Tonight in class, our professor was talking about correlations between matched/paired vs. non-matched/non-paired and he chose not to give a definition as to what those are. I won’t speculate on the reasoning behind his choice; I’ll just say he chose to define them by giving examples.
I only bring this up because I did the same thing today in class and therein lies my question. Is this a valid way to teach students the definition of a term/word? Because I can tell you I didn’t really get a good grasp on the meaning of these two contrasting educational research terms.
I wonder if my students felt the same way about the terms I was working with in class this morning? We were talking about constructive and destructive interference. I defined those two terms for them, but I chose not to define in-phase and out-of-phase. This refers to two signals which either correspond directly (in-phase) or are offset from each other (out-of-phase). Signals can be anywhere from zero to 359 degrees out of phase with one another. I guess my one saving grace is that I did a demo using two phase-shifted speakers which completely cancel the sound from the other speaker. Its my favorite demo of the year, by the way.
I will be revisiting phase shift with students tomorrow. Even if there is a chance students feel half as vague about phase as I do about about matched pairs, I need to re-teach the concept. At the bare minimum, I’ll be asking if anyone has any questions at all about phase and I will certainly think twice before teaching “definition by example” next time.
Literally, why are we here? What was the cause of our existence? I’m not asking “what is the meaning of life?” I’m asking “what is the mechanism which causes our Universe to exist?” This is the goal of the LHC: to find the reason our Universe is ordered the way it is. Many talk about this as “The Hunt for the Higgs Boson”. I learned today (via a special guest speaker in my classroom) the only particles needed to build our Universe are two types of quarks, electron neutrinos, and electrons. Wow. Our physics research (worldwide) wants to know “why do these particles exist?” “What causes our these particles to exist?” “What is it that tells those particles to form?”
Talk about some big questions! Its a really difficult issue to wrap your brain around. In fact, I’ll admit, I can’t do it. I’m not sure I could ever be a part of the collaboration(s) which are trying to study this. Its some big picture thinking, and I’m not great at that. I try, in class, to impress on my students the level of thinking at which top scientists work. I admit freely to them that I am not capable of this level of thinking. I suspect that every now and then I will run across a student who is and I hope I can inspire them to choose an area of physics which suits their level of thinking.
I realize you came here to get an answer to this post, but I have only raised more questions. That is part of my job as a teacher, not to answer questions, but to encourage students to ask “the right questions” (see critical thinking). So, have I done my job? Do you have more questions now than you did a minute ago? Go ask the right questions!
Module 2 of the Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction has started at SNU. What does the mean for me as a student in the program? It means that all of the things I have been asking my students to do are now being asked of me. One of the major goals of the Educational Research Module is to “Be able to identify and formulate research questions and hypotheses.” Not entirely surprising that a graduate level class would be having us do this kind of higher-level thinking. If the rigor were not in the program, I wouldn’t be in it. (on a side note: I was a little worried about it – I mean it’s one night a week!)
This week I have to come up with a research question (it probably wouldn’t surprise you that I am considering looking at the effect of social media on student learning would it?), decide what I am going to study during our “ethnographic foray at Penn Square Mall, and find 5 citations of scholarly articles from 3 different databases.
Of course I should have talked to my in-house research expert before beginning my homework (@mishelleyb). She has already taken the class and has had a plenty of practice since she is an innovator at her school. Half way through, she suggested that I use every homework opportunity to build my research for the major project. Now why didn’t I think of that?!?
So at least I got one resource that will fit nicely with my research question. Oh, did I not mention that? Here goes: something like “Does social media positively affect student learning?” Do any of you have any insight on this project? The specialist and I discussed (briefly) what I am going to have to cover in my literature review:
- student learning, i.e. styles and processes
- cognitive development
- multiculturalism
- change implementation
- staff development
Talk about a daunting task! I have a lot of work to do. Looking at this list, its easy to see how they all need to be integrated (especially the first three). The last two are easily integrated; I have to think about how I will “convince” other teachers and administrators that this type of interaction with students is useful and needed. Not only that, I have to decide how to approach the teaching of the teachers once I have convinced them change is necessary.
My purpose here is multi-faceted. I also am the chair of a sub-committee on the Putnam City Technology Committee and have been tasked with exploring this very subject. I still can’t believe agreed to do that!
Now that I have rambled on…the point of my whole post was to say (for myself as much as for anyone else) I am only being asked to do the same things I am asking my students to do: think critically.
Immediately following my previous blog post I saw this commercial. I mentioned to @mishelleyb that I found it interesting that there was no data given in the commercial. I found it remarkable that BK is so bold as to expect us to “swallow the Elephant whole”. Burger King expects us to buy into the idea that 31 seconds of information is enough evidence to show that the Whopper “tastes” bettter than the Big Mac. My bias against the Big Mac notwithstanding, there is just not enough information in this short commercial to settle the issue. Besides, how do you measure taste anyway? BK’s use of the commercial as a good argument against the Big Mac is something akin to using this rap video as a good argument to fund the LHC.
After watching the commercial, @mishelleyb came up with the brilliant idea of asking my students to analyze Burger King’s experimental design. What was wrong with it? What was right with it? I also asked them to analyze the manner in which the data was presented. We had a very productive discussion during which my students found some flaws with Burger King’s methods, in both design and presentation. We then went here and got some more information about their “cultural experiment” and revisited our tasks. We decided that while Burger King was not completely free from fault by serving us this ad, we at least got a view of a larger section of their data set and were able to mark a few of the issues we had with their methods off of the list.
It was very rewarding to collaborate with @mishelleyb, who teaches english, on a critical thinking assignment as well as discussing critical thinking with my students. As I told them, one of my goals in physics class is to make them better at analyzing evidence and sometimes just getting them to dig deep enough to find it. I’m afraid some of them may be dangerously close to being cynics and not accepting ANY evidence; but I do think I am at least pushing them towards “looking closer at evidence” before drawing a conclusion. Some of their cynical issues are mostly due to their maturity level; I think most of that will work itself out as they get older.
Overall, a rewarding day. Don’t even get me started on Physical Science.
