The World may be Flat… But Time is Round…
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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