Are the gains you quote over all of high school? Or exactly over what time period.
Are you referring to normalized gain for the Chinese?
Joel
|-----Original Message-----
|From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] On Behalf Of John Clement
|Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 1:43 PM
|To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
|Subject: Re: [Phys-L] Indicators of quality teaching(Was:MOOC:EdxOffers
|Mechanics course by Prof.Walter Lewin)
|
|Yes, some extra time is used. But just devoting extra time is very unlikely by
|itself to produce higher gains. If the course is taught conventionally the
|increase in gain due to extra time will, I predict, will be very small.
|The higher gain is mainly due to the method and not just the extra time. So if
|anyone who teaches using conventional methods wants to test this
|prediction, go for it. See if it is possible to change 13% gain to 50% gain. You
|might change 13% to 15%, but I doubt that extra time by itself will do much
|more. I could be wrong and it might produce 20%. The truism that extra time
|produces much higher gain is just that, a truism. But it has not been well
|tested and quantified.
|
|Now this being said, it is true that the Chinese get higher FCI scores.
|This is because students get physics every year in HS. In other words the
|extra time is much much greater and spread out so as to give time for
|accomodation. Also all Chinese students take physics so looking at FCI scores
|for all students shows depressed American scores. Accomodation may
|require at least 2 weeks after the introduction of a new concept. This is based
|on comments by Laws and the experience of Shayer & Adey.
|
|Some things are easily learned if you just devote extra time, but when
|accomodation is needed I submit that extra time is not the important factor.
|Extra time alone is brute force, when what you need is intelligent learning.
|
|John M. Clement
|Houston, TX
|
|>
|> ?? Rick has just told you that he both gets good gains and spends more
|> time - and you give a knee-jerk response of "It doesn't work very
|> well". Is no one's experience valid but yours?
|>
|
|
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