Brown Bag Summary 12/05/02

Faculty in Attendance: Carl Wieman, Dan Dessau, Mike Dubson, Leo Radzihovsky, Laura Clarke, Naomi C. R. Makins, Ed Kinney, John Cumalat, Tricia Rankin, Karinita Whittlesey, Scott Pollack, Anna Hasenfratz, Mihal Horanyi, Chuck Rogers and Sherie McClam

Topic of Discussion: What are physics students learning your classroom?

Carl Wieman invited visiting scholar Noah Finkelstein, a cognitive scientists from UCSD’s Laboratory of Comparative Cognition to speak to this week’s brown bag group. Noah is a physicist by training who has now dedicated his work in cognitive science to understanding what students are learning about physics in introductory physics courses.

The overarching topic of the group’s discussion with Noah was assessment. How do we know whether or not students are learning in our introductory physics courses, and how do we know what they are learning about physics in the process. Noah suggested that there were other things to assess about student learning besides content or conceptual mastery. He argued that there were epistemological issues, like what does it mean to do physics, or how concepts are related, and is there coherence in their understanding.

Noah then discussed the work of Edward Redish’s work from the University of Maryland’s Physics Education Research program. Specifically, he discussed the instrument that Redish uses to assess student expectations for introductory physics courses. His instrument assesses six different areas, or elements of expectations: Independence, Coherence, Concepts, Reality, Math and Effort. These measures relate to students’ expectations with regard to their responsibility in the learning process, the coherence they expect from the concepts addressed in the course, the degree to which what they learn in class relates to reality, the relationship between the disciplines of physics and mathematics, and the amount of effort required to be successful in the course. The assessment is given in a pre-post manner, and responses compared to the way expert physicists (physics professors) respond.

Redish argues that this instrument is designed to assess changes in class expectations not individuals. He gives this survey to his classes at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, and has found that on the whole students regress over the course of one term. That Mike asked if there was a difference between interactive courses and traditional courses. Noah said that regression occurred in both cases. Carl suggested that the regression was worse in traditional courses. Mike asked whether or not these kinds of inventories have been broken down by race, class or gender. Noah said that he thought so, but did not know for sure.

Noah suggested to the group that when thinking about assessment, it is important to ask what it is we are aiming for. He argued that he doesn’t want to create a factory environment in his classes, so he operates in his classroom that give students the impression that physics is more than memorizing descrete facts and regurgitating them on demand. Chuck argued that some times students need to practice. They have to break the big picture down into small steps and practice those steps. Noah agreed, but suggested that we need to consider what is motivating them to practice. He argued that we need to find other ways of motivating students beyond grades. Leo questioned how? This was followed by a lengthy discussion about how and when students improve in both conceptual mastery and epistemological understandings and expectations.

Noah wrapped up the discussion by making it clear that from his perspective, he was not interested in creating more physicists. Instead, he was about addressing the 97% of the students taking physics courses that aren’t go9ng to be physicists.