Why having a theory of learning changes what I do in class on Monday

Why having
a theory of learning
changes what I do
in class on Monday

Edward F. Redish
Department of Physics
University of Maryland
Supported in part by NSF grants DUE 05-24987 and REC-044 0113

Outline

What theory?
What class?
How theory changes my goals
How theory changes my practice.

11/6/10 New Faculty Workshop Reunion 2

Triangulation

11/6/10 New Faculty Workshop Reunion
Redish, Enrico Fermi Summer School in PER, Varenna (2003) 3

Foothold ideas:
Neuroscience
Neurons connect to each other.
Neurons send information to each other
via pulse trains when they are activated.
Neurons may be in various stages
of activation.
Neural connections can enhance or inhibit
other neural connections.
Learning appears to be associated
with the growth of connections (synapses)
between neurons.
Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell, Principles of Neuroscience (2000)

Implications

“Neurons that fire together,
wire together!” (Hebb’s rule)
– Synapses that prove effective
in activating a neuron grow more effective.
(There are lots of both positive and negative
synapses into every neuron.)
“There’s no erasing in neurons!” (Not yet!)
– Once a pathway has been well established
it can be inhibited (suppressed) --
but that suppression is likely
to be tied to a local context.


Foothold ideas:
Cognitive science
Memory has two distinct components:
– Working memory
can only use a small number of “chunks” at a time.
labile, often lasting only a few seconds
– Long-term memory.
contains a vast quantity of information.
highly stable and can store data for decades.
Reasoning has two distinct components:
– Serial processing / logical reasoning
– Parallel processing / recognition - intuition
Baddeley, Human Memory (1998)
Hofstadter, Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies (1996)

Implications

Working long-term
requires repetition.
Long-term working memory
takes time.
– Activation by association
– Priming can be complex and depend on
unnoticed cues
Logical reasoning
relies on intuition
L. Carroll, What the Tortoise Said
to Achilles (1895)

Foothold ideas:
Behavioral science
Selective attention: Framing
– When we enter a situation, we (tacitly) make
a judgment as to “What’s going on here.”
– This has a powerful effect on the knowledge
that is activated and primed for use.
Coherent local activities: Games
– Once we decide what we’re doing, we activate
a locally coherent set of “knowledge
building” (epistemic) tools (or moves).
G. MacLachlan and I. Reid, Framing & Interpretation(1994)
I. Goffman, Frame Analysis (1997)
A. Collins & W. Ferguson, in Educational Psychologist (1993)


Implications

Just because students don’t use a bit of
knowledge that we might see as necessary
doesn’t mean that they don’t know it.
When students engage in a “game”, they
may limit sharply the tools and skills they
employ, possibly inappropriately.

“Epistemology” – What students think they
are supposed to be learning and what they
think they are supposed to do to learn it.

Resource framework:
Instructional implications
Use of knowledge = activation:
– Students can have knowledge but not use it
appropriately. We need to probe what they know.
Association / spreading activation:
– How students’ knowledge is linked is as important as
what knowledge they have. We need to vary contexts
in which a topic is seen.
Control / selective attention:
– Students may bring in epistemological misconceptions.
We may need to help them change which filters they
have turned on
Intuition is critical
– We need to find ways to develop intuition, not assume
that it “comes for free” with practice.


What class?

Algebra-based physics (full year)
Mostly bioscience students
Mostly juniors and seniors
Mostly women

Transformed via the NSF project
Learning How to Learn Science:
Physics for Bioscience Majors
(REC-008 7519)


What goals?

Build a sense of coherence
– We want our students to not only
“have” knowledge, but to associate it
appropriately.
Build complex skills
– We cannot expect our students to “bind”
diverse items immediately. We have to give
them opportunities for doing it.
Build appropriate expectations
for what to do when.
– A focus on narrow technique can create
damaging epistemological misconceptions.


What changes?
Epistemology über alles!
– Keeping the meta-messages consistent.
Building intuition
– Strengthening intuition, not suppressing it.
Peer instruction
– With a difference.
Homework
– Less is more (and vice versa).
Quizzes and exams
– They should support not undermine our goals.


Epistemology über alles!
To achieve epistemological gains,
it appears necessary
to be consistent throughout,
It’s not enough to describe e-goals early
(first class, main handout)
– Many students won’t understand
what you mean.
– Others won’t believe you.
Other parts of the class (HW, lab, …)
that don’t support your e-goals
can undermine them.


We want to strengthen
student’s physical intuition

Pure cognitive conflict can be effective
in producing good conceptual gains.
But it can have an unintended side effect:
– Elicit / confront / resolve
can easily become
Elicit / confront / suppress
in a context dependent way.
Students may learn the concept
but restrict its use to the context
of their physics class -- and learn
that their intuition is not to be trusted.


Refine and reconcile
rather than try to “replace”
Tutorials (replacing recitations) focus on
intuition building using the technique of “Elby pairs”.

(a) A truck rams into
a parked car. Intuitively,
which is larger: the force
exerted by the truck
on the car or by the car
on the truck?
(b) Suppose the truck
has mass 1000 kg and
the car has mass 500 kg.
During the collision,
the truck slows by 5 m/s.
How much speed does
the car gain?

Peer Instruction:
With a difference!
Build associations, not answers
– Sometimes draw answers
from class.
– Call for creativity.
– Have students consider
and defend answers given.
– “Forget” to give the “right answer”
at the end of the discussion
(but give it if they ask).
– Some problems not pre-planned

A sample PI problem

More such problems at

http://www.physics.umd.edu/
perg/role/PIProbs/
ProbSubjs.htm


Homework: Less is more!

No exercises!
Encourage group work
Fewer problems, subtler,
explanations and writing required.
Varied types
– Essay questions
– Estimations
– Representation translation
– Context rich problems

A sample HW problem
Suppose you are using a camera and wish to have
a larger image of a distant object than you are obtaining
with the lens currently in use. Would you change to a lens
with a longer or a shorter focal length?

(Hint: Note that the object distance is essentially fixed.)

Address this question in two ways:
* by drawing and interpreting appropriate geometrical diagrams
* by appealing to the lens equation and the expression
for lateral magnification and demonstrating your result
mathematically.

If your two approaches do not agree, explain which one is correct
and why the other is wrong.
More such problems at
http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/abp/TPProbs/ProbSubjs.htm

Quizzes and Exams

The best way to motivate
a frame shift is with
a graded exam!
– This population is very sensitive
to grades -- even small numbers
of points.
Learning a new frame requires
repeated and explicit attention!

Quizzes
Quizzes are given weekly.
– They test on the previous week’s
concepts (mostly tutorial).
– Multiple choice: show epistemological
as well as conceptual issues.
– Worth only 10 points
(out of a total of 1000 for the semester).
– Given Monday first thing
(after collection correct answers given).
– Returned graded Wednesday first thing:
answers chosen discussed along with
possible reasons they were chosen
(class discussion).

Sample quiz problem
Consider two identical capacitors. Capacitor #1 is
connected to a battery until one of its plates has a
charge +Q, and the other has a charge –Q.
Capacitor #2 has no voltage difference across the
plates as shown in the top figure at the right.
The capacitor #1 is disconnected from the battery
and the two capacitors are connected together as
shown. Once things have settled down, how has
the magnitude of the E-field between the plates of
capacitor #1 changed from its initial value?
A.It has remained the same.
B. It has increased by a factor of 2.
C. It has increased by a factor not equal to 2.
D.It has decreased by a factor of 2.
E. It has decreased by a factor not equal to 2.
F. You cannot tell from the information given.


Exams
Hour exams given twice a term.
Mix of problems
– Representation translation (mult.ch.)
– Two symbolic manipulation problems
focusing on use of principles
– Estimation
– Essay
Given on Friday, returned
and gone over in class Monday
Makeup exam Thursday out of class
– Can be taken by anyone
– If you retake, you get the average
of your two grades

Sample essay question
During the first week of this class we discussed
the danger of one-step recall and showed
examples of how our memories can mislead us.
Have you had an example in this class where
one-step recall led to you an incorrect answer,
but where a more carefully considered approach
led you to realize that you had a more correct
intuition? If so, give the example, your first
answer, and the correct answer. Give a plausible
reason why the first answer seemed to be correct
at first glance and what you knew that made you
see it in a different way. Note: This is an essay
question. Your answer will be judged not solely on its
correctness, but for its depth, coherence, and clarity

Summary

Some of the things I have talked about
doing, I have done for a long time --
without a theory -- because it “felt right.”
Others I have added because
I now have a better sense of
“what’s going on” in class.
As a teacher, my sense of the class
is that it is much improved.
Students are a bit nervous at first,
but “get on board” as a result of
an overall coherence to the class.

One testimonial

I took your physics 2 class last semester.
I received a B in your class and thoroughly
enjoyed it for one primary reason: THINKING.
Your class taught me more than just physics, it
taught me to THINK. I was the kind of guy that
would try and memorize information without trying
to think about it. This method of memorizing
without integrating proved inefficient in a number
of my science classes. But after taking your class
and doing your infamous estimation problems
and thinking about the concepts I learned
something very important about myself: I am
capable of thinking and I love it.

R Introducing Students to the Culture of Physics:
e Explicating elements of the hidden curriculum, E. F. Redish,
AIP Conf. Proc. 1289 (2010) 49-52.
f Reinventing College Physics for Biologists: Explicating an
Epistemological Curriculum , E. F. Redish and D. Hammer,
e Am. J. Phys., 77, 629-642 (2009).
r Looking Beyond Content: Skill development for engineers,
E. F. Redish and K. A. Smith, Journal of Engineering Education
e 97, 295-307 (July 2008).
Knowledge Organization and Activation in Physics Problem
n Solving, M. Sabella and E. F. Redish, Am. J. Phys. 75,
1017-1029 (2007).
c Elements of a Cognitive Model of Physics Problem Solving:
e Epistemic Games, J. Tuminaro and E. F. Redish, Phys. Rev.
STPER, 3, 020101 (2007).
s Reverse Engineering the Solution of a "Simple" Physics
Problem: Why learning physics is harder than it looks, E. F.
Redish, R. E. Scherr, and J. Tuminaro, The Physics Teacher,
44, 293-300 (May, 2006).
Thinking Problems in Physics:
http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/abp/TPProbs/ProbSubjs.htm

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