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Re: [Phys-l] Student engagement



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ABSTRACT: Jack Uretsky, in a Phys-L post "Re: Student engagement" wrote: "American education has produced a number of physics Nobelists. How many were products of physics courses that would be approved by PER enthusiasts?" My answer: "Probably near zero. BUT SO WHAT?" Physics Education Researchers (PER's) have attempted to design courses which enhance the learning of the vast majority of AVERAGE students, not potential Nobelists. Why the emphasis on the "average student" rather than the "exceptional student"? Because most exceptional students will learn on their own, even despite the (for them) usually helpful but unnecessary "interactive engagement." On the other hand, the fate of life on planet Earth is in the hands and minds of the masses of "average students" who, at least in democracies, control national policy - see e.g., "The Threat to Life on Planet Earth Is a More Important Issue Than David Brooks' 'Skills Slowdown [Hake (2009)].
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Mike Horton (2009) in his Phys-L post "Student engagement" wrote:

"In a conversation at work recently, I came to realize that everyone defines 'student engagement' differently. I was in a group where 'engagement' meant 'students are busy.' What they are busy doing was unimportant. When I explained that it means something totally different in science, they had never heard of such a thing. Then when I said that there are mountains of PER showing that the type of engagement that we scientists are speaking of is far more effective than lecture (no matter how 'engaging' the lecturer thinks his/her lectures are) the conversation really got heated."

For the record, in "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses" [Hake (1998a)], I defined "Interactive Engagement" (IE) methods as those "designed at least in part to promote conceptual understanding through active engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities which yield immediate feedback through discussion with peers and/or instructors."

Horton's post initiated a thread of 40+posts (as of 12 Dec 09:45:00-0800), one of which was by Jack Uretsky (2009), who wrote:

"American education has produced a number of physics Nobelists. How many were products of physics courses that would be approved by PER enthusiasts?"

Probably near zero. BUT SO WHAT?

The hard facts are that the *average* present-day student of introductory physics - even at Harvard and MIT - reacts passively to lectures and learns very little from them. This has been demonstrated, for example, by the very low class-average *normalized* gains <g> of 0.23 [plus or minus 0.04 (std dev)] on a test of conceptual understanding of Newtonian Mechanics in 14 traditional lecture courses surveyed in "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses" (Hake 1998a,b). These gains are to be compared with <g> = 0.48 [plus or minus 0.14 (std dev)] of 48 traditional lecture courses that I surveyed. Similar results have been reported in about 25 other physics education research reports as listed in "Design-Based Research in Physics Education Research: A Review" (Hake 2008).

Long aware of the deficiencies of the average introductory physics course - see e.g., the review by McDermott & Redish (1999) - Physics Education Researchers (PER's) have attempted to design courses - see e.g., Hake (1998b) - which enhance the learning of the vast majority of AVERAGE students, not potential Nobelists.

Why the emphasis on the "average student" rather than the "exceptional student"? Because most exceptional students will learn on their own, even despite the (for them) usually helpful but unnecessary "interactive engagement." On the other hand, the fate of life on planet Earth is in the hands and minds of the masses of "average students" who, at least in democracies, control national policy - see e.g., "The Threat to Life on Planet Earth Is a More Important Issue Than David Brooks' 'Skills Slowdown [Hake (2009)].

A quote from the late physics education guru Arnold Arons (1997, p. vii) seems appropriate:

"I point to the following unwelcome truth: much as we might dislike the implications, research is showing that didactic exposition of abstract ideas and lines of reasoning (however engaging and lucid we might try to make them) to passive listeners yields pathetically thin results in learning and understanding - except in the very small percentage of students who are specially gifted in the field."

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>
<http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake>

"A remarkable feature of American colleges is the lack of attention that most faculties pay to the growing body of research about how much students are learning and how they could be taught to learn more.
Derek Bok (2005) in "Are colleges failing? Higher ed needs new lesson plans."


REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Arons, A.B. 1997. Teaching Introductory Physics. Wiley. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/ykx4bak>.

Bok, D. 2005. "Are colleges failing? Higher ed needs new lesson plans," Boston Globe, 18 December, copied into the APPENDIX of Hake (2005a). Bok wrote: ". . . . studies indicate that problem-based discussion, group study, and other forms of active learning produce greater gains in critical thinking than lectures, yet the lecture format is still the standard in most college classes, especially in large universities. Other research has documented the widespread use of other practices that impede effective learning, such as the lack of prompt and adequate feedback on student work, the prevalence of tests that call for memory rather than critical thinking, and the reliance on teaching methods that allow students to do well in science courses by banking on memory rather than truly understanding the basic underlying concepts."

Hake, R.R. 1967, "Paramagnetic Superconductivity in Extreme Type II Superconductors," Phys. Rev. 158(2): 356-376.

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 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf>.

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics courses," online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/IEM-2b.pdf> (108 kB). A 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 are tabulated and referenced. In addition the paper includes: (a) case histories for the seven IE courses 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. Submitted on 6/19/98 to the Physics Ed. Res. Supplement to Am. J. Phys, but universally ignored because it was rejected by the editor on the grounds that the very transparent Physical-Review-type data tables [see e.g., Table II of Hake (1967)] were "impenetrable"! :-(.

Hake, R.R. 2005. "Are colleges failing?" AERA-L post of 19 Dec 2005 17:54:37-0800; online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/2rdc88>. The APPENDIX contains a copy of Bok (2005).

Hake, R.R. 2008. "Design-Based Research in Physics Education Research: A Review," in Kelly, Lesh, & Baek (2008). A pre-publication version of that chapter is online at <http://tinyurl.com/2lsgzl>.

Hake, R.R. 2009. " 'The Threat to Life on Planet Earth' Is a More Important Issue Than David Brooks' 'Skills Slowdown', " online at <http://tinyurl.com/l28ojd> with a provision for comments.

Horton, M. 2009. "Student engagement," Phys-L post of 4 Dec 2009 01:39:05-0600, online on the OPEN! Phys-L archives at <https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/archives/2009/12_2009/msg00014.html>.

Kelly, A.E., R.A. Lesh, & J.Y. Baek. 2008. "Handbook of Design Research Methods in Education: Innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Learning and Teaching, Routledge. Publisher's information at <http://tinyurl.com/4eazqs>; Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/5n4vvo>.

McDermott. L.C. & E.F. Redish. 1999. "RL-PER1: Resource letter on physics education research," Am. J. Phys. 67(9), 755-767; online to subscribers at <http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=AJPIAS&Volume=67&Issue=9>.

Uretsky, J. 2009. "Re: Student engagement," Phys-L post of 5 Dec 2009 22:33:27-0600, online on the OPEN! Phys-L archives at online on the OPEN! Phys-L archives at
<https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/archives/2009/12_2009/msg00031.html>.