The Paper of Record today features an interview with Eric Mazur of Harvard, a physicist who is probably best known for his pedagogical work. He talks aabout how typical science teaching sucks, and why we need to change it:
From what I’ve seen, students in science classrooms throughout the country depend on the rote memorization of facts. I want to change this. The students who score high do so because they’ve learned how to regurgitate information on tests. On the whole, they haven’t understood the basic concepts behind the facts, which means they can’t apply them in the laboratory. Or in life.
On a physics exam, the student will see a diagram and they’ll classify it. Then, it’s simply a matter of putting the right numbers in the right slots and, sort of, turning a crank. But this is algebra. It is not physics. When you test the students later on the concept, they can’t explain what they’ve just done.
I think the same problem occurs in most sciences, but is felt more acutely in physics because so few students continue on in the subject. Then again, my knowledge of the pedagogy of other sciences is basically nonexistent, so who knows?
Mazur’s big innovation is the idea of “Peer Instruction,” in which students are asked to read the textbook before class, and then during class are asked a bunch of questions about the text, which they discuss in small groups. The answers from the various groups are submitted electronically, and depending on the results, they either move on to the next topic, or go over that topic in more detail.
The consensus among most physics faculty I’ve talked to seems to be that this works extremely well if you’re starting with Harvard students, but doesn’t translate all that well to other institutions. Still, he’s got some interesting ideas about how to approach the problem of teaching basic physics concepts, and I picked up some good tips from his book. If you’re interested in the teaching of science in general, it’s worth taking a look.