Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Can Introductory Course Students Learn Much From Textbooks?” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:
ABSTRACT: PhysLrne’s Diane Grayson (2013) in her post “Flipped classrooms” pointed to physicist Jim Gerhart as one who utilized what she (and the PhysLrnRs responding to her post) ahistorically regard as the “flipped classroom,” i.e., requiring students to read material to be discussed in class before attending the class.
Sure enough, in his Millikan Award acceptance speech Gerhart (1986) at http://bit.ly/14qL5yS wrote: “I announce to my classes that I will not deliver any expository lectures on physics, that they will have to read their texts carefully if they are to follow what does take place in class.”
Gerhart reinterates an ancient theme: predating or contemporary with Gerhart’s read-the-textbook-before-class method:
a. Over 2 centuries ago, Samuel Johnson http://bit.ly/17PdW5Y, via James Boswell (1791) at http://bit.ly/qfDXPz said “People have nowadays . . . got a strange opinion that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. Lectures were once useful; but now, when we can all read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary.”
b. A half-century ago, chemist Frank Lambert (1963) http://bit.ly/17IbWJ0 in “Editorially Speaking: Effective Teaching of Organic Chemistry” at http://bit.ly/1a4rqJr wrote: “Why do instructors ignore the contribution of Johann Gutenberg to chemistry? Thanks to him, we now have movable type! A few chemists can write books which are readable. Why then do we fail to use these excellent modern texts as the principal bases for our courses?”. . . . .
c. Contemporary with Gerhart, the late chemist Robert Morrison (1986) http://bit.ly/1dLd30J delivered his classic talk “The Lecture System in Teaching Science” at http://bit.ly/hLMElH. Therein he said: “I happened to run into Frank Lambert . . . . . He was urging what he called ‘the Gutenberg Method’ of teaching - because, of course, it was based on the fact that the printing press had been invented several hundred years ago. Frank became my guru. I still mentally bow towards the west when this subject comes up.”
BUT WAIT! Gerhart, Lambert, and Morrison seem to have had evidence that most of their students were, in fact, capable of substantial learning from textbooks. That such learning may NOT have been the case has been suggested by POD’s Russ Hunt at http://bit.ly/15EhNfA; Math-EdCC's “Haim” at http://bit.ly/14ZoHAv; and NAEP’s Perie & Moran (2005) at http://1.usa.gov/18G0T1M. The latter wrote on p. 15: “only 5 to 7 percent of 17-year-olds demonstrated performance at level 350—the ability to learn from and synthesize specialized reading materials.”
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To access the complete 15 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/1dMUKYZ.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
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For William Hogarth’s (1736) http://bit.ly/15Esohg skewering of the lecture method see “Scholars at a Lecture” http://bit.ly/18sWPDm.
REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 06 Sept 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Can Introductory Course Students Learn Much From Textbooks?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1dMUKYZ. Post of 06 Sep 2013 12:06:06-0400 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists..
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Friday, September 6, 2013
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2
Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion-list post “Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2” [Hake (2011)].
The abstract reads:
*************************************************
ABSTRACT: In reply to my post “Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence” at http://bit.ly/r80W5i , Ed Laughbaum of the MathEdCC list wrote at http://bit.ly/r8StCV : “My guess is that of the nearly 6 billion people on earth who have been (are being) educated, learned through lecture. . . . . Is lecture a common practice in China? In India? In Thailand? In Brazil? Canada, etc.? My guess is yes.”
To which Alain Schremmer replied “Yes, most people in the world learn from lectures but this is only because, in most of the world, there just are no textbooks: the teacher writes the book on the board and the students copy what's on the board in their notebook.”
A MUST-READ all-time classic in this regard is the hilarious “The Lecture System in Teaching Science” [Morrison (1986)] online at http://entropysite.oxy.edu/morrison.html.
Laughbaum went on to point out that the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of lectures is related to the neurobiology of human memory as discussed by Gerald Edelman http://bit.ly/n1LpW9, Terry McDermott http://bit.ly/qNPAQP, and Richard Restak http://bit.ly/pfWYNg .
*************************************************
To access the complete 13 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/mXiXoh.
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
“Like the entomologist in search of brightly colored butterflies, my attention hunted, in the garden of gray matter, cells with delicate and elegant forms, the mysterious butterflies of the soul.”
- Santiago Ramon y Cajal http://bit.ly/pTBxSA, quoted on p. 12 of
Edelman (2006)
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 16 July 2011.]
Edelman, G.M. 2006. Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge. Yale University Press. Publisher's information at http://bit.ly/n1LpW9. Amazon.com information a http://amzn.to/q5WOvl
Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/mXiXoh. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.
The abstract reads:
*************************************************
ABSTRACT: In reply to my post “Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence” at http://bit.ly/r80W5i , Ed Laughbaum of the MathEdCC list wrote at http://bit.ly/r8StCV : “My guess is that of the nearly 6 billion people on earth who have been (are being) educated, learned through lecture. . . . . Is lecture a common practice in China? In India? In Thailand? In Brazil? Canada, etc.? My guess is yes.”
To which Alain Schremmer replied “Yes, most people in the world learn from lectures but this is only because, in most of the world, there just are no textbooks: the teacher writes the book on the board and the students copy what's on the board in their notebook.”
A MUST-READ all-time classic in this regard is the hilarious “The Lecture System in Teaching Science” [Morrison (1986)] online at http://entropysite.oxy.edu/morrison.html.
Laughbaum went on to point out that the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of lectures is related to the neurobiology of human memory as discussed by Gerald Edelman http://bit.ly/n1LpW9, Terry McDermott http://bit.ly/qNPAQP, and Richard Restak http://bit.ly/pfWYNg .
*************************************************
To access the complete 13 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/mXiXoh.
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
“Like the entomologist in search of brightly colored butterflies, my attention hunted, in the garden of gray matter, cells with delicate and elegant forms, the mysterious butterflies of the soul.”
- Santiago Ramon y Cajal http://bit.ly/pTBxSA, quoted on p. 12 of
Edelman (2006)
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 16 July 2011.]
Edelman, G.M. 2006. Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge. Yale University Press. Publisher's information at http://bit.ly/n1LpW9. Amazon.com information a http://amzn.to/q5WOvl
Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/mXiXoh. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Re: Lectures
Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion-list post “Re: Lectures” [Hake (2011)].
The abstract reads:
*****************************************
ABSTRACT: Kenneth Mendelson’s (2011) provocative post “Lectures” initiated a 17-post thread, #14 on the PhySoc archives of June 2011 at http://bit.ly/pqGnuU. Among the responses was that of Kenneth Laws who wrote (paraphrasing):
“. . . one of the most widely quoted quantitative studies on the subject appears to be ‘Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses’ [Hake (1998a)] at http://bit.ly/d16ne6].”
I respond from the perspective of Hake (1998a) to six points made by Mendelsohn, here paraphrased as:
l. “Current thinking on physics teaching tends to be very critical of the use of lectures.”
2. “The main objection seems to be that students cannot learn by simply listening to lectures.”
3. “In the traditional lecture course it is understood that much of the learning takes place outside of class.”
4. “Lectures, along with journal articles, are the media of choice when physicists, including physics teachers, communicate with each other.”
5. “People who claim that lectures are a poor way of teaching would have a better case if they discussed real lecture courses rather than imaginary courses in which the students do nothing but listen to lectures.”
6. “If the officers of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) agree that lecturing is a poor way to communicate they might apply this belief to the organization of AAPT meetings.”
*****************************************
To access the complete 19 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/nwIASj
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 8 July 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. “Re: Lectures,” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/nwIASj . Post of 8 Jul 2011 08:27:45-0700 to PhySoc, AERA-L, and NetGold. The abstract and link to the complete 19 kB post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.
The abstract reads:
*****************************************
ABSTRACT: Kenneth Mendelson’s (2011) provocative post “Lectures” initiated a 17-post thread, #14 on the PhySoc archives of June 2011 at http://bit.ly/pqGnuU. Among the responses was that of Kenneth Laws who wrote (paraphrasing):
“. . . one of the most widely quoted quantitative studies on the subject appears to be ‘Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses’ [Hake (1998a)] at http://bit.ly/d16ne6].”
I respond from the perspective of Hake (1998a) to six points made by Mendelsohn, here paraphrased as:
l. “Current thinking on physics teaching tends to be very critical of the use of lectures.”
2. “The main objection seems to be that students cannot learn by simply listening to lectures.”
3. “In the traditional lecture course it is understood that much of the learning takes place outside of class.”
4. “Lectures, along with journal articles, are the media of choice when physicists, including physics teachers, communicate with each other.”
5. “People who claim that lectures are a poor way of teaching would have a better case if they discussed real lecture courses rather than imaginary courses in which the students do nothing but listen to lectures.”
6. “If the officers of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) agree that lecturing is a poor way to communicate they might apply this belief to the organization of AAPT meetings.”
*****************************************
To access the complete 19 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/nwIASj
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 8 July 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. “Re: Lectures,” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/nwIASj . Post of 8 Jul 2011 08:27:45-0700 to PhySoc, AERA-L, and NetGold. The abstract and link to the complete 19 kB post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.
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