The Development of Teaching Physics through Modeling as Pedagogical Method in the United States - Essay Example

The Development of Teaching Physics Through Modeling as Pedagogical Method in The United States: A Historical Review Abstract Physics instruction has come a long way from the 1950s, but there is a great deal more work to be done to get our students up to the level of understanding and proficiency they are capable of achieving. Progress in instruction has grown from the traditional approach of lecture, demonstration and laboratory exercises to a relatively new means of instruction through the effective use of modeling. Students with teachers using modeling methods in the classroom are able to improve their scores by as much as 69 percent depending upon the professional skill level of the instructor and his or her years of experience in using the modeling method. In addition, the modeling method enables teachers to reach out to students who are typically left behind through traditional practice. The purpose of this research is to investigate the development of using modeling methods in classroom instruction, the progress that has been made in introducing modeling workshops as an effective means of teaching the teachers and the need to bring this method into the classrooms as a means of facilitating learning. In 1821, when the first public high school in America opened, physics was already a part of the curriculum. By1886, Harvard College established a physics laboratory to improve the physics teaching establishment (Hurd, 1969). We may wonder how physics was taught back then. And, how modeling emerged? The purpose of this literature review is to understand the modeling method that is being applied in physics classrooms today, how this method developed and how physics teachers are being trained to have more effective teaching methods into the future. It is appropriate to ask what programs have been available to emerging teachers to help teach physics. Modeling is a method that is currently being used in a number of science departments at many universities throughout the United States. These programs offer teaching workshops for instructors to develop their skills in educating young people in the sciences. There are several reasons for adopting a modeling approach to physics instruction. First, modeling enables students to learn in a way that more closely approximates actual scientific practice. Second, teaching through modeling addresses some of the more serious weaknesses inherent in traditional instruction methods. The purpose of this research is to examine how these workshops in physics departments were developed and what enhanced the growing trend of using modeling as a preferred method of instruction. In precise terms, a model is a representation of a phenomenon initially produced for a specific purpose. As a ‘phenomenon’ is any intellectually interesting way of segregating a part of the world-as-experienced for further study, models are omnipresent. Teaching science as inquiry is among the most important science standards to be passed to future generations. Modeling is part of teaching science as inquiry because it enhances students’ critical thinking skills. For this reason, teachers, such as physics teachers, who play a big role in applying inquiry in the science classroom must be knowledgeable in modeling techniques to encourage students to think critically in areas of inquiry. Modeling constitutes a complete open learning environment appropriate for students 11-17 years old. It supports students as well as teachers during learning/teaching activities. At the same time, modeling provides teachers with the opportunity to model situations studied as part of the national curricula in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Education and many other interdisciplinary situations. Modeling can also foster collaborative learning in a wider learning community (dimitracopoulou1, et al, 1999). Modeling focuses on essential factors of an inquiry and helps to organize complex information. Scientists build models to facilitate further study as models can be analyzed; validated and deployed (Deakin 2006). The science of physics can be characterized as a complex network of models interrelated by a system of theoretical principles. From this perspective, models can be understood as units of structured knowledge used to represent observable patterns in physical phenomena. Accordingly, ‘physical understanding’ is a complex set of modeling skills, that is, cognitive skills for making and using models. The primary objective of physics teaching should therefore be to develop student’s modeling skills so that they can apply these skills in attempting to make sense of their own physical experience and evaluating information reported by others (Hestenes, 1996). Importance of Applying Modeling in the Classroom: The main purpose of Modeling Workshops is to empower teachers with a robust teaching methodology. This includes the cultivation of teacher abilities to critically analyze any given curriculum materials and organize valuable parts into effective instructional units. This process causes the underlying models to emerge as explicit tasks which require a strong pedagogical framework. Modeling abilities are needed to take advantage of accelerating changes in curriculum materials. This need is driven on the one hand by advances in educational research and by new computer technology and software on the other hand (Hestenes, 1996). In recent years, modeling activities have become an important aspect of the curricula in European secondary education. Technology-based modeling environments have enhanced the available possibilities for learning activities in schools, while networking technologies have allowed us to associate promising capabilities for collaborative learning in a wider learning community. (dimitracopoulou, et al, 1999). As has been discovered, modeling is an important element of the scientific process as it is practiced in the field and is becoming an increasingly valuable tool in the educational environment, but how did this process come to be adopted as a method in the classroom? When did this become a process to be disseminated to teachers through the format of modeling workshops? The Development of Teaching Physics Teaching physics in the 1950’s The effort to improve the teaching of physics was the first venture in the science curriculum reform movement of the 1950s. Committee discussions began in 1956. The input of thought and subsequent events following these deliberations has had considerable influence upon other science curriculum improvement projects. The 1956 conference was held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The main goals were to redesign the traditional curriculum. This was necessary because at that time, the science curriculum was so overloaded with scientific details that it could not possibly be adequately taught in one year (Hurd, 1969). Therefore, in 1956, the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC Physics) agreed on a new physics course that had a particular pedagogy as one of its major characteristics (Hurd, 1969). Cognitive science grew up in parallel with PER and Modeling Theory. The corresponding development of both teaching physics and cognitive science had a deep impact on developing the methods involved in teaching physics. Thus the PSSC committee concluded that students must be active participants in learning physics. However, the PSSC also pointed out that the lowest enrollment numbers were in the physics classes. This occurred to such a degree that teachers were sometimes required to teach other classes such as prerequisite math courses as a means of justifying their salary. It was believed the high school student would enjoy learning physics more if the subject were taught from an educational perspective rather than from the mature perspective of the physicist (Hurd 1969). It can be concluded that the 1950’s represents a significant era of reform within the educational system. The traditional curriculum was too firm and tough for both students and teachers. Another important issue that required focus was the fact that physics is not a subject for all students. Only the smartest students were able to enroll in physics classes as they were more capable of developing the necessary critical thinking skills required for the class. Finally, the teachers were teaching from the viewpoint of a mature physicist, which often made it very difficult to teach as well as to learn. Scientists gave teachers the physics component and told them to teach it. There was a gap back then in the educational system in that there was not a science educator or a physicist educator available to enhance or improve teaching physics at that period of time. Teaching physics in the 1960’s The need to teach physics and strengthen the teachers’ ability to teach the science was the main topic at a conference supported by the National Science Foundation in 1963 (Hurd, 1969). In addition to reforming the physics curriculum, there was a new focus on preparing teachers for teaching physics effectively. To this point, teachers were trained in universities to teach physics, but not within a working environment. This proved to be an ineffective means of teaching the teachers as the teachers were then unable to apply their knowledge to the working model they were expected to teach their students. “No teacher in an art school would show a new technique or set students to work on a new problem without first trying the work through himself” (Nuffield, 1966- p 14). Nuffield suggested providing general teaching notes from successful teachers to other teachers as a means of teaching by example. It can be seen that teachers were the central part of establishing these types of modeling workshops such as the one at Arizona State University. Through exchanged lesson notes and workshops, the Nuffield physics program encouraged the development of a number of experiments and kits designed to serve the needs of teaching physics at high schools. Teachers were asked to follow the provided directions exactly when using those kits (Nuffield, 1966) rather than deviating to meet the requirements of their specific classroom. Modeling in the 1970’s: In the 1970’s, the use of available technology was diminutive relatively speaking to today’s exploitation of knowledge. As a result of the low-level of technological involvement, physicists typically equated the use of the computer to the performance of some sort of dry and highly predictable tutorial sequence. Despite this, ambitious efforts to create tutorials for physics, such as Control Data Corporation’s Physics 1 Courseware (known as PLATO) and a project at the University of California, Irvine, were undertaken in the 1970s in hopes that these projects would encourage further technology development. However, these tutorial materials have not received much acceptance in the physics community, and many question the educational philosophy behind tutorials, which are often characterized as “computers running students.” In defense, Alfred Bork developed the best rationale for developing such materials in his 1978 Millikan lecture. In this lecture, he sketched a visionary view of tutorial materials that were much more interactive than what then existed. The problem then that has been solved to some degree by modeling is that in order to produce tutorial materials, one must have a model of how students think and must recognize the preconceptions students bring with them into the classroom. The author must anticipate likely mistakes and create scripts for dealing with those mistakes. Taking this modeling approach, an extraordinarily sophisticated system for producing tutorials was then developed that involved experts in cognition, physics teaching, design and programming. In spite of the best efforts of these experts and the highly sophisticated programs they’ve developed, few universities have adopted either materials or methods. While it didn’t have an immediate effect on the use of modeling in the classroom, this decade illustrated the importance of using modeling as a means of developing an effective teaching program. Modeling in the 1980’s: Program for teachers in the story of Teacher Malcolm The 1980s saw the birth of scientific literacy. It was the era when the STS (society- technology-science movement) had taken place. STS science teaching was influenced by the development of new technology and the increasingly affluent lifestyle of American society (Aikenhead, 1999). Traditional science class content was transformed to a more applied science project process and was remodeled to fit in with the new style of ‘active’ education. During this decade, Arizona State University emerged as a leader in science education reformation under the leadership of Professor Malcolm. In the next paragraph, I am providing an example of a physics teacher who became one of the major professors in scaffolding modeling workshops at Arizona State University. Teacher Malcolm Teacher Malcolm’s career was launched with a significant assist from the PSSC and the Harvard Project Physics teacher workshops which took place during the heyday of the Sputnik space-race fever. His influence on future science education was indelible. From the 1980s forward, Malcolm has been a ‘hands-on’ teacher and has continued to enthusiastically build his own apparatus of science education. At the same time, he is consistently open-minded for simple models to help demonstrate complex theories of deep physics. Through the energy of the workshops and the reformation of the 1980s, Malcolm also managed to retain a ‘spirit of adventure’ in the classroom and a ‘spirit of kinship’ with his fellow physics teachers. He was among the first science teachers to use computers in high school physics and did not wait for someone else to tell him how to do it. As soon as the Apple computer was made available, Malcolm was writing his own programs and designing activities for his students to learn with it. Malcolm developed enough computer programs to teach a complete high school physics course to prove the pedagogical value of his activities and, more generally, how to establish sound principles for using computers in the physics classroom. He was hard-pressed to come up with a suitable plan for his research until he was shocked by a sudden revelation about his own teaching in 1983. Malcolm's modeling method as it had been developed at the close of his doctoral work (1986-87) can be described as cooperative inquiry with modeling structure and emphasis. He retained the general features of his original cooperative inquiry approach, including all the lab activities, to which he again devoted 70% of class time. Modeling in 1990’s Teaching became more standardized in the 1990’s when new requirements of adherence and measurement were put in place. In addition to the additional focus in the curriculum, the technological breakthrough of the World Wide Web occurring in the middle of the decade introduced a tremendous need to adjust traditional thinking. The internet made it possible for teachers to communicate with ease regardless of physical location, time zone or extraneous expense. As teachers began to discuss their concerns and issues with the teaching of their subject, the number of inquiries for lesson plans continued to expand, particularly in the area of using modeling as a means of instruction. In 1994, the first modeling workshop was held at Arizona State University, introducing the nationwide trend. Throughout the remainder of the decade, these workshops strove to develop highly professional instructors within their given field who could use the modeling method proficiently and adapt it to any situation so as to avoid leaving any student behind. Modeling programs at Arizona State University: Perhaps the most influential literature in the reformation of curriculum design and the instruction of modeling techniques is Modeling Theory of Physics Instruction. This work is the focus of educational research conducted by David Hestenes and collaborators since 1980. Implementation of this theory through modeling workshops given to high school teachers was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation from 1989 to 2005. The documented success of these workshops and the enthusiastic response of teachers have stimulated institutionalization and expansion of the program through increased involvement of university physics departments. Modeling Instruction in High School Physics, started in 1990, uses computers to teach models and the modeling method, both central components of modern science in the professional world. These components are focal points to develop the content and pedagogical knowledge of physics teachers, who then serve as local experts on the use of technology in teaching and learning science. Science and physics in particular, are content areas in which students will need to learn how to use computers to compete in the professional arena. In the field, computers have now been adopted to perform a variety of functions such as a scientific tool for observation, a gathering point for data acquisition, a functional tool for in-depth analysis, and a significant aid in problem solving. Through the workshops, teachers are trained to support technology-based learning in their classrooms. The workshops provide up to eight weeks of intensive Modeling Workshops conducted over two summers, and with ongoing year-round electronic network support. Evidence of effectiveness As with any change in curriculum approach, there have been a number of studies to document changes in educational achievement as a result of using these methods. An internal evaluation of data from 1995–1999 utilized a pre/posttest comparison design with matched students on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test. This is a test commonly used to determine the effectiveness of mechanics courses in teaching students to reliably discriminate between the applicability of scientific concepts and naïve alternatives in common physical situations. The nationwide sample contained approximately 10,000 high school physics students involved in the program. The comparison groups consisted of approximately 8,000 high school physics students of the same teachers in the year before the teachers began the Modeling workshops series and 700 high school students of teachers in traditional courses. Results indicate that Modeling Instruction students demonstrate greater gains on the FCI than comparison students. In the nationwide sample of students, the average FCI pretest score was approximately 26 percent, slightly above the random guessing level of 20 percent. Students of traditional high school instruction (lecture, demonstration, and standard laboratory activities) achieved an average posttest score of about 42 percent. In contrast, Modeling Instruction students recorded posttest FCI scores of approximately 53 percent when the teacher was in her first year of the program and an average of 69 percent when the teacher was an expert teacher with 2 years of modeling experience. These are significant results. These results were supported through an external evaluation utilizing classroom observation of teacher training workshops. This evaluation determined that there was “overwhelming and consistent support” for this teaching approach. In interviews, participants reported that the workshops were well run and that the facilitators were extremely knowledgeable about how best to teach physics. They also commented that the group itself was an excellent resource as they could all help each other through areas of difficulty or in attempting to address a specific unique challenge. While these studies conclusively indicated that the use of modeling methods within the classroom as an integral element of the teaching process is much more effective than more traditional approaches of lecture, demonstration and laboratory, schools remain slow to adopt this method of teaching. This lack of modeling instruction in the classroom remains the biggest problem in most science and math classrooms today especially at the lower level elementary and kindergarten levels. Teachers repeatedly tend to hold the textbook in front of them, lecture from behind the text and assign reading and questions from the text in traditional fashion. It may be the case that the students perform a “canned” lab experiment where they follow the steps provided in a sort of macabre cookbook and answer a few questions that pertain to the material under study. However, when the instructor cannot become involved with the material, how can it be expected that the student will? If one is not engaged with the material, how can it be expected that the lessons to be learned will have an impact on the mind? It seems clear that modeling workshops must be increased and educated teachers be made more available to students if we expect our scientific community to grow in the future. Conclusion Cognitive thinking theory beginning in the late 1950’s spurred the reform of the traditional science curriculum offered in that period. This led to the development of teaching science as a method of inquiry. However, inquiry itself needs to be supported through a variety of effective methods such as modeling if it is to progress with any sense of order or purpose. These are skills students need to develop if they are to become physicists themselves, but is often outside of the skill set of the teachers they encounter. The idea of teaching the teacher regarding how to professionally and effectively instruct young students in the sciences must necessarily take this into account. In adopting the modeling workshops, teachers not only learn how to use this method in teaching, but also how to adapt it to make the sciences available to all of the students in the classroom rather than the smaller percentage of those who ‘get it’ on their own. The process of deliberately using modeling in the classroom did not occur as an overnight epiphany but was developing alongside numerous other developments in social thought, educational system reform and technological advancement. The timeline chart below illustrates the development of deliberately employing the modeling process and how it eventually led to the development of modeling workshops for teachers of science students. Figure 1.1 below shows the development of physics workshops through the timeline. It is important to point out that modeling workshops were not obvious until technology became advanced enough to be more readily available and thus more exploitable. Figure 1.1 timeline and modeling. All these ideas were designed to improve the quality of teachers who were teaching physics. The idea of teaching teachers to teach was very basic and was focused on pedagogical methods in the 1950s. Over time, science educators and physicists became increasingly dedicated to improving physics education by improving the methods by which educators worked to instruct their students. One strategy physicists continued to stress was the practice of teaching physics through the use of modeling as an effective pedagogical tool. Through study, it was discovered that the most important factor in students learning by the Modeling Method is the individual teacher’s skill in managing classroom discourse. That, of course, depends on the teacher’s own ability to articulate the models clearly and explicitly as well as use them to describe, explain, predict and control physical processes. Although the Modeling Workshops cultivate such skills and nearly all participants improve significantly, it takes many years to reach a high level of proficiency (http://m). In each decade from the 1950s to the present there were a number of workshops offered for teachers who teach physics aimed at improving teacher ability. This is essential in getting students interested in such an important field of study like physics. rough references a. dimitracopoulou1, g. fessakis, b. gallego2 & r.meléndez2 1 learning technology and educational engineering laboratory,department of education, university of the aegean, (1) 1, av. democratias, gr85100 rhodes, greece. (2) schlumbergersema, albarracín 25, 28037 madrid, spain. e-mail: {ruth.melendez, belen.gallego}@madrid.slb.sema.com e-mail: {adimitr, gfesakis}@rhodes.aegean.gr hurd, p. d. (1969). new directions in teaching in secondary school science. chicago: rand mcnally& company. joann deakin buena high school, sierra vista, arizona action research summary, submitted in june 2006 for the master of natural science degree at arizona state university http://www.ed.gov/pubs/edtechprograms/modelinginstruction.pdf http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/ModelingWorkshopFindings.pdf Read More