[1] Bob LaMontagne commented (presented here with my own spin) that it always seems to be the scientists at the liberal-arts colleges who go the extra mile to include writing, critical thinking, etc. into their courses, but the other professors (most notably the humanities professors who push us to do things their way) do not reciprocate by including quantitative and linear logical thinking into their curricula.
Believe me, this has not gone unnoticed at Bluffton. And yes, we are tired of it. We've discussed going off and doing our own thing since others do not reciprocate when we make concessions. So far we have not done that because we sort of enjoy smugly knowing that we scientists are the true liberal-arts faculty.
[2] John Clement said, "... the full formal report most probably does inhibit learning because the students focus on the style rather than the substance." Let's see... (a) what were you trying to accomplish, (b) what methods did you use to try this, (c) how did it turn out? Gee that's a pretty daunting set of requirements that would certainly draw my attention away from substance.
Maybe we disagree on what a "full formal report" involves. But in my thinking, the (a), (b), (c) sections just mentioned basically constitute a report. I know the devil is in the details, but I would hope professors are bright enough to realize when the level of details has risen high enough that it makes John's statement become true. I think I am considerably below that level.
On the other hand, when John says the various alternatives he mentioned have demonstrable gains as evidenced by PER studies, have the gains ever been quantified by free-form writing as opposed to having students answer a set of directed questions? Directed questions are rather specific prompts. If those specific prompts logically follow from the way the experiment was conducted, it does not surprise me that many students answer those questions well. But how would students fare if they answered these three questions...
(a) what were you trying to accomplish, (b) what methods did you use to try this, (c) how did it turn out?
I have direct experience with students answering my specific questions in lab, only to find that when they attempt to write a paper with the prompts... (a) what were you trying to accomplish, (b) what methods did you use to try this, (c) how did it turn out... they quite totally fall apart.
If a student cannot communicate these three things, have they really learned any substance?
[3] It was timely that the following email message arrived in my inbox yesterday. It's from a student who graduated a couple years ago with a biology major. He took a full year of calculus-based physics from me, complete with labs reports. The email was addressed to me and five other current science faculty members at Bluffton...
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Dear Sirs and Madams
I just got my first, first author paper published in the Journal of General Virology. It is currently in Epub ahead of print, you can peruse it at your leisure if you would like http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/vir.0.014340-0v1. I wanted to write to thank you for all your help that you gave me in launching my academic career. I hope things are going well, and I look forward to seeing you all again next spring for maydays.
Many thanks,
-Dylan Burdette
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Certainly not all of our graduates enter into research or graduate studies, but it is not uncommon for us to get a message like this once or twice a year. It makes us feel pretty good and somewhat counteracts the other things happening that don't make us feel very good.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu