Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/pfrancis/HarleyWood.pdf Дата изменения: Mon Nov 4 03:46:23 2013 Дата индексирования: Thu Feb 27 21:46:31 2014 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: http astrokuban.info astrokuban

How to teach people astrophysics so that they still remember it more than a week after the end of their last exam

Paul Francis, ANU

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Many of you will go into university teaching
· Many are probably doing it now. · But is it a critical problem?

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The amount of knowledge doubles every ~ 15 years

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So if a physics degree took three years in 1900...

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Learning things with the same thoroughness today would take 507 years. Unless... we can teach it better.

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But despite big increases in spending, how much students are learning isn't increasing

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Net result, increasing specialization
· Arguably this is slowing scientific progress

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So is it possible to get knowledge into heads faster?
· And if so, how much faster? · Or is there some fundamental limit to how fast knowledge can be inserted into heads?

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What's the problem?
· · · · · Low recall? Misconceptions? Plug and chug? Teaching the wrong stuff? Transfer

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How much you remember?
100 90 80 70 % Recalled 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Time in lecture
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Misconceptions
· If you throw a ball across a room... · What forces are acting on it as it flies through the air?

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Plug and Chug
· Rote-learn every possible equation · Use key-word recognition or timetabling to work out which equation to use. · Do algebra, plug in numbers.

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Are we teaching the right things?
Solving equations Statistics Physics Teaching Writing Programming

My degree

What I actually do

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Conventional wisdom amongst economists
· Nobody learns anything useful. · Higher education is about "signalling" and "credentialism"

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Can we do better?
· Yes, so it seems

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Force Concept Inventory Gain
100

Percentage of misconceptions fixed

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2008 2009 2010 2011

Year of Teaching
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What works?
· · · · · Active not passive Know your goals Social, not solitary Student centred Deliberative practice and cognitive load

· Experimental with short feedback cycles

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Clickers

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Deliberative practice
· Research into real expert sports-people, chess players, scientists, doctors, musicians etc reveals that the real secret of elite performance is around 10,000 hours of "Deliberative Practice" · Very intense practice, constantly varying your approach, with instant feedback.

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Cognitive Load Theory
· What's hard about physics? · Working memory · Need to automate basic tasks

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Most important of all
· Keep an experimental, trial-and-error approach. · They are not like us · All educational theory is suspect due to publication bias
Number of Students 80

60

We are here

40

20

20

40

60

80

100

Total Mark

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Conclusions
· I don't know the answer - how fast people can be taught. · I suspect that it is a factor of ~3 faster than we currently achieve. · The situation is so complex that trial and (lots of) error is the only way to figure this out.

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