Lillian C. McDermott
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History
3/15/10
understanding, and assess the effectiveness of curriculum.
We also continue to probe
student thinking during individual demonstration interviews and tutorial sessions.
D.
Overview of
Tutorials in Introductory Physics
Tutorials in Introductory Physics
is a supplementary curriculum, for which
PbI
was the “ancestor.”
The tutorials are intended to improve student learning within the
constraints of a standard lecture-based introductory course. Developed in the context of
calculus-based physics, they can also be used in algebra-based courses.
Tutorial sessions
are preceded by a pretest (written or online) in which students are asked to make a
prediction or answer a qualitative question.
During the tutorial (~ 50 minutes), students
work together in small groups.
Worksheets containing carefully sequenced exercises and
questions guide them through the reasoning required for the development and application
of important concepts and principles.
Tutorial instructors (mostly graduate TAs) assist
students by posing additional questions.
(A few undergraduates from previous classes are
invited to be peer instructors.)
Homework reinforces the ideas that have been developed
in the tutorial.
Post-test questions constitute 20%-25% of all course examinations.
There are two critical features of the tutorial system at UW.
The students know
that their grade on midterms and final examinations will depend on their understanding of
material that they have studied in the tutorials.
The other important component is the
preparation of the tutorial instructors.
They are required to participate in a weekly
Graduate Teaching Seminar that begins with the same pretest that the undergraduates will
take.
The results demonstrate that TAs may not have overcome some difficulties common
among introductory students.
We consider a tutorial sufficiently successful when
undergraduate performance on the post-test matches, or exceeds, that of the graduate
students on the pretest.
During the Seminar, the TAs work through the tutorial in the
same way as the introductory students will do.
Members of our group demonstrate by
example the types of questions that the TAs should ask to help students arrive at their own
answers to the questions on the tutorial worksheets.
The TAs examine undergraduate
responses on the pretest and try to identify specific student difficulties.
They note
instances in which right answers are given for wrong reasons. There is a short discussion
of research related to the tutorial.
Since most pretests are given after the relevant lectures
and homework, the TAs quickly discover that standard instruction is usually not enough.
Lillian C. McDermott
33
History
3/15/10
Concurrent development of the tutorials and
PbI
has been synergistic.
Sequences
developed for one curriculum have been adapted for the other.
For example, two tutorials
contain a much abbreviated instructional sequence from the
Electric Circuits
module.
With far less time on task, introductory students have not done as well on post-tests as
teachers who have worked through the module.
Undergraduate performance on post-tests
(75%), however, compares favorably with that of graduate students on the pretest (70%).
The tutorials are far less inquiry-oriented than
PbI.
Whereas
PbI
attempts to leave
no intellectual holes in the process of model development, the tutorials begin at a stage
that more closely matches the treatment in a standard introductory course.
They are more
like a “band-aid,” in that they try to close conceptual and reasoning gaps that are critical in
the development of concepts.
Of our two curricula,
PbI
more closely meets the needs of
K-12 teachers, who must initiate the development of basic concepts by young students.
Like
PbI,
an important goal of the tutorials is to help students learn to do the
reasoning required to construct a coherent conceptual framework that they can apply in
situations that they have not expressly memorized.
In some instances, the curriculum
helps students formulate an operational definition of a concept (
e.g.
, velocity or
acceleration).
In other cases, the students are guided through the process of developing a
conceptual model that is predictive, explanatory, and falsifiable (
e.g.
, current in a circuit).
The tutorials are an example of how within a small time allotment, a research-based
and research-validated curriculum can help make physics meaningful, provide a foundation
for quantitative problem solving, and promote scientific reasoning. We feel fortunate to
have begun with
PbI,
however, because of its emphasis on basic concepts and reasoning.
Whenever we begin to create a new tutorial, we think about how we would treat that topic
in the depth necessary for
PbI
and therefore become less likely to be conceptually careless.
When the presence of a serious conceptual or reasoning difficulty precludes
progress, the tutorials (like
PbI
) often make use of an instructional strategy that we
summarize as
elicit, confront, and resolve
.
70
The first step is to
elicit
a known difficulty
by contriving a situation in which students are likely to make an error that exposes that
difficulty.
They are then helped to
confront
the underlying cause and
resolve
the
difficulty.
Otherwise it may remain latent and arise in other contexts. This strategy is not
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For an example and further discussion of this instructional strategy, see Ref. 49, p. 309.
