Reflections on Teaching – Page 6

Reflections on Back to In-Person Instruction and the Importance of Breaking Expectations

Last week, on September 1st, UMass Amherst resumed in-person instruction for the Fall 2021 semester. While I, of course, had some trepidation about having 300 people in a large lecture hall with the Delta-variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating widely, I cannot describe how happy I am to return to the classroom. In addition, the restoration of in-person instruction after such a long hiatus offers new opportunities for what I consider to be one of the most important goals of the first few meetings of any course: breaking expectations.

A Veritasium Video on the Learning Styles Myth

https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA

This video, from one of my favorite educational YouTube channels, takes on the learning styles myth. I have found this myth to be very harmful in my own classes: students end up having a fixed mindset about their ability to learn physics for which they use the learning styles myth as a support/excuse. I really wish that we could do away with this myth and present all information in all the modalities that support that type of information to help all learners do their best.

My Quantum Life – A Review

The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspends his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus, if learning the truth is the scientist’s goal, then he must make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.
Ibn al-Haytham, father of optics and the Scientific Method,
Kitāb al-Manāẓir (كتاب المناظر), published 1011-1021,
Quoted in My Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars by Hakeem Oluseyi

I just finished listening to the audio-book of My Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars by Hakeem Oluseyi. This book was just fantastic. While, Prof. Oluseyi is clearly writing for a general audience, he does not shy away from the physics details. Having a physics (and academic) background, I suspect, makes the book more enjoyable.

Brokk Toggerson contributes to ACUE Inclusive Teaching for Equitable Learning Micro-credential

Brokk Toggerson was recommended by the UMass Amherst Center for Teaching and Learning to contribute to a micro-credential on Inclusive Teaching for Equitable Learning developed by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). Brokk participated in an in-depth interview on a variety of questions. Ultimately, ACUE selected a section on developing effective teams for incorporation into their lesson.

Lab groups and peer evaluations

This past year, I have been working to develop a series of labs that focus on scientific skills, as opposed to teaching physics content. These changes are motivated in part by the pandemic: I want to have authentic laboratory experiences that students can complete at home with limited resources. However, these reforms are also motivated by the literature which suggests that lab is better suited to the teaching of such skills as opposed to content:

Holmes, Natasha G., and Carl E. Wieman. “Introductory Physics Labs: We Can Do Better.” Physics Today 71, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 38–45. https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3816.
MacIsaac, Dan. “Report: AAPT Recommendations for the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Curriculum.” The Physics Teacher 53, no. 4 (April 1, 2015): 253–253. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4914580.

Lab groups are one of the necessities of such a large class. In order to respect the TA’s time and keep the grading load manageable, students must turn in reports as groups. Fortunately, I also think that learning to work in a scientific team is also an important goal of the lab experience.

This past semester, I have been trying to use Moodle to manage the lab groups and CATME to do peer evaluations. However, this has yielded two problems:

The TAs must keep the lists in Moodle up to date and there is an unclear chain of command with regards to group management. Also, this requires a rather sophisticated understanding of Moodle and makes changing/managing groups difficult.
The CATME protocol, while fantastic, is, I think, insufficiently transparent. Moreover, I must manage it. This is, frankly, too much load for me. I need a system that the TAs can successfully manage on their own.

I really like the multiplicative nature of the CATME results. A plan with which I am currently toying involves:

Have a number of points equal to the number of members in the team.
Each team member would distribute these points to their team members. Perhaps this would be done for a few different categories.
There would also be one optional point that could be given to someone who really deserves an extra boost. This would be a bonus: if everyone in the team neglects to do it, they will still all get ones (i.e. their score would be equal to their actual grade).
The result would be scaled in such a way that the final multipliers are between 0.7 or so and 1.05.

Obviously, this needs to be flushed out, but there are some key points for improvement here.