice
Univ. of Chicago, p. 50. See Hake (2002c) for excerpts from this
*brilliant lecture*.

Paideia. 2003. Website at <http://www.paideia.org/>: "Paideia schools
offer a unique approach to active learning. [They] are built on the
idea that public schooling is preparation for becoming educated over
the course of one's life time. Paideia teachers use three
instructional techniques: (1) didactic instruction for increasing
students' factual recall, (2) intellectual coaching for developing
students' literacy skills, and (3) seminar dialogue to strengthen
students' conceptual understanding.

Peterson, M. 2005."Research that shows chalk-and-talk is
ineffective?" ITFORUM post of 24 Jun 2005 09:22:46-0700; online at
<http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506&L=itforum&O=D&P=18015>.

Perkins, D. 1992. "Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for
Every Child." Free Press, page 55-58.
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