Fwd: A Better Way to Teach, Science article about Wieman's work
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funda ornek
May 13, 2011, 10:59:45 AM5/13/11
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From: robert fuller <rfu...@neb.rr.com>
Date: Fri, May 13, 2011 at 7:57 AM
Subject: A Better Way to Teach, Science article about Wieman's work
To: PHYS...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Hake and Goffe have wondered about the lack of knowledge about PER by the educational research community.
Maybe all we needed was a Nobel prize winner to publish something:
Bob Fuller
UNL
Science NOW: A Better Way to Teach? by Jeffrey Mervis
Any physics professor who thinks that lecturing to first-year students is the best way to teach them about electromagnetic waves can stop reading this item. For everybody else, however, listen up: A new study shows that students learn much better through an active, iterative process that involves working through their misconceptions with fellow students and getting immediate feedback from the instructor.
The research, appearing online today in Science, was conducted by a team at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, in Canada, led by physics Nobelist Carl Wieman. First at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and now at an eponymous science education initiative at UBC, Wieman has devoted the past decade to improving undergraduate science instruction, using methods that draw upon the latest research in cognitive science, neuroscience, and learning theory.
In this study, Wieman trained a postdoc, Louis Deslauriers, and a graduate student, Ellen Schelew, in an educational approach, called "deliberate practice," that asks students to think like scientists and puzzle out problems during class. For 1 week, Deslauriers and Schelew took over one section of an introductory physics course for engineering majors, which met three times for 1 hour. A tenured physics professor continued to teach another large section using the standard lecture format.
The results were dramatic: After the intervention, the students in the deliberate practice section did more than twice as well on a 12-question multiple-choice test of the material as did those in the control section. They were also more engaged-attendance rose by 20% in the experimental section, according to one measure of interest-and a post-study survey found that nearly all said they would have liked the entire 15-week course to have been taught in the more interactive manner.
read the rest of the column at <<http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/a-better-way-to-teach.html>http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/a-better-way-to-teach.html>
The link to the article is <<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.abstract>http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.abstract>
Science 13 May 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6031 pp. 862-864
DOI: 10.1126/science.1201783
Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class
Louis Deslauriers, Ellen Schelew, Carl Wieman
We compared the amounts of learning achieved using two different instructional approaches under controlled conditions. We measured the learning of a specific set of topics and objectives when taught by 3 hours of traditional lecture given by an experienced highly rated instructor and 3 hours of instruction given by a trained but inexperienced instructor using instruction based on research in cognitive psychology and physics education. The comparison was made between two large sections (N = 267 and N = 271) of an introductory undergraduate physics course. We found increased student attendance, higher engagement, and more than twice the learning in the section taught using research-based instruction.
From: robert fuller <rfu...@neb.rr.com>
Date: Fri, May 13, 2011 at 7:57 AM
Subject: A Better Way to Teach, Science article about Wieman's work
To: PHYS...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Hake and Goffe have wondered about the lack of knowledge about PER by the educational research community.
Maybe all we needed was a Nobel prize winner to publish something:
Bob Fuller
UNL
Science NOW: A Better Way to Teach? by Jeffrey Mervis
Any physics professor who thinks that lecturing to first-year students is the best way to teach them about electromagnetic waves can stop reading this item. For everybody else, however, listen up: A new study shows that students learn much better through an active, iterative process that involves working through their misconceptions with fellow students and getting immediate feedback from the instructor.
The research, appearing online today in Science, was conducted by a team at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, in Canada, led by physics Nobelist Carl Wieman. First at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and now at an eponymous science education initiative at UBC, Wieman has devoted the past decade to improving undergraduate science instruction, using methods that draw upon the latest research in cognitive science, neuroscience, and learning theory.
In this study, Wieman trained a postdoc, Louis Deslauriers, and a graduate student, Ellen Schelew, in an educational approach, called "deliberate practice," that asks students to think like scientists and puzzle out problems during class. For 1 week, Deslauriers and Schelew took over one section of an introductory physics course for engineering majors, which met three times for 1 hour. A tenured physics professor continued to teach another large section using the standard lecture format.
The results were dramatic: After the intervention, the students in the deliberate practice section did more than twice as well on a 12-question multiple-choice test of the material as did those in the control section. They were also more engaged-attendance rose by 20% in the experimental section, according to one measure of interest-and a post-study survey found that nearly all said they would have liked the entire 15-week course to have been taught in the more interactive manner.
read the rest of the column at <<http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/a-better-way-to-teach.html>http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/a-better-way-to-teach.html>
The link to the article is <<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.abstract>http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.abstract>
Science 13 May 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6031 pp. 862-864
DOI: 10.1126/science.1201783
Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class
Louis Deslauriers, Ellen Schelew, Carl Wieman
We compared the amounts of learning achieved using two different instructional approaches under controlled conditions. We measured the learning of a specific set of topics and objectives when taught by 3 hours of traditional lecture given by an experienced highly rated instructor and 3 hours of instruction given by a trained but inexperienced instructor using instruction based on research in cognitive psychology and physics education. The comparison was made between two large sections (N = 267 and N = 271) of an introductory undergraduate physics course. We found increased student attendance, higher engagement, and more than twice the learning in the section taught using research-based instruction.
--
Funda Ornek
"Education is what's left after you forget everything
you learned at school..." A.Einstein
Cultural influence on attitudes towards science by Funda Ornek (pp:241-261). Information Age Publishing Inc, NC, USA.
"Education is what's left after you forget everything
you learned at school..." A.Einstein
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