Re: [Phys-L] Indicators of quality teaching : some necessities

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 06/29/2013 06:31 PM, Richard Tarara wrote:
> First a note on the 'playing for keeps' thread.  The pilots have a
> particularly strong incentive to 'learn for keeps'--their lives will
> depend on it!

1) Yes. 

2) We can use that thought to our advantage, by asking how
 would we teach, if we thought lives depended on it?  I 
 betcha a lot of things would be different.

 For starters, we would not tolerate the idea of using
 silly multiple-guess tests to judge students, teachers,
 or schools.  We would not tolerate it for a femtosecond.

3) One could argue that "lives" do depend on education ... 
 not in the sense of sudden death, but in the sense of 
 personal potential going to waste, day after day.

> Now to this thread.  The discussion has drifted to longitudinal
> studies.  Let me suggest that we go back in the thread a bit and look
> to what I think is really important in a good formal education--the
> ability to keep learning.  

Amen, brother.

> Some others have pointed out in both
> threads  when many of us (those who didn't understand General
> Relativity at age 5) _really_ understoodd many of the physical
> concepts we discuss here.   When we started teaching.  Even in
> graduate school, we seldom had to really confront ideas about forces
> and momentum or even special relativity (well I had to do the
> latter), but there we did have to READ and understand the particular
> area in which we worked and many of us had to learn computing and
> machining and experimental design and statistical analysis, etc.
> While we knew what the basic concepts of introductory physics were,
> many of us really hadn't thought about them to the point of really
> understanding....we passed the quizzes and test just fine without
> deep understanding.  But we did have to understand when we tried to
> teach the material...or at least use all our learning skills to try
> and understand (this list helps us to continue doing so).  I suspect
> it is this way in almost every field that uses conceptual
> understanding at its root (maybe not so much in fine arts?)  Bet most
> engineers don't really 'get it' until they get immersed in real
> projects.

That's entirely true as stated.  My clearest personal example of
this concerns Fourier transforms.  My undergrad teachers tried
to teach me about such things, introducing them, then spiraling
back again and again.  It didn't work.  Not only did it not stick
long term, I didn't even get it short-term.  Much later, when I
was actually working in the lab, I ran into a situation where
I needed Fourier transforms to analyze my data.  I had to spend
several days teaching myself almost from scratch how the darn
things worked.

This gets back to the first point above:  That feeling of "my life
depends on this" or at least "something I really really want depends
on this" is a great motivation to learn something.

   We should however keep all that in perspective.  There are
   two parts to the story:
    -- Some things we see in school we do understand and do retain.
    -- Some things not so much.

   On the good side of the ledger, I vividly remember being taught
   about four-vectors.  The TA spent a few minutes introducing the
   concept and another few minutes doing an example to illustrate
   how easy-to-use and how powerful it was.  On the way home from
   class, my roommates talked about it.  "We will never forget that,
   as long as we live."

   The question arises, do I remember that because I just remember
   it, or because it is in fact tremendously useful and gets constantly
   reinforced?  Surely it is a little of both.  Part of it definitely 
   is memory, even though I have a terrible memory for most things.
   There have been times in my life where I did not use four-vectors 
   for years at a time, but there is just no way I could forget them.

> The point here is that the skills for LIFELONG LEARNING are really
> what are the key things to take from a formal education.  What we
> really need to know and understand may not emerge until long after we
> leave school.  But in school we do learn both some essential facts
> (maybe less important in this age of fingertip information) but more
> importantly the ability to work with those facts. 

Agreed.

One might also add that reasoning requires /some/ raw facts;
otherwise there is nothing to reason about.

> 'Critical Thinking' may be the overused buzz-word today, 

Agreed.  I get tired of hearing that term thrown around by
people (including school board members) who have no idea 
what it means.

> but it really is what almost
> every College-level course (and if possible back into some High
> School courses) should be doing.  The longitudinal studies should
> concentrate not on if one can still score well on the FCI ten years
> out, but rather if one is capable of understanding the principles
> (once refreshed in the memory) to solve real-world problems.  To do
> this one is not likely to have guidance in one's inquiry or a study
> group to work with.  One will need to be able to read and understand
> technical material, and yes one will need to be able to 'think
> critically'.  The question then, in my mind, is whether these
> abilities are enhanced by 'new' pedagogical techniques (few of which
> really are new) or do we really need (and least to some extent) some
> of the old--you're responsible for your own learning--types of
> pedagogy?

I guess I'm really old-school.  I care about
 -- love of learning
 -- lifelong learning
 -- learning how to learn, how to remember, and how to think.

The FCI was designed with certain goals in mind.  That's fine as
far as it goes, but its goals are wildly different from my goals.
It does not pretend to measure the things I care about.

  *Be careful what you measure;  you might get it.*

If we care about love of learning and lifelong learning, we
should find a way to measure that!  A lifetime is the ultimate 
in longitudinal follow-up.

We urgently need proxies that predict long-term results, so we
don't have to wait a lifetime to decide whether we're doing
the right things.  Prompt feedback is valuable and effective;
long-delayed feedback is not.

================

If you think the foregoing is even a little bit true, we should
ask, what's the action item?

What I want to know is this:  Assuming we agree that factoids
are less important and lifelong learning skills are more
important ... why is it that most schooling concentrates on
the factoids and apparently assumes the other stuff will get
picked up by osmosis?  Why do the courses concentrate on 
test-prep rather than life-prep?  Why don't we overtly and 
explicitly concentrate on how to learn, how to remember, and 
how to think, and let the factoids get picked up by osmosis?

To recycle a recent example:
  Plan A is to learn the formulas for circumference and
  area of a circle, to learn each of them separately, to
  learn each of them by rote.

  Plan B is to emphasize "check the work" and "look for
  connections between things".  As an application, whenever
  you write down the circumference formula or the area
  formula, write down /both/ of them and check them for
  consistency.

This is what cracks me up about certain physics courses.
All too often, "conceptual physics" is a euphemism for
"bonehead physics".  That's because they teach the concepts
/in isolation/.  That's a problem, because the concepts are 
worthless unless you have the skills -- and the habits --
so that you see the connections between concepts.

As I see it, the notion that
  d(volume) = (area) • dr
is a concept.  It's not an earth-shatteringly deep concept,
but it is useful.  It has come up in at least two different
ways /in this forum/ in the last 24 hours.

However, this concept is useless unless you see how to
apply it to the problem at hand.  In this situation, as
usual, memory is inseparably intertwined with reasoning,
because you need to be able to recall the concept when
needed, even if the application-context is very different
from the original context where the concept was learned.

This gets back to what I said about mnemonics ... and about
the unity, grandeur, and simplicity of physics ... and about
the integrity of the grand tapestry.  Specifically:  the
best mnemonic is /utility/.  If somebody tells you about a
new concept, and you immediately think of ten ways that it
is connected to things you care about, you're not ever
going to forget that concept.

I remember being taught about equivalent circuits.  The 
wizard-in-charge didn't spend a lot of time on it.  He
was a man of few words.  He drew a diagram and said:
 -- Linear circuit.
 -- Open-circuit voltage.  Short-circuit current.
 -- Two points determine a line.
 -- This is the Thévenin equivalent.  This is the Norton equivalent.
 -- Useful.  Know it.

We students just gasped.  It was incredibly simple, and
obviously useful.  There was just no way we were ever going 
to forget it.  The fact that it actually /was/ useful didn't
hurt.  Using the idea 10,000 times over the next ten years
makes it hard to forget.

Was it unforgettable because of "quality teaching" technique,
or was it unforgettable because it was useful?  I don't
entirely know ... AND I DON'T CARE.  We should concentrate
on teaching stuff that is useful *and* teaching it well.

I like concepts, but what I like even more is connections.
Rather than "conceptual physics", maybe what we need is
_connected physics_ i.e. physics concepts richly connected
to each other, and to the real world.


One more thing about lifelong learning:  
  If Benjamin Franklin had gotten a formal education,
  he might have amounted to something.

If you're not as smart as Franklin, you might need help
getting started, but even then, the *most* you can hope
for is that education gets you to a place where you can
do what Franklin did:  teach yourself.