Re: Teaching and Learning

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion list post “Re: Teaching and Learning” [Hake (2014)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: GS Chandy (2014) in his Math-Teach post titled “Re: Khan Academy 2.0” at http://bit.ly/1tGPvAN wrote: “At its core, teaching has to be about helping the student to learn.”

To which math education guru Robert Hansen responded at http://bit.ly/YYpwJJ: “teaching is about teaching things. That is pedagogy. In an ideal world, every student would be able to learn every thing the teacher teaches. It is only (relatively) recently that teaching took on the role of learning, or better known as remediation, and quite frankly, not only does it suck at it, the more you make teaching about learning, the less you make it about teaching, until such point, it isn't about teaching at all. Or learning.”

For a more informed view of the relationship of teaching to learning see “From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education” [Barr & Tagg (1995)] at http://bit.ly/8XGJPc. They wrote: “A paradigm shift is taking hold in American higher education. In its briefest form, the paradigm that has governed our colleges is this: A college is an institution that exists to provide instruction. Subtly but profoundly we are shifting to a new paradigm: A college is an institution that exists to produce learning. This shift changes everything. It is both needed and wanted.”
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To access the complete 41 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/VQx4MP.

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); LINKS TO: Academia http://bit.ly/a8ixxm; Articles http://bit.ly/a6M5y0; Blog http://bit.ly/9yGsXh; Facebook http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm; GooglePlus http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE; Google Scholar http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3; Linked In http://linkd.in/14uycpW; Research Gate http://bit.ly/1fJiSwB; Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs http://bit.ly/9nGd3M; Twitter http://bit.ly/juvd52.

Boy #1: "I taught my dog to whistle."
Boy #2: "I don't hear him whistling."
Boy #1: "I said I taught him. I didn't say he learned it."
- Cartoon at http://bit.ly/1rCyR71

REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 28 Aug 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. "Re: Teaching and Learning" online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/VQx4MP. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Re: ‘Laptop U’ Misses the Real Story

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Re: ‘Laptop U’ Misses the Real Story” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Joshua Kim in his Inside Higher Ed report “ ‘Laptop U’ Misses the Real Story” at http://bit.ly/11b4tNd correctly pointed out two problems in Nathan Heller’s otherwise exemplary New Yorker article “Laptop U” at http://nyr.kr/10MmItb (paraphrasing):

1. “The online and blended education world, really the higher ed world where most of us spend our days, fails to make any appearance.”

2. “If in fact the real story is the rise of blended and online learning, then [that story] will go completely untold if MOOCs are the sole focus.”

In my opinion, two other problems are that “Laptop U”:

3. Fails to emphasize the fact that MOOCs, like most Higher Ed institutions, concentrate on DELIVERY OF INSTRUCTION rather than STUDENT LEARNING to the detriment of their effectiveness - - see “From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education” [Barr and Tagg (1995)] at http://bit.ly/8XGJPc.

4. Ignores the failure of MOOC providers to gauge the effectiveness of their courses by pre-to-postcourse measurement of student learning gains utilizing “Concept Inventories” http://bit.ly/dARkDY. As I pointed out “Is Higher Education Running AMOOC?” [Hake (2013) at http://yhoo.it/12nPMZB, such assessment would probably demonstrate that MOOCs are actually MOORFAPs (Massive Open Online Repetitions of FAiled Pedagogy). There would then be some incentive to transform MOOCs into MOOLOs (Massive Open Online Learning Opportunities).
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To access the complete 9 kB post please click on http://yhoo.it/13JDqKM.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Google Scholar: http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 22 May 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Re: ‘Laptop U’ Misses the Real Story” online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/13JDqKM. Post of 22 May 2013 16:26:51-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold.

Is Higher Education Running AMOOC?

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Is Higher Education Running AMOOC?” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: My discussion-list post “Evaluating the Effectiveness of College” at http://yhoo.it/16cJ7HO concerned the failure of U.S. higher education to emphasize student learning rather than the delivery of instruction [Barr and Tagg (1995)] at http://bit.ly/8XGJPc. In response, a correspondent asked me “Is There Some Hope In Coursera’s Pedagogical Foundations? ”

Despite the serious cracks detected in all but one of Coursera’s five pedagogical foundation stones, I don’t think Coursera is necessarily doomed to pedagogic collapse. Instead I think there may actually be some hope IF its MOOCs are evaluated by measurement of pre-to-post-course student learning gains using Concept Inventories http://bit.ly/dARkDY. If the physics education reform effort is any guide, then (a) such assessment will demonstrate that MOOCs are actually MOORFAPs (Massive Open Online Repetitions of FAiled Pedagogy), and (b) there will be some incentive to transform MOOCs into MOOLOs (Massive Open Online Learning Opportunities).

But even if MOOCs fail to become MOOLOs there still may be some hope since, as Keith Devlin (2013) points out at http://bit.ly/14440kt, MOOCs have the potential to uncover individuals world-wide who have the talent to learn from MOORFAPs, in the same way that most current professional physicists were able to learn physics from FAPs (Failed Academic Pedagogy).

For those who may wish to dig deeper into the MOOC milieu I recommend Nathan Heller’s (2013) scholarly “LAPTOP U: Has the future of college moved online?” at http://nyr.kr/10MmItb (probably for a limited time).
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To access the complete 39 kB post please click on http://yhoo.it/12nPMZB.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Google Scholar: http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm

There was a giant MOOC,
based on a little book http://nyti.ms/114klB5,
When MOOC hype was trending torrid.
And when MOOCS were good,
They were very, very good,
But when they were bad they were horrid http://nyti.ms/14ixnQ7.

Profs stood on their heads,
‘students’ watching from beds,
With nobody by for to hinder.
Peer-graded squalor,
plagiarized ‘http://bit.ly/10cZ7W0’ in the holler,
And drummed all their palms against Winders.

Foundations heard the noise,
and thought it was the boys,
Playing Coursera and edX.
They funded and Ventured,
noncredit adventures,
While we all suffer the headX.
- Slightly reformatted version of Sherman Dorn's (2013) “The MOOC Poem”


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 20 May 2013.]
Dorn, S. 2013. “The MOOC Poem,” Inside Higher Ed, 11 March; online at http://bit.ly/14wXPVG, with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “There was a little girl” http://bit.ly/12M7gPM.

Hake, R.R. 2013. “Is Higher Education Running AMOOC?” online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/12nPMZB. Post of 19 May 2013 18:47:06 -0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold.

The Science/Math Education Shift from Teaching to Learning

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion-list post “The Science/Math Education Shift from Teaching to Learning” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: This post is a slight expansion and improvement of an earlier post “Anatomy Education.” The revision was stimulated by the interesting 11-post POD thread “Re: Open inquiry is bad? (in some intro tech courses)” at http://bit.ly/miR63T, especially Anton Tolman’s (2011) emphasis on John Tagg’s (2003) important book The Learning Paradigm College.

Robin Hopkins in a POD post “SHIFT IN THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE” wrote: “I'm interested in the shift that is required of traditional anatomists as the medical school moves toward a curriculum that requires anatomy to be taught/learned in ways that are more aligned with the clinical application of anatomy than simply ‘knowing’ anatomy (usually for tests).”

If the tests are of the usual classroom type then they require only the regurgitation of memorized material rather than higher-order learning such as the understanding of scientific concepts. I suspect that that higher-order learning is required for the effective clinical application of anatomy just as it is for the successful pursuit of science/math professions generally.

In my opinion, THE MAJOR SHIFT IN SCIENCE/MATH EDUCATION IS THE SHIFT “FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING: A NEW PARADIGM FOR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION” [Barr & Tagg (1995), Tagg (2003)].

But unknown to most of academia, education researchers have developed “Concept Inventories” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_inventory that can be used in formative pre/post testing to gauge the impact of courses on students' learning and understanding of scientific concepts. At least in physics such testing demonstrates that “Interactive Engagement” (IE) courses result in course-averaged normalized learning gains g(ave) that are about two-standard deviations above those of “Traditional” (T) passive-student lecture courses [Hake (1998a,b; 2008)].

I give 31 hot-linked references to some of the relevant literature.
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To access the complete 24 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/ijJeCm.

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

“…I point to the following unwelcome truth: much as we might dislike the implications, research is showing that didactic exposition of abstract ideas and lines of reasoning (however engaging and lucid we might try to make them) to passive listeners yields pathetically thin results in learning and understanding - except in the very small percentage of students who are specially gifted in the field.”
Arnold Arons in Teaching Introductory Physics (p. vii, 1997)


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 22 June 2011.]

Arons, A.B. 1997. Teaching Introductory Physics. Wiley. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/bBPfop. Note the searchable “Look Inside” feature.

Hake, R.R. 2011. “The Science/Math Education Shift from Teaching to Learning” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/ijJeCm. Post of 22 Jun 2011 08:13:15-0700 to AERA-L and NetGold. The abstract and link to the complete 24 kB post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.