the maryland perg: two decades of learning how students learn

THE MARYLAND PERG: TWO DECADES OF LEARNING HOW STUDENTS LEARN Edward Redish University of Maryland March 3, 2015

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The NSF and PER

  The NSF has played a major role both in the creation and shaping of Physics Education Research.   This talk shows how one research group – The University of Maryland PERG – has interacted with the NSF and woven its way through a variety of NSF programs to help build the PER community and its intellectual base.

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Matching one’s research philosophy to the NSF funding structure

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THE PEOPLE OF THE UMD-PERG Helping to build a research community March 3, 2015

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NSF funds people

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  In addition to supporting the development of new knowledge, a major part of what NSF funding does is support people.   This doesn’t just get the work get done. It builds not just research results, it builds research capacity – the people who will become the research community and its future leaders.   In its 22 years of existence, the UMd-PERG has engaged and supported with NSF help, nearly 50 faculty, grad students, postdocs, and visitors.

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UMd-PERG Faculty: 1993-present

John Layman Physics/Educ.

Joe Redish Physics/Educ.

David Hammer Physics/Educ.

Rachel Scherr Physics

Ayush Gupta Phys/Engin.

Andy Elby Educ./Physics

Emily Van Zee Educ.

Janet Coffey Educ.

Dan Levin Educ.

Todd Cooke Biology

UMd-PERG grad students: 1995-2008 (* NSF grad fellows)

Bob Morse (1995)

Jeff Saul (1998)

Michael Wittmann

(1998) Lei Bao (1999)

Mel Sabella (1998)

Rebecca Lippmann

(2003)

Loucas Louca (2003)

Jonathan Tuminaro (2004)

Leslie Atkins (2004)

Paul Gresser (2006) Rosemary Russ

(2006)

Tom Bing* (2008) Paul Hutchison

(2008)

UMd-PERG grad students: 2010-2014 (* NSF grad fellows)

Mattie Lau (2010)

Renee-Michelle Goertzen (2010)

Luke Conlin (2012)

Mike Hull (2013)

Kristi Hall (2013) Eric Kuo

(2013) Jen Richards (2013)

Brian Danielak (2014)

Ben Dreyfus* (2014) Ben Geller

(2014)

Colleen Gillespie (2013)

Tiffany Sikorski (2012)

Tim McCaskey (2009)

Brian Frank (2009)

UMd-PERG postdocs

Richard Steinberg (‘96-’99)

Michael Wittmann (’99-’00)

Apriel Hodari (’97-’00)

Beth Hufnagel (’97-’99) Andrew Elby

(’98-’02)

Rachel Scherr (’00-’03)

Laura Lising (’03-’05)

David May (’01-’03)

Ayush Gupta (’06-’10)

Heather Dobbins (’09-’10)

Jessica Watkins (’10-’12)

Chandra Turpen (’11-present)

Vashti Sawtelle (’12-’14)

Julia Gouvea (’11-’14)

Ben Dreyfus (’14-present)

NSF builds community

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  Early days (1990-1995): A small community encouraged the NSF to support the growth of PER  NCState meeting (Beichner, McDermott, Reif, Mestre, Redish...) prepared a white paper to be sent to NSF  Discussions with NSF education leadership (McDermott, Redish, ...)

  Building infrastructure  NSF supported conferences that fostered the growth and sense of community among PER researchers and students

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The ICUPE – College Park (1996)

Fermi Summer School – Varenna (2003)

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NSF supports curriculum development and reform

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM NSF SUPPORTED RESEARCH?

Six lessons from the research of the UMd-PERG March 3, 2015

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The UMd-PERG has learned a lot in 20 years.

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 We cycle back and forth from  Basic education research, both observation and cognitive modeling to  Curriculum development to  Dissemination to  Basic research on professional development.

•  ’93-RTL: Student Expectations in University Physics •  ‘94-DUE: Activity-Based Physics (*) •  ’96-DUE: The College Park Conference on Undergraduate Physics Education (*) •  ’96-DUE: A New Model Course in Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers (*) •  ’99-CCLI: Activity-Based Physics Suite (*) •  ‘99-TEP: Case Studies of Elementary Student Inquiry in Physical Science •  ’00-RLE: Learning How to Learn Science •  ‘02-PHY & RLE: Travel Support to the Fermi Summer School on Physics Education •  ’03-CCLI: Helping Students Learn How to Learn: Open-source physics worksheets

integrated with TA development resources •  04-REAL: Toward a New Conceptualization of What Constitutes Progress in Physics •  05-DST: Learning the Language of Science – Advanced math for concrete thinkers •  ‘05-REAL: Developing Conceptual and Teaching Expertise in Physics Graduate Students •  ‘07-CCLI: Open-source Physics Tutorial Worksheets with Faculty/TA Development (*) •  ‘08-EEC: Improving Students’ Mathematical Sense-Making in Engineering •  ‘09-CCLI: The Physics of Life •  ‘11-TUES: Creating a Common Thermodynamics •  ‘14-iUSE: Workshops & Learning Communities for Physics and Astronomy Faculty

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UMd-PERG NSF Grants: 1993-present (*)

Basic research in teaching & learning Curriculum development

Dissemination and Prof. Dev. Building the theoretical frame

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1. Active engagement environments can produce substantial pre-post gains in measures of qualitative understanding of Newtonian concepts.

Redish Steinberg, & Saul, Am. J. Phys. 65 (1997) 45-54.

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2. Student expectations about the nature of knowledge and learning in physics deteriorate as a result of traditional instruction and even in active engagement instruction that improves conceptual understanding.

•  Measured by a Likert-scale survey of items. (The MPEX) •  Students in large introductory physics classes typically

show pre-post losses on the MPEX (and subsequent variations such as the C-LASS or MBEX).

•  This result is very robust and hard to overcome, despite explicit efforts.

•  Explicit efforts can yield improvements in small classes. •  Improvements can be obtained in large classes

using instructional tools focusing on epistemological development.

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“Triangle plots” display students polarization change

😢

😃

Redish, Steinberg, & Saul, Am. J. Phys. 66 (1998) 212-224.

Traditional introductory physics class show consistent losses.

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“Triangle plots” display students polarization change

MPEX Coherence, Concepts and Independence clusters Students in an

“epistemologized” algebra-based intro physics class show gains.

Independence Coherence Concepts

Redish & Hammer, Am. J. Phys. 77 (2009) 629-642

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3. A class can be “epistemologized” by modifying standard active engagement lessons to pay more attention to helping students think about their thinking.

•  The key is NOT simply relying on cognitive conflict. •  Confronting students on their intuitions (showing them they

are wrong) encourages them to reject their intuitions and rely even more heavily on memorizing.

•  By helping students see that their own intuitions have some value, they are more willing to adapt and modify their thinking without rejecting a sense-making approach.

•  “Refine and reconcile your intuitions, don’t reject them!” •  Adding epistemological lessons doesn’t replace concept

building – rather, it changes the approach of the concept building lesson.

Refine and Reconcile: Building intuition with Elby Pairs

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Elby. Am. J. Phys. 69 (2001) S54-S64.

McCaskey dissertation (2009) Discussed in Redish & Hammer, Am. J. Phys. 77 (2009) 629-642

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Smith & Wittmann, Phys. Rev. – STPER 3 (2007) 020105

Students may know the answer you want them to give but not believe it.

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4. Students can respond very differently to a question or lesson, depending on how they perceive it.

•  Students’ perception of what a lesson calls for (epistemological framing) can change what knowledge they are able (or willing) to bring to bear.

•  Thus, the answers a student gives on a text, survey, or interview may not always have a simple or obvious explanation.

Lising & Elby Am. J. Phys. 73 (2005) 372-382

Watkins & Elby CBE-LSE 12 (2013) 274-286.

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5. Students can quickly switch what knowledge or intuitions they call on – often without noting a contradiction with something they know perfectly well.

•  Student framing of tasks can be very labile, especially if they are in a frame that biases them towards answer-making rather than sense-making.

• Many introductory students need to learn to view things from multiple perspectives and bring different parts of their knowledge to bear.

• Much of our instruction at the introductory level not only does not encourage such higher level thinking, it discourages it.

Data: Beginning of 1st term of intro physics (F13)

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Data: Beginning of 1st term of intro physics (F13)

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Data: Beginning of 2nd term of intro physics (S11)

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Data: Beginning of 2nd term of intro physics (S11)

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Consistent reasoning? Or independent local pieces?

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Different masses

Speed up in the same way

Same forces +

Different masses

Speed up in different way

Same forces +

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6. A lot of what students do makes much more sense if the epistemological reasoning they used is analyzed.

•  Everyone has many different ways of deciding that they know something. We refer to these as epistemological resources.

•  Students may call on different e-resources depending on how they perceive the situation.

• We have observed this both in introductory and advanced level physics classes.

•  Students perception of a situation or task might include disciplinary siloing.

Epistemological resources

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Knowledgeconstructed

from experience and perception (p-prims)

is trustworthy

Algorithmic computational steps lead to a trustable

result

Information from an authoritative

source can be trusted

A mathematical symbolic representation faithfully

characterizes some feature of the physical or geometric

system it is intended to represent.

Mathematics and mathematical manipulations

have a regularityand reliability and are

consistent across different situations.

Highly simplified examples can yield

insight into complex mathematical

representations

IntroPhysicscontext

IntroBiologycontext

Epistemological resources

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Knowledgeconstructed

from experience and perception (p-prims)

is trustworthy

Information from an authoritative

source can be trusted

The historical fact of natural selection leads

to strong structure-function relationships

in living organisms

Many distinct components of

organisms need to be identified

Comparison of related organisms yields

insight

There are broad principles that govern

multiple situations

Living organisms are complex and require multiple

related processes to maintain life

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Epistemic Games

Recursive plug-and-chug

Making meaning with math

There’s lots more

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7.  The quality of student reasoning can be assessed across the curriculum by analyzing their use of mechanism.

-- This has the important corollary that even very young children can use “advanced” reasoning such as hypothesis generation and testing.

8.  Many topics are treated differently in different disciplines. Students’ disciplinary framing can make cross-disciplinary instruction difficult – unless one pays explicit attention to it.

-- We have a lot of recent work on the challenge of teaching physics to biologists and engineers, but that’s another talk.

Conclusion: It’s a process!

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  Throughout the growth of PER, especially over the last 20 years, the NSF has provided support and guidance to the PER community.   By designing and evolving targeted programs, they have helped build the community and provide guidance for what might be appropriate next steps.   And there’s that man again! Thanks, Duncan, for your leadership, guidance, and support to the PER community in the last two decades.