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[Phys-l] Interactive Lecture at U. Maryland (was Article about interactive lecture. . . . )



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ABSTRACT: An excerpt from Valerie Strauss's Washington Post report "Breathing Life Into the Lecture Hall" indicates how Joe Redish infuses life into lectures at the University of Maryland. Science education owes thanks to Strauss, not only for publicizing Redish's exemplary teaching, but also for a 2004 Washington Post report "Back to Basics vs. Hands-On Instruction: California Rethinks Science Labs." That article stimulated a letter to the California State Board of Education (CSBE) from California leaders of academia and high tech industries and that prompted the CSBE to suddenly reverse the California Curriculum Commission's demand that "instructional materials must include NO MORE than 20 to 25 percent of hands-on materials," to read "instructional materials must include AT LEAST 20 to 25 percent of hands-on materials."
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Gabe Popkin (2007), in a Committee on Teacher Preparation CTP-L post of 19 March titled "Article about interactive lecture at U Maryland in last Monday's Washington Post" alerted CTP-L subscribers to the report "Breathing Life Into the Lecture Hall" [Valerie Strauss (2007)].

Strauss wrote [bracketed by lines "SSSSSSS. . . . ."]:

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Nearly 200 students sat in the large lecture hall, staring down at their professor, Edward F.. . . [Joe]. . . Redish, holding pencils at the ready to take notes in Fundamentals of Physics. It looked like a traditional lecture course, but appearance is where the tradition ended.

Instead of spending 50 minutes putting students to sleep by lecturing about position, velocity and acceleration, Redish, a University of Maryland professor, kept the students awake by getting them actively involved in the lesson -- all 192 of them.

He called on his students by name, having taken and studied their pictures. He frequently directed students to solve a problem with their neighbors or register opinions with a "clicker" system that, within seconds, calculates the answers and shows him the response. Sometimes he performs an experiment or shows part of a movie. And if he sees someone doing a crossword puzzle, he is liable to walk over and help out.

This is Redish's version of the time-honored college lecture course, which is undergoing significant change at some universities because of technological innovations and the desire to hold the attentions of the highly structured 21st-century student.

"Lecturing is not good for children and other living things," said Redish, who spent 25 years in theoretical nuclear physics and now researches how students learn physics. "They don't really learn very much in a lecture."
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Science education owes thanks to Valerie Strauss, not only for publicizing the interactive "lecturing" of Joe Redish, but also for picking up a rejected OpEd piece "The End of Hands-On Science Activities in California's K-8 Classrooms?" [Woolf & Hake (2004)], and reporting its message, and then some, in the Washington Post as "Back to Basics vs. Hands-On Instruction: California Rethinks Science Labs" [Strauss (2004)].

Strauss's article caught the eye of Bruce Alberts, at the time President of the National Academy of Sciences, and culminated in the pro-hands-on letter to the California Board of Education of 5 March 2004 by Levinson et al. (2004), signed by leaders of Intel, Bechtel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe Systems, and higher education, including the Presidents of the University of California , Stanford, California Institute of Technology, and all 10 UC Chancellors.
In "Will Evidence and Logic Reform Education? " [Hake (2005)] I wrote:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"The . . . letter from Levinson et al. (2004) [**not* the evidence-based arguments of teachers, education researchers, and various professional organizations that inundated the California State Board of Education (CSBE) <http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/> prior to their 10 March 2004 meeting] was probably the leading factor in prompting the CSBE, at that meeting, to amend the California Curriculum Commission's <http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/cc/cd/> demand that 'instructional materials must include NO MORE than 20 to 25 percent of hands-on materials' to read 'instructional materials must include AT LEAST 20 to 25 percent of hands-on materials. ' "
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Never underestimate the power of the press. For commentary on the CSBE's sudden reversal see, e.g., Galley (2004a,b), Hake (2004), and Woolf (2005).


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
Galley, M. 2004a. "Calif. Mulls Limiting Hands-On Science Lessons," Education Week 23(24): 5, 25 February, online at
<http://www.edweek.org//ew/articles/2004/02/25/24science.h23.html?print=1>.

Galley, M. 2004b. "News in Brief: California State Board Backs Hands-On Science," Education
Week 23(28): 22, 24 March, online at
<http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/03/24/28caps.h23.html>.

Hake, R.R. 2004. "Direct Science Instruction Suffers a Setback in California - Or Does It?" AAPT Announcer 34(2): 177; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/DirInstSetback-041104f.pdf> (420 KB) [about 160 references and 180 hot-linked URL's]. A pdf version of the slides shown at the meeting is also available at ref. 33 or can be downloaded directly by clicking on <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/AAPT-Slides.pdf> (132 kB).

Hake, R.R. 2005. "Will Evidence and Logic Reform Education?" online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0502&L=phys-l&P=R1541>. Post of 3 Feb 2005 11:29:26-0800 to AERA-D, AERA-H, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Phys-L, Physhare, POD. I wrote:

Levinson, A.D. et al. 2004. Letter of 5 March to Reed Hastings of the Board of Education. The letter was signed by Levenson , Genentech CEO, along with leaders of Intel, Bechtel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe Systems and higher education, including the Presidents of the University of California (UC), Stanford, and the California Institute of Technology, and all 10 UC Chancellors. Online at <http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/Final-Board-Letter.pdf> (112 kB).

Popkin, G. 2007. "Article about interactive lecture at U Maryland in last Monday's Washington Post," CTP-L post of 03 Oct 2007 09:53:48-0400; online at the CTP-L archives.

Schultz, T. 1998. "History of the Development of California Science Content Standards," online at <http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/history.html>.

Strauss, V. 2004. "Back to Basics vs. Hands-On Instruction: California Rethinks Science Labs,"
Washington Post, Tuesday, 3 February, page A12; online at
<http://www.scoe.net/aeoe/news/online/sci_standards/hands_on.html>.

Strauss, V. 2007. "Breathing Life Into the Lecture Hall," Washington Post, 24 September, page B01; online at <http://tinyurl.com/2m2ryb>.

Woolf, L.D. & R.R. Hake. 2004. "The End of Hands-On Science Activities in California's K-8 Classrooms?" online at
<http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0401&L=physhare&O=D&P=4583>. Post of 12 Jan 2004 16:57:42-0800 transmitted to (a) the discussion lists AERA-K, AP-Physics, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, Physhare, Phys-L, & PhysLrnR; and (b) to the members and staff of the California Curriculum Commission. This post was intended as an OpEd piece for the San Diego Union Tribune but was rejected by the editor as being written too much for "insiders." Also "letters to the editor" by Woolf and Hake were immediately tossed into the circular files of the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee. According to Schultz (1998), California newspapers similarly failed to adequately cover 1995-1999 "California Science Wars."

Woolf, L. 2005. "California Political Science Education," APS Forum on Education Newsletter, Summer; online at <http://units.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2005/woolf.html>.