Yesterday I went to an interesting lecture given by Paul Sokol, an IU physicist. The title was "Can You Learn Physics in a Big Lecture?" From the abstract, "
Poor student performance in introductory physics has prompted calls for teaching reform ...Current efforts have focused a great deal of attention on small classes and many successful efforts, such as Workshop Physics, Active Physics, Studio Physics, CUPLE and many others...These efforts, which are based on scientific research into student learning, focus on a small student to faculty ratio and hands on guided activities as an alternative to the traditional large lecture format class. Indeed, several schools of thought believe that it is impossible to teach physics successfully in any other format than such small classes. While these efforts have been quite successful they are impractical in large universities where enrollments in introductory physics class can range from a few hundred to well over a thousand. The resources required to transform these large courses, where the student to faculty ratio can be several hundred to one, to a small course format where the instructor carries out a Socratic dialog with each of the students, are beyond the reach of most large universities."
Sokol discussed at the beginning what today's students seem to be comfortable doing, and that's procedural work stemming from their proficiency in procedural knowledge. In other words, "plug and chug" type of knowledge. And is that knowledge at all, plugging a value into an equation, then "chug"ging out an answer? No, not really, and online homework is central to students trying to succeed in a large course, and faculty trying to manage hundreds of students along the way. Online homework, with built-in hints, and so forth is probably better today than it was a few years ago, but both the student and the teacher lose something in that process (the student may simply fling out values until one sticks, and the teacher is not viewing dozens of homework attempts and making generalizations about where students may be going wrong, i.e. becoming informed about the efficacy of his or her own efforts teaching the material).
What students are deficient in today seems to be their conceptual grasp of the material, their ability to apply knowledge they've attained. In general there's often a noticable apathy toward the material, resulting from an absence of wonder about how things work, and why. Small classes that focus on doing things, classes that encourage a
Socratic dialog along the way, where there's a small teacher-to-student ratio will be the better classes. But at large universities this simply is not going to happen.
Short of small classes, large sections of undergraduate physics courses should attempt to enhance problem solving skills, improve students' abilities to work in groups, build on students' interests (this can be as easy as using real world examples that are likely to get their attention, physics principles that can be witnessed during college football games, for example). He went on to talk about how physics courses need to teach critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. He was not overly critical of online homework...whether it's online or graded by humans, the important thing is that the students do it, and do lots of it. More on this soon... this photo is from the 9/19/08 Chronicle of Higher Education weekly "Chronicle Review". There are several essays in that issue and their titles are: Generational Myth: not all youth are tech-savvy; The Online Story: web skimming may be a kind of literacy, but it's not the kind that matters most; Virtual Worlds' Real Impact: a feel for digital culture helps in trying to understand students' minds", by Vaidhyanathan, Bauerlein, and Workman respectively.
Alright, quick quiz:
Kashmir from the hair of the Tibetan ‘shawl-goat’"? (definition from IU Library's online Oxford English Dictionary)
Kashmir from the hair of the Tibetan ‘shawl-goat’"? (definition from IU Library's online Oxford English Dictionary)
