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In today's society, even non-scientists need a basic understanding of how science works. Physics and education professor Les Blatt develops physics courses designed to educate non-science majors to be scientifcally literate. |
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Meet the professors: User-friendly physics
Interview with Professors Les Blatt and Ranjan Mukhopadhyay
As a professor of both physics and education, Dr. Les Blatt realized that non-science majors, who might never take more than the one required semester of science, needed an approach to learning physics that was tailored to their particular needs. In partnership with colleagues in Clark's physics and education departments, he developed Discovering Physics, a course designed to teach, not just physics, but basic scientific literacy using an entirely "hands on" approach. In a recent conversation, summarized below, he and physics professor Ranjan Mukhopadhyay discussed the goals and format of the course, and their experiences teaching physics in a new way.
Les, why did you become interested in how physics is taught?
I've always been concerned about teaching physics well. During my first few years at Clark, my department colleague Harvey Gould and I decided to create a new course for non-science majors that would be tailored to their specific needs. At that time we weren't convinced that we were offering the best course for these students. Harvey brought his father, Mauri Gould, into the project. Mauri, who had just retired from a career teaching high school science, provided important input from his experience teaching non-science majors. We also had the input of then senior physics major, Josh Gutwill '90. The four of us started meeting on a regular basis.
What kind of approach did you discuss?
Les: We began with the assumption that, for most non-science majors, our course would probably be the only science course they'd take at the college level. If that was to be the case, then what did we want these students to get out of the course? We figured that while they might not learn a lot of physics, what they did learn should be learned well, and in some depth.
We also wanted students to gain some scientific literacy, that is, an appreciation for the way physics--and science in general--works. Considering the importance of science in today's society, one needs that understanding to be a good citizen.
Finally, we thought about how to present the subject in a way that accomplished all of these goals, and engaged the students. We reviewed the science education literature to see what methods teachers had tried and their results. At that time (about fifteen years ago), we discovered that there weren't a lot of studies about how college students learn science best. Most of the literature focused on the pre-college level, especially elementary school. But we thought that if some of these things work in a K-12 context, perhaps we could adapt them for college students.
What did you learn from the literature?
Les: We learned that a hands-on approach is much, much more effective than a lecture presentation. Students also need an opportunity to think about what they do in class. One way to encourage that reflection is to have students talk to each other. That forces them to formulate carefully what might otherwise be just fuzzy ideas. Having students work in small groups has also proved very effective at the elementary and middle school levels, so we include that approach. (In fact, much of today's science is done in groups--the lone researcher is not very common anymore.)
What kind of math background do students need for Discovering Physics?
Les: We play down the math. There are a few equations we can't avoid presenting, and that's important because mathematics is the language physics uses to specify relationships and measurements. But the emphasis on math is minimal. We assume students know a little algebra, and whatever trigonometry they need, we also teach "hands on."
What subfield of physics have you chosen to focus on in Discovering Physics, and why?
Les: We decided on the nature of light, a physical phenomenon that's very familiar to people in their everyday lives. Some people have heard of light waves. But what is a wave and how does it behave? How can light be a wave? Others may have heard of photons and the particle concept of light. When one thinks about particles--such as grains of sand--compared with waves breaking over a beach, one realizes that waves and particles seem quite different. So how can both concepts be used to describe the behavior of light? To answer that question we study how other kinds of particles and waves behave. And we point out that there is still much to be discovered about the nature of light.
What happened when you first offered the new course?
Les: We initially offered Discovering Physics on kind of a pilot basis, and two graduate students from Clark's education department designed and implemented a method of evaluation. They compared students in the regular introductory physics course that our pre-med and life science students take with students in Discovering Physics. Each group of students was given unfamiliar science material that hadn't been covered in either of their courses to see how they approached it. The Discovering Physics students performed very favorably. The course also received good evaluations from participants on the University's standard course evaluation forms. We've continued to fine-tune the course since then.
Faculty and students in the education department have become very interested in Discovering Physics. They recognize that the methods used in Discovering Physics--which, after all, originated in pre-college learning research--also work for pre-college students. Now between one-third and one-half of our Discovering Physics students are completing the education concentration in addition to their major.
Ranjan, can you comment on what it was like to teach Discovering Physics the first time? Had you used this teaching approach before, or was it totally new to you?
Ranjan: This was totally new for me. Not only had I never taught physics in this way, but I had never participated in a course like this as a student. So it was a completely new experience. I was somewhat apprehensive! I wasn't sure how students would react, or what my role would be as an instructor.
At the same time, it was a very exciting opportunity to reach out to non-science majors. I really enjoyed teaching the course. The students got very involved in the experiments and the course in general, figuring out how they could ask questions, make hypotheses, and test their hypotheses. How could they learn about nature? What sorts of questions could they ask and how could they set up experiments in order to address those questions? The course gives students the opportunity to understand the process of scientific inquiry. I think on the whole the course went very well, and the student evaluations were quite good.
I imagine many non-science majors are intimidated by physics.
Ranjan: In my class some of the students were initially intimidated by physics, probably due to bad experiences with high school physics courses. I remember one or two students specifically who seemed initially apprehensive, but then did very well in the course.
How is the course conducted? Is there a teaching assistant assigned to Discovering Physics?
Les: There usually is a teaching assistant in addition to the instructor, and we try always to get a teaching assistant who is interested in the methodology of teaching as well as the physics itself. The TA is present with the professor during each class, helping with equipment, assisting students, and frequently offering new perspectives on the teaching approach. Typically, I will lead the class discussions for the first half of the semester and then, if the TA is interested, he or she will have the opportunity to lead later classes.
During class, students work in small groups, and often each group is doing a different experiment. Later, each group reports its results to the rest of the class, and the class as a whole discusses how different experiments and observations can be tied together. Discussion forces our students to think about what they've done.
The role of the instructor and the teaching assistant is to go around to the different groups and listen to the conversations. If a group is going off on a tangent that doesn't look like it's going to be profitable, the group is gently brought back on track. But we encourage a certain amount of exploration. Students don't have to restrict themselves to the initial instructions, but can try other things. It's also part of our job to make sure there are no dysfunctional groups.
At the end of the course we always require each group to complete a project that involves teaching a physics concept, perhaps to their own non-Discovering Physics classmates, or often to a group of kids in a local public school. If you're going to teach something well, you really have to think about it! Our students have done some very interesting projects, and very interesting reports have come back from them about how well their teaching went over, and from the public school teachers who praised our students' work.
I've noticed that there is a more cooperative atmosphere in Discovering Physics, and less of the competition between students than I see in other physics classes. There's not the feeling that there's only a finite amount of knowledge to be parceled out, and that if one student grabs too much there won't be enough left for others. Students are helping each other to learn. The acceptability of that approach is a revelation to some students.
Les, you said earlier that one of your goals is to help non-science majors become scientifically literate. Could you explain in more detail what you mean by that?
Les: To us, being scientifically literate means understanding the process of scientific inquiry, a process that involves observing, pushing things around to see how nature behaves, and then formulating generalizations--based on those observations--that allow one to predict how other things will behave. If students have the opportunity to try this approach with respect to a small area of science, then, when they read something about a different field of science, they can at least imagine the inquiry process. Scientific inquiry is a constant interaction between formulating theory and testing that theory in the real world.
I would think that this method of inquiry is also of relevance to students going into the social sciences.
Les: Right. The one piece that would typically be different in the social sciences is that students also have to learn statistical methods.
Has doing this kind of approach affected the way you teach physics courses to science majors?
Les: I've been thinking about trying to bring some of the Discovering Physics approach into larger courses. This fall I'll be teaching the introductory physics course that pre-med and natural science students take, and I'm going to try to make it more interactive. There are several ideas that have come out of the more recent research in physics learning at the college level, and I want to adapt some of those to the needs of this course.
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Additional Resources
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Ranjan Mukhopadhyay and Les Blatt
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Scientific literacy