Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education #2

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education #2” [Hake (2011b)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education” [Hake (2011a) http://bit.ly/iT4YsN], a discussion-list subscriber wrote to me privately, asking for references on instructional methods that had been used in physics to produce relatively high pre-to-posttest class-averaged normalized gains g(ave) in students’ conceptual understanding of mechanics.

In this post I give the titles and references to seven of the more popular “Interactive Engagement” (IE) methods discussed in “Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses” [Hake (1998a,b)] and (following Heller, 1999 http://bit.ly/in4bGv – scroll to page 7) their relationship to learning theories from cognitive science.

The common features of those methods are reflected in the operational definition of IE courses given in Hake (1998a):

“ ‘IE courses’ are those designed at least in part to promote conceptual understanding through active engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities WHICH YIELD IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK through discussion with peers and/or instructors, all as judged by their literature descriptions.”

Thus a hallmark of IE course is their use of “formative assessment” as defined by Black & Wiliam http://bit.ly/kuDmNX :

“All those activities undertaken by teachers -- and by their students in assessing themselves -- THAT PROVIDE INFORMATION TO BE USED AS FEEDBACK TO MODIFY TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES.”

BTW:

(1) I think this post is relevant to instructors in ANY subject that requires higher-order thinking skills, not just Newtonian mechanics.

(2) After transmitting “Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education” [Hake (2011a)], I was reminded that Peggy Maki http://www.peggymaki.com/ is one of the few assessment gurus in higher education who is both knowledgeable and appreciative of Physics Education Research - see e.g. Assessing for Learning [Maki (2011) http://bit.ly/j1hTeW], especially Chapter 4.

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To access the complete 25 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/lNZe6Z.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University

Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands

President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References

which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi

http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com

http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“Physics educators have led the way in developing and using objective tests to compare student learning gains in different types of courses, and chemists, biologists, and others are now developing similar instruments. These tests provide convincing evidence that students assimilate new knowledge more effectively in courses including active, inquiry-based, and collaborative learning, assisted by information technology, than in traditional courses.”

Wood & Gentile (2003)

REFERENCES [All URL's shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 30 April 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/iT4YsN. Post of 27 Apr 2011 17:07:07-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/msoLwx with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Physics Education Research - Not Widely Known in Higher Education #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/lNZe6Z. Post of 30 Apr 2011 13:49:34-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

Wood, W.B., & J.M. Gentile. 2003. “Teaching in a research context,” Science 302: 1510; 28 November; an abstract is online at http://bit.ly/9qGR6m.