89
July 13–17, 2013
Tuesday morning
Session DH: Investigating Classroom
Strategies
Location: Galleria I
Sponsor: AAPT
Date: Tuesday, July 16
Time: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Presider: Vincent Kuo
DH01:
10:30-10:40 a.m. PER User’s Guide Plus: PER-based
Assessment Guide and Results Database
Contributed – Adrian M. Madsen, American Association of Physics Teachers,
4210 Riley Drive, Longmont, CO 80503;
Sarah B. McKagan, American Association of Physics Teachers
Eleanor C. Sayre, Kansas State University
As part of the PER User’s Guide (
), we are develop-
ing an online database of PER-based assessment instrument scores and
an accompanying data explorer. Here physics instructors can upload their
students’ assessment data and compare it to the larger data set. The system
includes “one-click analysis,” enabling users to visualize their data, make
comparisons, and view statistics such as gain scores, effect sizes, and statis-
tical significance. Users can compare their data in a variety of ways, such as
to data from peer institutions, national data, or before and after a change
in teaching method. We plan to conduct a large-scale comparison of as-
sessment data from traditional and interactive-engagement classes as the
database is populated. Additionally, we are developing guides to these PER-
based assessments, including information about their background, research
validation, and guidelines for administration. We solicit your feedback on
our system and your assessment data to include in our database.
DH02:
10:40-10:50 a.m. Case Studies of Successfully
Propagated Educational Innovations
Contributed – Raina Khatri, Western Michigan University, 817 Vine Place,
Kalamazoo, MI 49008;
Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University
Renee Cole, Courtney Stanford, University of Iowa
Jeffrey Froyd, Texas A&M University
Research-based Instructional Strategies (RBIS) designed to improve sci-
ence education are numerous but often not widely used. While most RBIS
do not spread much beyond the original developers, there are some RBIS
that have been successfully propagated. As part of a larger project we are
conducting case studies of several well-propagated educational innova-
tions. Through these case studies we hope to develop a better understand-
ing of the conditions necessary for successful propagation. This talk will
present the preliminary results of case studies of two RBIS: Peer-Led Team
Learning (PLTL), a small group-based instructional strategy originating in
chemistry, and PhET, a set of flexible interactive simulations originating in
physics. Through document analysis of publications and emergent analysis
of interviews we construct a narrative of the propagation of each RBIS,
including a timeline of events and the propagation strategies used. Implica-
tions for practice and for future work will be discussed.
DH03:
10:50-11 a.m. The Mismatch Between Faculty and Their
Institutions Regarding the Assessment of Teaching
Effectiveness*
Contributed – Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University, 1903 W
Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5252;
Melissa Dancy, University of Colorado Boulder
Chandra Turpen, University of Maryland
Tricia Chapman, Western Michigan University
Assessment of teaching effectiveness is one part of the educational system
that influences the use of research-based instructional strategies. We have
previously reported that faculty and institutions use different assessment
methods.
1
In this talk we expand the previous results to 72 physics
faculty from diverse institutions and discuss qualitative differences in
the ways that institutions and faculty use the same evaluation tools. For
example, most faculty said that their institutions use student evalua-
tions of teaching and many indicated that they also value feedback from
student evaluations. Although this may appear like an area of agreement,
the qualitative data shows that faculty find little value in the numerical
results from student evaluation forms, but instead value students’ open-
ended comments. Institutions, though, primarily focus on the numerical
results. We argue the mismatch between faculty and their institutions is
an important barrier to educational change that the PER community can
help to minimize.
1. Turpen, C., Henderson, C., & Dancy, M. H. (2012). Faculty perspectives about
instructor and institutional assessments of teaching effectiveness. In N. S. Rebello,
P. V. Engelhardt, & C. Singh (Eds.),
Proceedings of the 2011 Physics Education
Research Conference
(pp. 371-374). Melville NY: American Institute of Physics.
doi:10.1063/1.3680072 .
*Supported by NSF #1122446
DH04:
11-11:10 a.m. The Interrogation Method: Framework
for Helping Students Read a Textbook
Contributed – Robert C. Zisk, Rutgers University, 10 Seminary Place, New
Brunswick, NJ 08901;
Elana M. Resnick, Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University
Being able to read and interpret scientific texts is an essential scientific
ability for our students. One method that has been developed to enhance
students’ ability to read texts is a question-based reading strategy, the
interrogation method. Students read a section of the text and then use
the information found in the section to answer the question “Why is this
sentence true?” for a paraphrased sentence from that section. Critical to
the efficacy of this method is the selection of productive sentences for
students to interrogate. Sentences that are highly interrogatable require
students to reason through the text and connect concepts in order to
completely respond to the prompt. We have explored the use of this
method in an introductory physics course. In this talk we will discuss the
framework we have developed for choosing productive sentences that are
both highly interrogatable and have a high epistemological value.
DH05:
11:10-11:20 a.m. The Interrogation Method and Its
Effects on Student Learning
Contributed – Elana M. Resnick, Rutgers University, 10 Seminary Place,
New Brunswick, NJ 08901;
Robert C. Zisk, Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University
The interrogation method is a strategy that has been developed to help
students read and interpret science texts. In this method, students are
prompted to read a section of the text, and then answer why a sentence
from the text is true based on the reading. We have explored the use of
this method in an introductory physics course for non-physics science
majors. Students were required to respond to two to four interrogation
sentences each week on their homework based on the sections there
were reading each week. Each exam then included three sentences for
the students to interrogate without the text. In this talk, we will discuss
the student responses to the sentences, as well as the evolution of their
responses throughout the semester. We will then discuss the relation
between the students’ homework responses and their responses on the
exam questions as well as their overall performance in the course.
DH06:
11:20-11:30 a.m. Reading Habits and Fragile
Knowledge in Physics Introductory Courses
Contributed – David Pundak, Kinneret College and ORT Braude College,
Jordan Valley, NA 15155, Israel;
Miri Schaham, ORT Braude College, Israel
Orit Herscovitz, Technion, Israel
The study deals with the freshman engineering students’ perceptions
of the importance of textbooks. Two worrying phenomena concerning
engineering students’ reading habits emerged from previous studies (a)
