Saturday, October 14, 2006
Trip to Madison
Well, I got the trip to Madison out of the way. The conference was fine--it was mostly to update the other Teaching Fellows on the status of our project, and to ask for and offer help on the various projects going on.
I'm not sure if I've described my own Teaching Fellows project. Last semester we gave our graduating seniors the Physics "Major Field Exam", a test by the makers of the SAT and GRE. The MFT is designed to assess whether our students are learning the stuff we're supposedly teaching them in the standard undergraduate physics classes. Well, what we found out is that the students did *horribly* on many of the easiest questions, mainly because they didn't have equations memorized. In most physics classes at UW-L, the instructors either give the students an equation page, or let the students make up their own formula sheet for use in exams. The thought is that then the exam can focus on more meatier problems, and that after a while, the students will come to know the most important equations even without having had to memorize them along the way. Well, with a single semesters' data point, that doesn't seem to have happened.
So, that's the background against which I came up with my Teaching Fellows project. I've decided to look at closed book/closed notes exams vs. exams with a page of notes allowed. I don't think I can answer all the questions about whether not making students memorize equations for exams helps or hurts them in the long run, but maybe I can get at some things. I'll give the students exams in various formats, and later ask them things about the exam like their study time, motivation, stress/anxiety, whether they felt the exam accurately assessed their ability, and so forth. Next semester I actually plan to divide the Circuits class in half; for the first exam Half A will take it as a closed book/notes exam and Half B will take it with a page of notes, then for the second exam the two halves will be reversed. That way I should be able to see whether the students being forced to take it closed book/notes do substantially worse than the open notes students.
Anyway, I think it's an interesting "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" research project!
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While at Madison, I also gave a talk to the condensed matter subset of the Physics Department. The talk was at a non-standard time, but I would guess there were still about 15 people that showed up for it (faculty and students). I think I did a good job on the talk, and there were lots of questions. That's always good--when there are no questions (like my talk at this past APS March Meeting), you never know whether it's because (a) you explained everything so beautifully, the audience couldn't help but understand it, or (b) you confused everyone so much that they don't even know where to start asking questions to fill in the gaps, or (c) you completely bored the audience and they just want to leave. Or some combination of the three, or maybe with other options I haven't considered. Anyway, long story short: questions are good.
I'm not sure if I've described my own Teaching Fellows project. Last semester we gave our graduating seniors the Physics "Major Field Exam", a test by the makers of the SAT and GRE. The MFT is designed to assess whether our students are learning the stuff we're supposedly teaching them in the standard undergraduate physics classes. Well, what we found out is that the students did *horribly* on many of the easiest questions, mainly because they didn't have equations memorized. In most physics classes at UW-L, the instructors either give the students an equation page, or let the students make up their own formula sheet for use in exams. The thought is that then the exam can focus on more meatier problems, and that after a while, the students will come to know the most important equations even without having had to memorize them along the way. Well, with a single semesters' data point, that doesn't seem to have happened.
So, that's the background against which I came up with my Teaching Fellows project. I've decided to look at closed book/closed notes exams vs. exams with a page of notes allowed. I don't think I can answer all the questions about whether not making students memorize equations for exams helps or hurts them in the long run, but maybe I can get at some things. I'll give the students exams in various formats, and later ask them things about the exam like their study time, motivation, stress/anxiety, whether they felt the exam accurately assessed their ability, and so forth. Next semester I actually plan to divide the Circuits class in half; for the first exam Half A will take it as a closed book/notes exam and Half B will take it with a page of notes, then for the second exam the two halves will be reversed. That way I should be able to see whether the students being forced to take it closed book/notes do substantially worse than the open notes students.
Anyway, I think it's an interesting "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" research project!
___
While at Madison, I also gave a talk to the condensed matter subset of the Physics Department. The talk was at a non-standard time, but I would guess there were still about 15 people that showed up for it (faculty and students). I think I did a good job on the talk, and there were lots of questions. That's always good--when there are no questions (like my talk at this past APS March Meeting), you never know whether it's because (a) you explained everything so beautifully, the audience couldn't help but understand it, or (b) you confused everyone so much that they don't even know where to start asking questions to fill in the gaps, or (c) you completely bored the audience and they just want to leave. Or some combination of the three, or maybe with other options I haven't considered. Anyway, long story short: questions are good.
# posted by John Colton @ 8:58 PM 
