Education research: Breaking out of "teaching by telling"

Instructional time at Cuesta College is beginning to shift away from exclusively lecture to incorporating electronic response systems (clickers) and in-class group activities, especially for Astronomy 10 (introductory astronomy, general education requirement), and starting fall 2007, for Physics 5AB (introductory physics, algebra-based). This trend towards an emphasis on more effective pedagogy merely follows from the results of physics and astronomy education research over the past twenty years.

The classic statement of the problem of traditional instruction is given by Alan Van Heuvelen at the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH (1991):

Historically we have relied on expository lectures--telling students the physical results that seem to guide the universe and demonstrating how to use the rules to solve problems... This is a very efficient method to transmit information in terms of the time interval needed. We know the concepts and techniques, and students do not. Why not just tell them? Study after study indicates that this expository method is very ineffective--the transmission is efficient but the reception is almost negligible.

Randall Knight at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA (2004) reiterates the problems with traditional instruction (which he calls "teaching by telling"), but does not dismiss it completely:

This is not to say that lectures are never effective... Even in the introductory class, short periods of instructor-centered discourse can clarify difficult issues or provide background information. But extended lectures, particularly formal lectures of deriving results, appear to be the least effective mode of instruction.

Eugenia Etkina at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, along with Alan Van Heuvelen offer this recent observation (2003) regarding the resistance of instructors to research-based pedagogy reform:

There is considerable evidence that students using various researched-based learning methods are more successful in courses than students taught traditionally in the same courses. Would something bad happen if all courses were based on research about learning? Perhaps this is the age-old problem about the resistance to the adoption of innovation--fluoridation, the use of electricity, mechanization of farming practices, adoption of the ideas of relativity and of evolution, to name a few. Eventually, progressive ideas that produce a better product find acceptance.

A. Van Heuvelen, "Learning to think like a physicist: A review of research-based instructional strategies," Am. J. Phys. 59, 891-897 (1991).

Knight, Randall D., Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching, Addison Wesley, 2004, p. 41.

E. Etkina, A. Van Heuvelen, "More on Education Reform: Author Response," Phys. Teacher, 41, 68-69 (2003).