Summer teaching improvement project, Aug '03  ---    Steven Pollock

 

Title: Developing a workshop to introduce incoming physics department TA's to education theory and practice.  ("Physics Education Workshop")

 

Motivation:

Each year, a significant fraction of our incoming physics grad students are assigned TA positions. Their training and preparation is highly variable, and fairly minimal. Most years, several days before the start of the fall semester, they hear several short (30 min) presentations by successful teachers of large introductory classes, focused mainly on logistics and standard "teaching tips" (like arriving on time, not speaking to the board, writing large, etc) In recent years, our lead graduate TA's have also run a full day of preparations, including e.g. video-taping sessions, which have been well received. Still, the focus has been more on stylistic and logistical issues more than purely pedagogical ones. I am proposing we offer an additional half-day workshop designed to introduce grad students to some key ideas from the literature of physics education research, to inform them about what is understood about "active engagement" methods of instruction, and encourage them to deepen their understanding of teaching theory and practices. The session should be practical as well as theoretical, and it must be run, itself, using a variety of active engagement techniques to provide explicit models of what we're talking about. This workshop should ultimately be beneficial to the students our TA's will be teaching, and may arm our grad students with stronger pedagogy components to their CV's when they later apply for positions that might involve teaching.

 

 

Learning Goals: (for the TA's taking this workshop)

 

The workshop will be run in collaboration with this year's lead graduate TA, Qudsia Quraishi.  It will be held the last week of the summer before the Fall '03 semester starts. Total time: 4 hours, in two 2-hr pieces.

Equip: Boards, overhead projector, (powerpoint projector). paper, red pens, colored cards.

Brief outline of first session:     

1) Meet me, and each other.

Activity: An icebreaker. (about 5 min) They need to learn some names (get a sense for how to create social bonds and classroom interactions)

Guiding question: True or False,  "Good teachers are born, not made."

Quick survey: Have you personally experienced "non-traditional" physics classes?

 

2) Motivation/introduction: (about 10 min) Physics Education Research: focus is on student learning (not necessarily on your teaching)   "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning".  How do people learn, learning styles. (brief!) Student engagement, and the problems of large classes.

Two specific issues we'll focus on in our workshop:

  A)  What is known to be inadequate with conventional instruction, and why? "Construction" vs. "transmission" of knowledge and understanding.  (McDermott, Mazur's experience.)  (about 5 min)

   Activity: (About 10 min)  Provide subset of FCI (9 q's), let them work it themselves, then pair up and check themselves. (red pens)    Quick discussion of any errors in whole-group discussion.

First presentation of Hake data, with more discussion of "interaction engagement" (10 min)

 

   B) Student preconception research (about 10 min)   (e.g. McDermott, Aarons)  The importance of understanding what our students know/believe.  Connect to TA's needs - recitation and help room. (Summary of who our students are, and examples of some common preconceptions. E.g. accel is zero at top, heavy balls fall faster, force of car on bug > force of bug on car,... )

(break.)

Activity:  (about 10 min) groups (4's) to discuss "what student beliefs are targeted by the wrong answers in FCI?" (what are they thinking, what do they believe?) 

Followup question(s) (about 10 min)  "how would you explicitly attempt to address a student who holds such an incorrect belief  in recitation, and alternatively in the help room".  (Concrete activities/questions) Finish up with group summary "callouts".

 

3) Lead in to next time: Specific teaching practices to consider: (summary/intro: about 10 min.)

   a)  Pairs/Group work.  Theory of group formation, difficulties they should anticipate.

(Activities above were intended as an explicit example of this, perhaps nothing new here, just discussion. Or, an activity that's beyond many undergrad individuals but that groups can easily succeed with? E.g, "capacitance of the earth (see supp materials)"? (=> 15 min additional. )

 

Summary - key points:  teaching as scholarship, importance of interactive engagement and "knowing your audience".  Cannot "teach by telling". Teaching takes time and effort to learn - this workshop is not enough! TA's job is  "teacher", but not "presenter".  (Irony of trying to TELL them how to teach - impossible!) (10 min)

 

Homework problem. (in class, if time)( Need to explain it...)

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Outline of second session:

 

1) A) Review of last class, begin by reintroducing "constructive approach" and concept of group work - (solicit reasons for effectiveness from groups). (5 min)  Emphasize that workshop is not so much "teaching tips" as applications of education research... Overview of rest of today.

   B)  Formative assessment (low stakes, high frequency questions. Why? For you AND them...) 

Activity (20 mins):  Concept Tests. We'll do a few aimed at grad students: (see supplemental materials) Also several "Q=CV" questions with hands instead of cards [move isolated capacitor apart. What happens to Q? C? V? What if a battery is hooked up?] to give them a sense of what kinds of questions work, and why, and how to implement them even with minimal resources.

 

Followup activity: (10 min)  Have each group make up a concept test on... (conservation of energy, vector addition, Newton's third law, electric potential...)

 

  C) (may switch order with D/E) Hands on/minds on: expts/worksheets. (Too much time?!)

Activity (30 min: of which 5-10 min for pretest, 20 min for tutorial):

An abbreviated UW tutorial: "energy and momentum". This is another group activity, where they will experience the Socratic method for the first time.  Need to talk about that with them explicitly, in small groups and collectively. 

(break)

Followup: Reasons for pre-test, and where they can find more tutorials. (5 min) 

 

  D) Supportive classroom environment.  (Demonstrated throughout, but worth addressing explicitly. No question is invalid, all students are encouraged, different learning styles... About 5+ min of discussion)

 

  E)  Context rich problems/cooperative problem solving.  (Motivational, yet problems should be harder than what an individual can solve on their own) Resources for finding them.

Activity (10 min):  We'll do a Minnesota-type problem in groups at boards.  (Banking airplane? Maybe too easy for grad students. May have done earth/capacitor problem already.)

All-group followup discussion (5 min) . What defines a good problem? How do you decide how hard a problem is? (Use/provide Minnesota literature) 

 

2) Summary of methods:  (5-10 min) (Partly lecture, with whole-group participation. Alternatively, could do a "writing activity": e.g. my "final exam" question in the supplemental materials)

 

3) Problems and concerns: why do many grad TA's reject all this and revert to blackboard lectures?

Activity (10 min) groups will decide what they're personally worried about, what would prevent them from trying something PER inspired. Then, group brainstorming about ways to resolve such concerns.

Encourage them to consult with faculty and other grad students to talk about teaching practice throughout their career.

4) Finish up with quick assessment survey (see below) (5-10 min+) :

References/resources:  All on the web page

Assessment: Any teaching improvement project should involve some means of assessment after the implementation, to provide guidance for further modifications. As part of the project, I have developed three instruments - two questions (I call them "homework" and "final exam") to be administered during the workshop, and a survey (with Likert-scale and open ended questions), to be given at the end of the workshop. (See supplemental materials ). We might also consider a followup survey, perhaps in the spring, after the TA's have had a semester of teaching, to see if they feel they made use of anything they might have learned in the workshop, and what improvements would have helped them most in retrospect.

 

Supplemental materials: Assessment survey, homework and "final", context-rich problem, sample concept tests, FCI questions