Education research: pre-instruction survey protocol

Pre-instruction surveys are administered as students walk into the first day of class, without even mentioning the course the students are in (however, course and section information is already written on the whiteboard, in order to assure perplexed students that they have found the right classroom). The reasons for this immediacy are that:

1. Student preconceptions should be minimal, with so little exposure to the course and/or instructor.
   
2. Students immediately get acclimated to the policy that all assessment in this course starts promptly.
   
3. Students who come in a few minutes late (usually lost in locating the classroom) do not interrupt lecture time, and can usually make up the few minutes lost in taking the pre-instruction surveys.
   
4. Students who are trying "crash" the course can be given something to do while the instructor resolves their enrollment status.

After the end of the allotted time for the pre-instruction surveys is over (excepting any extremely late stragglers who are instructed to complete the surveys any time before they leave class that day (no surveys are taken out of class by students)); a general introduction to course policies and/or instruction begins.

Astronomy 10 pre-instruction surveys:

• SPCI: Stellar Properties Concept Inventory
  Bailey, J. M. (2006), "Development of a concept inventory to assess students' understanding and reasoning difficulties about the properties and formation of stars," unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
  
• SATA: Student Attitudes Towards Astronomy
  Zeilik, M., & Morris, V. J. 2003, "An Examination of Misconceptions in an Astronomy Course for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Majors," Astronomy Education Review, 2(1), 101.

Physics 5AB/8AB pre-instruction surveys:

• FCI: Force Concept Inventory
  D. Hestenes, M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer, Arizona State University, "Force Concept Inventory," Phys. Teach. 30, 141-158 (1992).
  
• MPEX: Maryland Physics Expectations Survey
  E. F. Redish, J. M. Saul, and R. N. Steinberg, "Student Expectations in Introductory Physics," American Journal of Physics, 1998, 66(3).

Astronomy clicker question: retrograde/prograde rise/set

Astronomy 10, Summer Session 2007
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q3.2

Students were asked the following clicker question (Classroom Performance System, einstruction.com) near the end of their learning cycle:

[0.3 points.] As seen from San Luis Obispo, CA, when a planet is in retrograde motion, how will it move in a single night?
(A) It will rise from the east horizon, and set in the west horizon.
(B) It will rise from the east horizon, and shortly afterwards set in the east horizon.
(C) It will rise from the west horizon, and set in the east horizon.
(D) It will rise from the west horizon, and shortly afterwards set in the west horizon.

Correct answer: (A).

Most students are probably thinking that retrograde motion (planet moves a very small distance east-to-west relative to the background stars) is the reason why it will rise in the east horizon, and set in the west horizon. The next clicker question will test for this misconception.

Student responses
Section 8027
(A) : 11 students
(B) : 1 student
(C) : 2 students
(D) : 0 students

[0.3 points.] As seen from San Luis Obispo, CA, when a planet is in prograde motion, how will it move in a single night?
(A) It will rise from the east horizon, and set in the west horizon.
(B) It will rise from the east horizon, and shortly afterwards set in the east horizon.
(C) It will rise from the west horizon, and set in the east horizon.
(D) It will rise from the west horizon, and shortly afterwards set in the west horizon.

Correct answer: (A).

This follow-up question causes a lot of consternation for students, who must realize that in prograde motion, a planet moves a very small distance west-to-east relative to the background stars, which themselves over a single night rise from the east horizon, and set in the west horizon. Thus a planet will be seen to rise from the east horizon, and set in the west horizon in a single night, regardless if it is undergoing retrograde or prograde motion!

Student responses
Section 8027
(A) : 3 students
(B) : 1 student
(C) : 10 students
(D) : 0 students

Carousel teacup epicycle movie

070526 Carousel Teacup Epicycle
Venetian Carousel, K Street Mall
Sacramento, CA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIsiezgo7nY

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q3.2

Dramatization of planetary motion in the Ptolemaic model. Watch the girl in the teacup (planet on epicycle) as the merry-go-round (the deferent), well, goes around and around.

General relativity: warped spacetime

"Spacetime 2"
David J. Grossman (c) 1996
http://unpronounceable.com/graphics/raytraces/spactim2.html

What better way to depict the gravitational distortion of spacetime than with distorted Einsteins?

Astronomy clicker question: lunar phases

Astronomy 10, Summer Session 2007
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q2.1

Students were asked the following clicker question (Classroom Performance System, einstruction.com) at the start of their learning cycle:

[0.3 points.] Shown below are eight different Moon phases.


What causes these different phases of the Moon?
(A) Different amounts of the far and near sides of the Moon as seen from the Earth.
(B) Different amounts of the day and night sides of the Moon as seen from the Earth.
(C) The Earth blocks light from the Sun, casting a shadow on the Moon.
(D) The slow, gradual rotation of the Moon about its own axis.

Correct answer: (B).

The border between the sides of the Moon that are illuminated or non-illuminated by the Sun is the terminator. As the Moon orbits the Earth (in approximately 28 days), the terminator moves across the face of the Moon. Students are instructed to diagram this, in order to construct a mental model of this phenomenon.

Student responses
Section 8027
(A) : 1 student
(B) : 4 students
(C) : 7 students
(D) : 1 student

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).

Universe expansion movie

Continued Consistent Expansion (*.mov, 3.7 MB)
Hubblesite.org

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q12.2

This movie is not just a zoom-in shot! Note that as the universe expands, the distances between galaxies increases, while the size of the galaxies remains constant (due to gravitational interactions). This can be illustrated during the movie by covering one of the galaxies with the mouse cursor, and showing that that the size of the galaxy does not change relative to the cursor.

Geocentrism, redux

"Something's going wrong. Stop the global warming."

Dogal Hayati Koruma Dernegi (Turkish Nature Life Protection Association), www.dhkd.org
(Via shedwa.blogspot.com)

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q3.2

Ignorance of global warming is equated with the antiquated geocentric model of planetary motion.

Pirate displacement vectors

Bizarro, by Dan Piraro
www.bizarro.com
June 18, 2007

Physics 8A learning goal Q1.3

GPS is concerned with position vectors, here we have pirate displacement vectors!

Rifle bugle

Rifle Barrel Becomes Bugle for Musical Stunt
Popular Science, March 1938
blog.modernmechanix.com

Physics 8B learning goal Q1.4

Even though the bolt has been removed, don't try this at home?