allocation of classroom time by Malcolm Wells
COMPILATION: allocation of classroom time by Malcolm Wells
On 6/15/11, Stephen Colbert wrote:
I discuss with my students the allocation of classroom time among the following categories using numbers I think I got from Wong's book "The First Days of School":
Traditional Classroom:
allocated (student in classroom): 100%
instructional (teacher is focus): 90%
engaged (student is focus): 75%
academic learning (student is learning): 35%
I would like to provide my students with a contrast using the percentages we are targeting in my classroom using Modeling Instruction. What do you suppose the percentages are for a modeling classroom?
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Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2011
From: Jane Jackson <>
Malcolm Wells, the high school teacher who founded Modeling Instruction using David Hestenes' modeling theory of physics instruction, described his allocation of classroom time in his doctoral dissertation at ASU. You can download excerpts at . I quote from page 22.
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Instructional Procedure
Control Group 1 received instruction utilizing Elements of Physics (9th edition). This presentation consisted of lectures and demonstrations (80% of class time), with homework questions and problems selected to reinforce important concepts from lecture and to provide practice in problem solving.
Laboratory activities (20% of class time) were designed and/ or selected to emphasize important concepts from lecture and/ or to develop laboratory skills.
Control Group 2 was instructed using the learning cycle. This group received instruction utilizing the PSSC fourth-edition textbook (30% of class time), with homework and class study group questions and problems selected from textbook and teacher developed to reinforce and expand on concepts developed in the laboratory activities.
Laboratory activities (70% of class time) were all either teacher developed or modified from the Harvard Project physics handbook. The laboratory activities were designed to target concepts derived from Newton's laws of motion.
The treatment group was instructed utilizing the learning cycle model in conjunction with the Hestenes modeling theory. The fifth-edition PSSC textbook was used. Most of the homework and in-class study group questions and problems were semi-quantitative motion map, force diagrams, and discussion type, which were teacher generated, using the taxonomy of misconceptions in mechanics as a guide.
Laboratory activities (70% of class time) were either teacher developed or modified from the Harvard Project physics handbook. The laboratories were designed to target concepts derived from Newton's laws of motion.
All laboratory activities for CG-2 and TG were the same. The instructional difference was in the model deployment techniques. The total instructional time devoted to the study of mechanics was the same for all three groups, extending from the first week in September until mid-March. All participating groups covered the same topics in mechanics, on nearly the same time line, as had been agreed to previously by the participating teachers. However, the instructional procedures for the didactic method were significantly different from those ...
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