Instruction That Fits the Learner

INSTRUCTION THAT FITS THE LEARNER:SCIENCE CONTENT FOR UNDER-PREPARED TEACHERS

GARY K. WEBBER

Kansas Collaborative For Excellence in Teacher Preparation

University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS66045

The Kansas Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (KCETP) was asked to develop a physics course for middle-level teachers wishing to improve their content knowledge and inquiry skills. The teachers stated they wanted a deep understanding of physics concepts relevant to their curricula, modeling of inquiry learning, a class held at a location and time that fit their schedule, and graduate credit in the content area. KCETP was able to design and deliver a course that met their needs, using a combination of Peer Instruction, Modeling Physics, an electronic student response system, and co-teachers from both physics and education backgrounds. Significant gains in achievement on the Force Concept Inventory and high ratings on the effectiveness of instructional methods from the participants indicated that this format offers considerable advantages for adult learners over a more conventional lecture/lab format.

Background

During the fall semester of 2002, one of our partner school districts came to KCETP with a request to help their under-prepared middle school science teachers. Many of the eighth grade science teachers in the district had moved up from the elementary grades, and needed to improve their content knowledge in physics and chemistry. Only a few of these teachers had taken physics at the university level, and even these teachers were feeling poorly prepared for the curriculum in their schools. In addition, many were struggling with implementing inquiry-based laboratory experiences for their students, a district priority. Representatives from the School of Education, the Physics Department, and KCETP met with the district science coordinator to discuss designing a physics content course, and she shared a list of requirements that had been developed by the teachers. The teachers felt strongly that the course needed to:

• focus on deep understanding of basic concepts,
• be aligned with the state science standards and the district curriculum,
• include an inquiry laboratory component,
• be taught in a manner that modeled best practices in science teaching,
• be offered for graduate credit in the content area rather than as an education course,
• be offered in the summer for not more than two weeks duration, and
• be held in the district, rather than on the university campus, an hour drive away.

Research shows that these teachers were well justified in demanding this type of format. The introductory physics courses offered at most universities and colleges are not specifically designed for teachers [1]. Most teachers take an algebra-based Physics course that often leaves them skilled at plugging numbers into equations, but does not challenge the misconceptions they bring into the classroom [2]. This gives them the tools to do well on tests that measure their skill at equation manipulation, but unprepared to identify, challenge and correct the misconceptions of their students. In addition, most introductory science courses are primarily lecture with weekly labs, a format that is not effective in overcoming physics misconceptions [3].

Introductory Physics courses with hundreds of students in large lecture halls such as those found at Doctoral/Research Universities rarely demonstrate best practices for teachers to use with their students. Many teacher preparation programs rely on science methods courses to accomplish this, and assume that the teachers will take what they learn in science content courses and combine it with the pedagogy skills they learn in methods courses. Visits to the classrooms of teachers prepared this way show the fallacy of this assumption. The tenacity of lecture as the primary mode of delivering content is evidence of the validity of the oft-quoted paradigm that “teachers teach the way they are taught.” If they learn physics in a lecture mode, they tend to teach it to their students in the same mode.

In addition, nearly all of these teachers had never participated in a formal science course that modeled inquiry laboratory investigations. Although they all knew what inquiry labs looked like, and many used some form of inquiry in their classrooms, most were using the activities included in their textbook that, while adequate, gave little insight into the nature of science. In a pre-course questionnaire, twelve of the twenty participants specifically asked for inquiry activities they could use with their students. Clearly, simply offering the standard introductory Physics course in the summer did not meet the needs of these teachers.

At this point, coincidence and good fortune stepped in. As a result of connections developed during the work of the Kansas Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation, the associate chairman of the Physics Department at the University of Kansas (KU), Dr. Robin Davis, generously agreed to assist me in developing the course and to act as instructor of record. In addition, he agreed to sponsor the creation of the graduate course, and to team-teach the course with me during the summer of 2003.

Next, I had recently attended an informative presentation by Dr. Steve Shawl, professor of astronomy at KU, on the use of Peer Instruction and a student response system in his introductory astronomy course. He also suggested I investigate Modeling Physics as a possible format for the laboratory component. After a week of research and investigation, I decided to make these the foundation of the course.

During a videoconference related to a different grant proposal, John Farley at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, mentioned that he and a colleague, Aimee Govett, had developed and taught a similar course at UNLV one year earlier, and had recently submitted a paper for publication that described the course and the results of their research. Dr. Farley sent me a copy of the manuscript, and I was surprised and pleased to discover that the format for the UNLV course was almost identical to the one I had decided to use for the KU course. Dr. Farley generously offered to share the resources his team had developed for the course, and within a month, I had assembled the curricular materials, revised the UNLV curricular resources, and was ready to go!

Course Design

The course design framework included three elements: a physics text, content pedagogy and inquiry activities. Details about each element and the reasoning for the selections made are described below.

Physics Text

Selecting a text to support the course created a greater challenge than anticipated. The text used for the introductory physics course at KU emphasized a mathematical explanation of concepts that we felt was inappropriate for the course. This is not to imply that this is not an excellent way to approach the teaching of physics. Mathematics is the language of physics, and any treatment of the subject should include the formulae that illustrate the relationships that exist in the physical world. This approach is perfectly appropriate for university students who have completed both a high school and a university level algebra course. However, for a two-week summer course, it was a far too rigorous treatment of these relationships. This is especially true when you consider that the eighth-grade students of these teachers would not have taken algebra, or would be studying it concurrently. These teachers needed a text that explained the content of physics they would address in their classes in a way that would allow them to grasp the basic concepts quickly and would help them foster the same understanding in their students. It needed to be very readable, since they would be asked to read as much as 60 pages each evening in order to address the range of topics in their curriculum. In the end, we selected a high school text, Conceptual Physics, ninth edition by Paul G. Hewitt, published by Addison Wesley. This text is easy to read and understand, and although it does address basic mathematical relationships, it is not nearly as “math intense” as the college-level texts we reviewed.

Content Pedagogy

The pedagogy for content instruction was based on the book “Peer Instruction, A User’s Manual” by Eric Mazur, published by Prentice Hall. Dr. Mazur is an award-winning physics Professor at Harvard, who saw his students mastering computations, but failing to understand basic physics concepts. A typical class begins with what Dr. Mazur calls a “ConcepTest” over an assigned reading from the previous class. This short quiz ensures that the students read the assignment in the text, and also gives instantaneous feedback on their grasp of the content. The ConcepTest uses questions that require no calculations, but require deep understanding of basic concepts to answer correctly. An excellent example of a compilation of this type of question is the “Force Concept Inventory (FCI)” developed by Hestenes, Wells, and Swackhammer [4]. The FCI consists of 30 multiple-choice questions, and was used as a content mastery evaluation instrument for the summer course. Dr. Mazur has continued to develop Peer Instruction, and has created a World Wide Web site, Project Galileo [5], at that is an excellent source of ConcepTests covering a number of different science content areas. Recently, development of Project Galileo has stopped and Mazur and his team are working on a new project, development of an Interactive Learning Toolkit (ILT) that will take over for Project Galileo. More information on the ILT project is available at the Project Galileo website, which will remain available during the development of the ILT project.

One interesting and effective element of Peer Instruction is the use of an interactive student response system to poll for student answers to the ConcepTests. This system uses infrared or radio signals generated by small, hand-held transmitters to send individual responses to a computer, where they are compiled and displayed as a bar graph for the class to view. This system is very effective in insuring that the responses are anonymous, and therefore reduces student anxiety over responding incorrectly. (In fact, it was our experience that this system fosters a very positive cooperative atmosphere among the students. As correct responses became more frequent, students encouraged each other and were proud of their performance as a class.) Dr. Mazur displays each question, and gives the students one minute to respond. He then asks them to turn to their neighbor and discuss the answer for one or two minutes, perhaps trying to convince each other of the correct answer. They are then encouraged to change their answer if they wish, and the results are displayed. Finally, the correct answer is discussed for a few minutes. If the results indicate the concept is understood, the instructor moves on. If not, it may be necessary to reteach the concept, and pose additional ConcepTests. Student grades are not affected by the ConcepTests. The computer records all responses, and since each transmitter is registered to a specific student, the instructor has a record of the performance of each student and the class as a whole. One low-tech alternative would be to use colored index cards, stapled at one corner. The answers are correspondingly color-coded, and students respond by holding up the stapled pack with the color of their answer facing the front.

Inquiry Activities

Two major criteria guided our search for an inquiry laboratory format. We wanted to find a system that (1) contained specific activities which were appropriate for the grade level and curriculum of the participants, and (2) provided a consistent framework within which to present any inquiry activity. The first criterion was important because many of the teachers had specifically requested new activities to use with their students. Finding challenging, well-designed, age appropriate inquiry activities can be difficult and time consuming for busy science teachers. To address this, we searched not only for appropriate activities to present during the course, but also for exemplary sources of activities that the participants could use to further enhance their curricula. In addition, we scheduled a sharing session during the course and encouraged the teachers to bring copies of their favorite activities to share with their peers.

The second criterion is critical to successfully implement student-centered inquiry activities. If teachers are introduced to a model that can be used to structure a diverse mix of activities from a number of varied sources, the range of potential activities is greatly expanded. Even laboratory exercises written in a “cookbook” style with little or no inquiry characteristics can often be modified to move the focus from following directions and replicating a predetermined result to designing and implementing student-directed research to challenge misconceptions. Toward this end, after introducing the course model, we provided the participants with “cookbook” labs and practiced rewriting them based on the new model. When teachers become proficient at this technique, the number of activities available to them greatly increases. With practice, they can begin developing their own inquiry activities, allowing them to challenge misconceptions that arise during instruction for which they have no activities.

Modeling Physics, developed by Halloun and Hestenes at ArizonaStateUniversity [6], was selected. This model uses guided inquiry to teach students physics concepts. It was designed for high school physics courses, but was suitable for 8th grade students with adaptations. A typical Modeling Physics activity begins with a simple teacher-led demonstration of a phenomenon such as constant motion, or action/reaction, followed by student observations and discussion. The teacher then poses one or two questions related to the demonstration, and challenges student teams to develop investigations to address the questions. The teams develop their experiments, with help as needed from the teacher, and conduct the experiments. Information about the investigation, including the hypothesis, procedure, data, analysis and conclusion, is recorded on a large whiteboard. Teams are encouraged to use a variety of communication styles, including but not limited to, drawings, charts, prose, even poetry, to describe their investigations and present their results. When teams have finished, the teacher selects two or three to present their investigations to the class, and defend their conclusions. The class discusses the presentations, and attempts to reach consensus about answers to the research questions posed earlier. Teams whose investigations are unproductive, or poorly designed are given opportunities outside of the class period to redesign and repeat their investigations.

These three elements, a physics textbook, content pedagogy, and inquiry activities, were combined in a daily 4-hour regimen that began with a series of ConcepTests that gauged understanding of concepts addressed in the reading assignment for that day. The instructor came to class with far more ConcepTests than were actually used, so that, based on the responses of the participants, concepts that were not understood could be explained and discussed in detail, and followed up with more ConcepTests. The second half of the daily class was reserved for a Modeling Physics activity. Eight classes were held during the two-week class, for a total of 32 contact hours resulting in 2 hours of graduate credit.

Results

Demographic Background of Participants

As shown in Table 1, participants in Physics for Middle School Teachers were mostly female (85%), and had completed a master’s degree (80%).

Table 1: Gender and Educational Background
Gender / N / % / Degree / N / %
Male / 3 / 15.00 / Bachelors / 4 / 20.00
Female / 17 / 85.00 / Masters / 16 / 80.00
Total / 20 / 100.00 / Total / 20 / 100.00

Of the participants who answered the question relating to the grade they teach, the majority of them noted that they taught eighth grade, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: What Grade do You Teach?
Grades / N / %
Fifth / 1 / 5.00
Sixth / 2 / 10.00
Seventh / 1 / 5.00
Eighth / 9 / 45.00
Did not answer / 7 / 35.00
Total / 20 / 100.00

Table 3 provides information related to the number of years participants have taught various courses. None of the participants had taught physics. Half of the participants had taught physical science courses for five or fewer years. Nearly all of the participants had taught other subjects (n=19) for two or more years.

Table 3: Number of Years Teaching
Courses in: / N / %
physics
0 / 20 / 100.00
Total / 20 / 100
Physical Science / N / %
0 / 1 / 5.00
1 / 3 / 15.00
2 / 2 / 10.00
3 / 3 / 15.00
4 / 1 / 5.00
6 / 1 / 5.00
9 / 1 / 5.00
10 / 1 / 5.00
11 / 4 / 20.00
12 / 1 / 5.00
15 / 1 / 5.00
Did not answer / 1 / 5.00
Total / 20 / 100
Other Subjects / N / %
0 / 1 / 5.00
2 / 1 / 5.00
3 / 1 / 5.00
5 / 1 / 5.00
8 / 3 / 15.00
9 / 1 / 5.00
10 / 2 / 10.00
11 / 1 / 5.00
12 / 1 / 5.00
14 / 2 / 10.00
16 / 1 / 5.00
20 / 1 / 5.00
26 / 3 / 15.00
27 / 1 / 5.00
Total / 20 / 100.00

Participant Expectations

At the beginning of the course, participants were asked what they expected to learn. Their responses are shown in Table 4. Over half of the participants (n=11) expected to acquire enough understanding of physics to plan their curriculum and teach the course. In addition, they hoped to acquire new activities and techniques to use in their physics courses. The third most frequent response was to learn to apply physics concepts to real life.

Table 4: Participants’ Expectations Related to the Course
Response Categories: / N / %
Acquire understanding of background and content necessary for planning curriculum and teaching physics / 11 / 30.5
Acquire activities and techniques
Learn new hands-on activities
Learn techniques for productive labs
Learn methods of incorporating inquiry learning / 11 / 30.5
Learn to apply physics concepts to real-life / 4 / 11.1
Engage, hook, and excite students about physics / 3 / 8.3
Acquire a deeper and broader understanding of physics / 3 / 8.3
Refresh memory of physical science principals / 1 / 2.8
Share ideas with other teachers / 1 / 2.8
Learn how to integrate science and technology requirements / 1 / 2.8
Learn applicable skills / 1 / 2.8

Notes: 1. Respondents may have had multiple comments.