Re: [Phys-L] Indicators of quality teaching (Was:MOOC:EdxOffers Mechanics course by Prof.Walter Lewin)

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

But both Hake and I are teachers.  I have taught at a variety of levels from
middle school to college, and Hake taught college.  Most of us are aware
that poverty and impoverished circumstances have a big effect.  Intellectual
poverty is different from monetary poverty althoug both tend to exist
together.  At points in time my family was dirt poor, but we muddled
through, without being intellectually impoverished.

Now the type of testing I am talking about is not high stakes testing, but
testing to see the effects of interventions.  I am not talking about
whipping teachers by tests, but rather using them to show the effects of
different learning situations.  I have no power to change poverty, but I can
optimize the learning opportunities in class.  Originally this was about
Lewin and whether his teaching is effective.  Without some type of benchmark
and testing we have not way of knowing anything about his effectiveness.
Certainly in his case he is not dealing with many poverty stricken students.

I am firmly against the type of mandated inane testing that is going on.  It
does not have a research base and it is driving education in the wrong
direction, but testing to find out what is going on is valuable.  It is done
by the instructor and is not used for any purpose other than measuring the
education.  Until we use the tests appropriately we will remain in the same
situation as physicians used to be.  We will be pushing patent medicines
without any understanding if they are effective.

The problem with drawing conclusions on the basis of just experience is that
our minds make up correlations that don't exist.  So some correlations are
correct, while others are phony.  Physicians must at one time have thought
that blood letting was actually helping patients, so they persisted in doing
it.  You need objective data!  Be scientific.  When you don't have research
as a guide, by all means rely on experience.

Just look at research and you come up with some very interesting things.
For example praising students for being intelligent or capable has a
negative effect on learning.  Making a student put down their ethnicity
before taking a standardized test depresses minority scored, but doing it
after the test does not.  Students remember demos better if they make a
prediction immediately before seeing the results.  But if the time lag is
too long this effect is erased.  There is one experiment where the
instructor did 2 different things with a Newton third law lab.  He had one
group verify the third law, and another group "discovered" the third law
without being told it.  The groupt that discovered it understood it better
and tended to believe it, while the other group had doubts that it was
always true.  The list of things you should know goes on.  But pedagogic
knowledge is what all teachers need, and the research can be a helpful
guide.

Look at the work of Reuven Feuerstein.  He took severly intellectually
impoverished students and brought them up to normal.  He took children with
estimated Iqs in the 60s up to average IQ.  They were estimated because they
couldn't take a standard IQ test.  Shayer & Adey worked in below average
schools and brought the children up to superior levels.  So the effects of
poverty and neglect can be fought by teachers if they know how.  This
doesn't mean that intellectual poverty can be totally eradicated by the
schools, but students can be improved even if not as much.  If all low
performing students were given Feuerstein IE training they generally improve
academically, so there are things that can be done.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

 
> reading Hake and Clement's posts on statistics and post 
> testing etc???....  Blah, Blah, Blah...
>
> Doesn't anyone ever read the other posts?   I stated that 
> teaching is a lot more than standardized testing, statistics, 
> and all the usual gobbledy-gook in these other posts.    Wake 
> up.  This "test at all costs" attitude is ruining education.  
> Professional teachers know that all the intangibles I have 
> pointed out in several posts make up more so-called gain than 
> all your statistics can ever account for.  Teachers are the 
> last ones to be consulted and I for one am sick and tired of 
> all the academics out there who by virtue of their 
> statistical know-how and manipulation of the figures think 
> they know more than the people who have doing this in real 
> schools for decades.  Kids are not statistice.  Parenting and 
> home life cannot be measured by a test.  You academics 
> conveniently ignore the realities of life in the cities and 
> rural areas of this country.  Poverty certainly makes a 
> difference as does wealth and privilege.