Hake'sEdStuff

“If you try to introduce people. . . . .[[such as the direct-instruction-obsessed CA State Board of Education]]. . . to a paradigm shift, they will hear what you have to say and then interpret your words in terms of their old paradigm. What does not fit, they will not hear.”

Myron Tribus (2001)

REFERENCES [All URL’s accessed on 14 April 2011 and shortened by http://bit.ly/.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Re: Question About AP” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/i3uB5u. Post of 11 Apr 2011 16:43:01-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were distributed to various discussion lists and are also online on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/gaORYu with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Question About AP #2” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/f1k7jR. Post of 13 Apr 2011 20:39:27-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being distributed to various discussion lists.

Tribus, M. 2001. “Quality in Education According to the Teachings of Deming and Feuerstein,” online as a 78 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/hwcbjn. A Wikipedia entry on Myron Tribus is at http://bit.ly/g5uGEk.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Culture of Science Education - Response to Woods

Some blog followers to might be interested in a recent post “Culture of Science Education - Response to Woods” [Hake (2011b)]. ["Woods" is Don Woods http://bit.ly/etekAw, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University and problem-based-learning pioneer.]

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #3” [Hake (2011a] STLHE-L's Don Woods wrote (paraphrasing):

" . . . . . by my latest count there are at least 20 valid forms of evidence that can be used for measuring teaching 'productivity.' These include Concept Inventories . . . . . as well as a well-designed course evaluations, . . . . exams and assignments,. . . . . . More details are given in my forthcoming book Motivating and Rewarding University Teachers to Improve Student Learning: A Guide for Faculty and Administrators.

I comment with regard to (1) neglect of Campbell’s and Dunkenfield’s Laws, (2) “well-designed course evaluation,” (3) Concept Inventories, and (4) yet more ways to gauge “teaching productivity” or “student learning.”

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To access the complete 19 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/fetCy6.

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

“What we assess is what we value. We get what we assess, and if we don't assess it, we won't get it.”

-Lauren Resnick [quoted by Grant Wiggins (1990)]

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 14 March 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #3,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/gSNTGi. Post of 12 Mar 2011 16:53:33-0800 to AERA-L & Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/hmX5GL with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Culture of Science Education - Response to Woods” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/fetCy6. Post of 14 Mar 2011 15:30:33-0700 to AERA-L & Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.

Wiggins, G. 1990. “The Truth May Make You Free, But the Test May Keep You Imprisoned: Toward Assessment Worthy of the Liberal Arts,” AAHE Assessment Forum: 17-31; online at http://bit.ly/a7g09T.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #3

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #3” [Hake (2011c)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities” [Hake (2011a)], PhysLrnR's Bill Goffe wrote (paraphrasing): “I agree that teaching should be more valued, but economists Martin & Gillen (M&G) (2011) do a nice job in explaining why this seems unlikely in the near future.”

M&G observe that there's a thriving market for senior scholars in higher education but not for world-class teachers. The reason for this imbalance, they suggest, is that “potential employers of professors have sufficient information to judge scholarly productivity, but virtually no information that would allow them to judge teaching productivity.”

In commenting on M&G's article, “teaching postdoc” wrote: (paraphrasing): “How do we know when a teacher is ‘good’? Students know if they like or dislike a teacher; if they enjoyed or did not enjoy a course. But accurately assessment one's own progress is a very difficult task, and there's no evidence that course evaluations are meaningful. Really, one needs pre- and post-testing to quantitatively compare student abilities at the beginning vs end of the course. Almost no one actually does that. . . . . Scholarship is measured in papers and citations. Teaching is not measured at all.”

Regarding pre/post testing, Bill Goffe asked: “. . . . do any physicists use their students’ Force Concept Inventory (FCI) results when on the job market?” As far as I know, the answer is (thankfully) "NO." If pre/post testing were to be used for high-stakes summative purposes, then Campbell’s and Dunkenfeld’s Laws (see signature quotes) would probably rear their ugly heads so as to distort and corrupt the testing.

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To access the complete 17 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/gSNTGi.

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

Dukenfield's Law http://bit.ly/bsRokM: If a thing is worth winning, it's worth cheating for.

Campbell's Law http://bit.ly/hMsyUr: The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

REFERENCES [URL's shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 13 March 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/eqw6ow. Post of 4 Mar 2011 08:04:14-0800 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, and PhysLrnR. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/hnkAuJ with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/gZSf8W. Post of 6 Mar 2011 15:16:50 -0800 to AERA-L & Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/dYSgww with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2011c. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities #3,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/gSNTGi. Post of 12 Mar 2011 16:53:33-0800 to AERA-L & Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities” [Hake (2011)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Those concerned with the effectiveness of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education might be interested in a recent Opinion Piece http://bit.ly/eSLoCl in Science titled “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities” [Anderson et al. (2011)].

Science Daily http://bit.ly/eJYce5 reported (paraphrasing): “The reward systems at universities heavily favor science, math, and engineering research at the expense of teaching, which can and must change. That's the conclusion of UC Irvine biology professor Diane K. O'Dowd and research professors at Harvard, Yale, MIT, and elsewhere.”

According to Harvard Magazine http://bit.ly/frK2Ot (paraphrasing): “The first recommendation of Anderson et al. is ‘Educate faculty about research on learning.’ ‘No scientist would engage in research without exploring previous work in the field, yet few university educators read education research. Universities can demonstrate that they value teaching by treating it as a scholarly activity ……. predicated on……. education theory, tested practices, and methods to assess learning.’ ”

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To access the complete 7 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/eqw6ow.

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>

“We have not been very systematic about our quest to improve teaching, even though we value it highly and frequently do well at it. I am struck, for example, by the lack of conversation about what pedagogy means, and what makes it successful. It is our profession, yet it is mysteriously absent from our professional discourse. Here we are, engaged in an activity that is vital to ourselves, our students, and our public - yet we speak of how to do it, if at all, as though it had no data base, lacked a history, and offered no innovative challenges.”

- Donald Kennedy (1990).

REFERENCES [URL's shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 March 2011.]

Anderson, W.A., U. Banerjee, C.L. Drennan, S.C.R. Elgin, I.R. Epstein, J. Handelsman, G.F. Hatfull, R. Losick, D.K. O'Dowd, B.M. Olivera, S.A. Strobel, G.C. Walker, I.M. Warner. 2011. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities,” Science, 14 January: 331(6014): 152-153; online as a 172 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/eSLoCl; supporting online references suggested by R.R. Hake are at http://bit.ly/g24Iqm.

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/eqw6ow. Post of 4 Mar 2011 08:04:14-0800 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, and PhysLrnR. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

Kennedy, D. 1990. “Stanford in its second century,” an address to the Stanford community at the Meeting of the Academic Council, April 5, Stanford University Campus Report (April 11): 17-18.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Re: Less Than Positive Review of Inquiry Based Learning

Some blog followers might be interested in a post of the above title. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Sharon Begley (2010), in her provocative Newsweek article "Second-Class Science Education Research Gets an F" displays a distaste for reform pedagogy along with tendencies to oversimplify and overgeneralize that were all evident in her earlier Wall Street Journal report “The Best Ways to Make Schoolchildren Learn? We Just Don't Know” [Begley (2004a)].

Begley (2004a) reported on Klahr & Nigam's (2004) claim for the superiority for 3rd and 4th grade children of what they defined as “direct instruction” to what they defined as “discovery learning” in “The Equivalence of Learning Paths in Early Science Instruction: Effects of Direct Instruction and Discovery Learning.” Although Klahr and Nigam were careful to operationally define their own very restricted meanings of “direct instruction” and “discovery learning,” Begley's report could be interpreted to imply that “direct instruction” in all its various forms is superior to “discovery learning” in all its various forms insofar a student learning is concerned.

In close parallel, now Begley (2010) has reported Cobern et al.'s (2010) claim for the equivalent effects on 8th grade student learning of what they defined as "direct instruction” to what they defined as "inquiry learning" in "Experimental comparison of inquiry and direct instruction in science." Although Cobern et al. were careful to operationally define their own very restricted meanings of “direct instruction” and “inquiry learning,” Begley's report could be interpreted to imply that “direct instruction” in all its various forms is equivalent to “inquiry learning” in all its various forms insofar a student learning is concerned.

As for Begley's title "Second-Class Science Education Research Gets an F," not everyone agrees that all science education research is either second class or receives an "F," even despite Begley's (2010) claim that "the scientific basis for specific curricular materials, and even for general approaches such as how science should be taught, is so flimsy as to be a national scandal," directly contrary to the evidence-based opinions of scientists William Wood & James Gentile (2003), Robert DeHaan (2005), and Joel Michael (2006) in the signature quotes.

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To access the complete 42 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/24rj2wz .

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>