Discipline-Based Education Research Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (2012) / Chapter Skim
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6 Instructional Strategies
6 Instructional Strategies
Pages 119-139
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From page 119... ...
More importantly, which options are backed by evidence for their effectiveness in fostering student learning? A significant portion of DBER focuses on measuring the impact of instructional strategies on student learning and understanding.
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Research Focus Most DBER studies on instructional strategies are predicated on the assumption that students must build their own understanding in a discipline by applying its methods and principles, either individually or in groups (Piaget, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978)
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Following that convention, we organize our synthesis of DBER on instruction by setting -- classroom, laboratory, and field -- before considering the effects of instructional strategies on different groups. Methods Most of the available research on instruction is conducted in introductory courses.
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consistently support the view that adopting various studentcentered approaches to classroom instruction at the undergraduate level can improve students' learning relative to lectures that do not include student participation. A limited amount of research suggests that even incremental changes toward more student-centered approaches can enhance students' learning (Derting and Ebert-May, 2010; Knight and Wood, 2005)
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. Some research on interactive lecture demonstrations indicates that they can improve students' understanding of foundational physics concepts as measured by the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (Sokoloff and Thornton, 1997)
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In a quasi-experimental study in the geosciences, students in interactive courses were given brief introductory lectures followed by formative assessments that triggered immediate feedback and adjustment of instruction. These students showed a substantial improvement in Geoscience Concept Inventory scores (McConnell et al., 2006)
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From page 125... ...
Some geoscience education researchers have followed brief introductory lectures with interactive sessions during which students discussed ideas in groups and completed worksheets based on the misconceptions literature. On average, students who participated in the interactive sessions scored higher on tests than students who received only lecture, even when taught by the same instructor during the same semester (Kortz, Smay, and Murray, 2008)
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From page 126... ...
Studies of these activities reveal that students can learn more when collaborative group activities are added to traditional lecture and that they enjoy the collaborative learning experience more than traditional courses (Adams and Slater, 1998, 2002; Skala, Slater, and Adams, 2000)
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SCALE-UP. Developed at North Carolina State University, the Student Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP)
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. Other Instructional Strategies Some DBER exists on other popular instructional strategies that are not necessarily interactive.
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With a tutorial approach, instructors are provided with a classroom-ready tool to target a specific concept, elicit and confront tenacious student misconceptions, create learning opportunities, and provide formative feedback to students. The University of Washington physics education research group has developed several Tutorials in Introductory Physics (McDermott and Shaffer, 2002)
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From page 130... ...
Well-designed laboratories can help students to develop competence with scientific practices such as experimental design; argumentation; formulation of scientific questions; and use of discipline-specific equipment such as pipettes, microscopes, and volumetric glassware. However, laboratories that are designed primarily to reinforce lecture material do not necessarily deepen undergraduate students' understanding of the concepts covered in lecture (Elliott, Stewart, and Lagowski, 2008; Herrington and Nakhleh, 2003; Hofstein and Lunetta, 1982; Kirschner and Meester, 1988 Lazarowitz and Tamir, 1994; White, 1996)
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From page 131... ...
One curriculum, RealTime Physics Active Learning Laboratories, targets known misconceptions by using microcomputer-based technologies to instantly analyze formative data and provide immediate feedback to the student. Studies of RealTime Physics show gains on the Force Motion Concept Inventory (Sokoloff and Thornton, 1997)
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The research that has been done has investigated faculty goals for laboratory learning, the role of graduate students as teaching assistants in the laboratory, experiments to restructure the laboratory with an inquiry focus, and students' interactions with instrumentation in the laboratory. An interview study of chemistry faculty revealed that faculty goals vary for connecting laboratory to lecture, promoting students' critical thinking, providing experiences with experimental design, and teaching students about uncertainty in measurement (Bruck, Towns, and Bretz, 2010)
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. Biology Biology education research studies on instruction in the laboratory setting typically examine the outcomes of inquiry-based laboratories, often in comparison to traditional laboratories.
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Astronomy A limited amount of research on the introductory astronomy laboratory suggests that online datasets might have some benefits for undergraduate students. For example, the highly structured task of repeatedly querying large online datasets can enhance students' understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry (Slater, Slater, and Lyons, 2010; Slater, Slater, and Shaner, 2008)
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From page 135... ...
The available research measures a variety of outcomes, and suggests that field courses can positively affect the attitudes, career choices, and lower- and higherorder cognitive skills of student participants as measured by survey instruments designed to assess these outcomes (Huntoon, Bluth, and Kennedy, 2001) ; improve introductory students' understanding of concepts in the geosciences as measured by the Geoscience Concept Inventory (Elkins and Elkins, 2007)
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. Some physics education researchers designed a course called Extended General Physics specifically for students whom they identified as likely to struggle with college physics.
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And finally, longitudinal studies are needed to gauge the effects of student-centered instruction on the long-term retention of conceptual knowledge and on the application of foundational skills and knowledge to progressively more challenging tasks. Most of the research on instructional strategies has been conducted in introductory courses.
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From page 138... ...
It would be helpful for scientists, engineers, and DBER scholars to identify the most important outcomes of a well-designed laboratory course, then to design instruction specifically targeted at those outcomes and instruments for routinely assessing those outcomes. Future DBER might compare learning outcomes associated with different types of laboratory instruction (e.g., free-standing versus laboratory activities that are integrated into the main course)
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139 INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES instructional approaches and explore which approaches are most efficient for supporting students' learning in terms of faculty effort. At the same time, research into enhancing the effectiveness of graduate teaching assistants and paraprofessionals such as full-time laboratory instructors can explore ways to make student-centered instruction an economically viable approach, even at a time of shrinking funding for higher education.
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