Activating University Physics: making physics lectures come alive
Pearson’s author webinar series “Changing Perspectives”.
Professor Roger Freedman spoke about helpful techniques instructors can use in the classroom to encourage an active learning experience for their students and help them make better use of his textbook, 'University Physics'.
The YouTube video of the webinar is available, along with the full presentation:
Redefining the traditional ways of teaching and lecturing
Whether it’s the traditional blackboard or PowerPoint presentations, lecturing has been the established teaching method for generations of professors, dating back all the way to the Middle Ages. Unlike then, however, where the lecturer’s main purpose was to read the manuscript for the students to copy, students now have access to their own printed copy of the reading material.
So why do lecturers continue with the same old-fashioned teaching way? Is it the best way?
A quantitative analysis of how much students learn in a typical introductory physics class demonstrated a learning gain of only up to a quarter of what they could actually learn. However, there were significantly improved learning outcomes when instructors applied active learning practices.
What is active learning? How do we make it happen?
Professor Freedman explained that posing questions which prompt students to interact with each other to figure out the answers can turn the standard lecture room into an active, dynamic place.
By encouraging the sharing of ideas, students can engage with the concepts and provide immediate, real-time feedback regarding gaps in their learning. In response, instructors can help them improve their understanding to avoid making mistakes moving forward.
“I understand the concepts… I just can’t do the problems!”
According to Professor Freedman, the above statement is a universal truth most students struggle with. What they really mean, however, is that they lack the deeper conceptual understanding to help them solve more complex problems.
Conceptual understanding is the basis of an active learning strategy
For the above reason, Roger has structured a series of different types of conceptual questions as part of the active learning techniques available with University Physics.
Amongst these are multiple choice or ranking task questions aimed at helping educators monitor the level of understanding amongst students and support them as they introduce more complex concepts to their teaching.
Another example is the clicker questions – a classroom response system tool where students use a physical device or their mobiles. Lecturers can start with a basic question and continue with follow-up, next-level questions to monitor understanding and diagnose gaps and weaknesses – especially where a large percentage of students have provided the wrong answer.
Introducing Pearson Mastering Physics
Mastering Physics for University Physics is an online homework system designed to encourage active learning amongst students and help them build their conceptual understanding and confidence around more complex physics topics. Some of the resources include:
- a set of editable clicker questions and resources instructors can simply download and incorporate into their lectures
- video tutor solutions content, with demonstrations of actual physics experiments that instructors can pause, allowing students to discuss and predict future outcomes
- an extensive set of conceptual videos with simple concepts in physics, and short video lectures by Dr Matt Anderson (San Diego State University)
Top Tip!
Free up time in class by using the video content to replace the readings. Make the most of your lecturing time with active-learning activities that will engage students with the learning material.
Visual Aids as part of the learning process
Professor Freedman made an analogy between comic books and the visual aid tools used in Mastering for University Physics. Just like the captions in the comic books help you understand what the images are about, the explanatory word bullets in Mastering work in a similar fashion to help students interpret complex terminology and especially equations, graphs and figures.
The problem-solving guidance model ISEE: Identify, Set up, Execute, Evaluate
The different problem-solving strategies available offer guidance to students when answering questions and problems, focusing on the above guidance model – ISEE. The reasoning behind this model is that students follow the process of identifying the problem and trying to understand, as Professor Freedman said, what tools they need “to take down from the workbench in order to solve it”. The final part is to evaluate their response – whether it makes sense in relation to understanding the problem.
Amongst the problems that follow the ISEE model is the “Key Concept” strategy, highlighting the most important points to keep at the end. The “Bridging Problems” take the problem-solving process one step further by encouraging students to work without assistance and use those ideas to develop their own skills.
And a brand-new project associated with University Physics!
An avid comic writer, Roger believes using comics to help students learn can be very effective. For that reason, he is currently working on a comic book, Juanele & Freedman’s Physics Comics and Stories, which will serve as a new learning supplement to University Physics and will help students solve problems around the most challenging topics
The comic book characters are students challenged by the same difficulties as real students. The comic book includes conceptional questions and problems, as well as comic captions with step-by-step guidance to solve them. Furthermore, the characters interpret the results following a model similar to the ISEE model.
The production of the comic book is in collaboration with professional cartoonist, friend and fellow physicist Juanele – a professor at the Mexico City campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey, one of the largest university systems in Latin America.
