Lillian C. McDermott
22
History
3/15/10
characterized our curriculum.
55
In the list that follows, each
generalization about student
learning is paired with a corresponding one (in
italics
) about what teachers should do (or
ensure that their students do) to promote learning.
•
Facility in solving standard quantitative problems is not an adequate criterion for
functional understanding.
Questions that require qualitative reasoning and verbal
explanation are essential.
•
A coherent conceptual framework is not typically an outcome of traditional
instruction.
Students need to participate in the construction of qualitative models
that can help them understand relationships and differences among concepts.
•
Certain conceptual difficulties are not overcome by traditional instruction.
Persistent conceptual difficulties must be explicitly addressed by multiple
challenges in different contexts.
•
Growth in reasoning ability does not usually result from traditional instruction.
Scientific reasoning skills must be expressly cultivated
.
•
Connections among concepts, formal representations, and the real world are often
lacking after traditional instruction.
Students need repeated practice in
interpreting physics formalism and relating it to the real world.
•
Teaching by telling is an ineffective mode of instruction for most students.
Students must be intellectually active to develop a functional understanding.
These and other generalizations have served as a practical
de facto
guide for all of
the instructional materials developed by our group.
Some of the generalizations related to
student learning are illustrated in this monograph. The last pair characterizes our
instructional approach:
to teach by questioning rather than by telling.
Not just
any
question will do, however.
If the intellectual gap between questions is too small, the
exercise becomes trivial.
If the gap is too large, students may become lost.
A major goal of all curriculum produced by our group is to help students develop a
functional understanding (
i.e.
, the ability to apply relevant concepts in situations not
expressly memorized and to articulate their reasoning).
To this end, we guide them in
their development of a coherent conceptual framework and the reasoning skills required to
apply the concepts in predicting and explaining real world phenomena.
We identify and
try to address the conceptual and reasoning difficulties that they encounter.
Our published
papers on this process contribute to a research base to which all instructors can refer.
55
See L.C. McDermott, “Guest Comment:
How we teach and how students learn – A mismatch?”
Am. J.
Phys
.
61
(4), 295 (1993) and L.C. McDermott, Oersted Medal Lecture 2001: “Physics Education
Research – The Key to Student Learning,”
Am. J. Phys.
69
(11), 1127 (2001).
Lillian C. McDermott
23
History
3/15/10
E.
Relevance of Research to Teacher Professional Development
For more than 35 years, our group has been teaching special physics courses to
prepare both prospective and practicing K-12 teachers to teach physics and physical
science by inquiry.
56
These courses provide direct experience with the types of
interactions between teachers and students that our research has shown promote
intellectual development.
Physics by Inquiry
is designed to prepare teachers to teach basic
topics by inquiry rather than by the standard lecture/laboratory mode through which
science is most often taught.
The topics have been selected because they are appropriate
for young students (as well as older ones).
The simple equipment required for
the
experiments and exercises
is often available in the form of commercial “hands-on” student
materials in many school districts.
The accompanying Teacher’s Guides, however, do not
offer adequate support for most teachers.
We have found that both prospective and practicing teachers benefit from the
opportunity to learn (or relearn) physics in a way consistent with how they are expected to
teach.
Besides having an in-depth understanding of physics, teachers need to be able to
recognize common conceptual and reasoning difficulties (which they may have and which
their students undoubtedly will have), as well as effective ways of addressing them.
57
The
preservice courses and NSF Inservice Summer Institutes provide an environment in which
we examine the understanding that teachers have of the physics that they are expected to
teach and use our findings to inform the development of
PbI.
The following example is
from a study on student understanding of a ray model for light when no lens is involved.
Geometrical Optics
58,59
The pretest shown in the diagram was given to more than 2000 physics students
ranging from the introductory to the graduate level.
K-12 teachers were also included.
56
L.C. McDermott, “A perspective on teacher preparation in physics and other sciences: The need for
special courses for teachers,”
Am.J.Phys
.
58,
734 (1990).
See also Refs. 8 and 9.
57
L.S. Shulman, “Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching,”
Educational Researcher
,
15(2), 4 (1986).
Shulman introduced the term
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)
to refer to
the understanding teachers need of specific content and of effective ways of helping students learn.
58
K. Wosilait, P.R.L. Heron, and L.C. McDermott, “Development and assessment of a research-based
tutorial on light and shadow,“ Am. J. Phys.
66
(10), 906 (1998).
59
L.C. McDermott, P.R.L. Heron, P.S. Shaffer, and M.R. Stetzer, “Improving the preparation of K-12
teachers through physics education research,
Am. J. Phys
.
74
(9), 763 (2006)
