Transcript The World may be Flat… But Time is Round…

Purpose of Scientific Education
 Was:
Training the next generation of scientists
 Now:
Preparing a scientifically literate populace
and workforce in our modern economy
 Consequence:
We need science education to be
effective for the majority of the population
Based on talk by Carl Weiman, Prof. of Physics, University of British Columbia
Traditional Science Teaching
Faculty Member thinks about it very
hard, gets it figured out clearly
Faculty Member explains it to students
so that they will understand it.
This method doesn’t work.
The Problem with Lecture
Short term memory is very limited.
Most people can retain up to 7 ideas,
and process 4 ideas at once.
This is much less than found in the
typical lecture.
Long Term memory is much larger.
Research About Lectures
On average, students learned 30% of
the concepts they didn’t know, or less.
This percentage was unaffected by
lecture quality, class size, instructor, etc.
Student Beliefs about Physics
Novices believe:
Content is isolated bits of information to be
memorized.
Handed down by authority, unrelated to the
real world.
Problem solving is matching the pattern to
the recipe.
Student Beliefs about Physics
Experts believe:
Content is a coherent structure of concepts.
Describes nature, established by
experimentation.
Problem solving is using systematic conceptbased strategies. Widely applicable.
Intro courses actually make students more
novice-like!
Courses Should Emphasize:
 Why is this worth learning?
 How is his connected to the real world?
 How does this connect to what the student already
knows?
 That experts have factual knowledge, but also
organizational structure.
 That experts monitor their own understanding (“Do I
really understand this?”)
 Construction of understanding, built on prior thinking
(i.e., use long-term memory development)
Effective Teaching
Know where they’re starting from
Get them actively processing ideas, then
probe and guide their thinking
Build with extended “effortful practice”
focused on development of expert-thinking
skills.
Homework should consist of authentic
problems and be provided with meaningful
feedback.
Conclusions
 Students think/perceive differently from experts—
their brains are different
 Understanding is created/discovered. Attention is
necessary, but not sufficient.
 Student needs to be actively engaged in trying to
figure out new problems, with timely feedback and
encouragement. This leads to mastery.
 There must be a link between support and incentives
for a department and student learning