The SIF Physics Active Learning Team has been working hard this year to improve the instruction in our physics classes.
Fellow SIF Saif Ali has been working diligently on analyzing and coding student survey data from introductory physics labs to find patterns and ways to improve the classes’ learning potential. This data is sure to prove invaluable in efforts to revamp and reorganize the physics labs and studio (SCALE UP) classes. You can read more about Saif’s project on his blog.
My personal project was to help update the way we train our graduate TAs and undergraduate LAs (learning assistants) in physics classes. The results of the interventions we employed to help train these instructors in active learning and student modes of thinking are still preliminary but my sense was that they were a resounding success. Many of the results of this work will be published this summer so I will have to hold off on posting some of the details just yet.
Over the course of the year, I wrote and helped to facilitate seven roleplay activities designed to help teach TAs and LAs about physics pedagogical content knowledge in a two-semester seminar class about teaching physics. In the roleplays, the TAs and LAs prepared a skit with certain parameters that tackled topics such as how to increase participation among students, how to ask “good” questions that stimulate student thinking, getting students to explain ideas to each other, and checking for understanding. The roleplays simultaneously looked at common student misconceptions about physics concepts and how to help students build a bridge to the correct conceptual understanding. I can’t post videos of these roleplays here because they are part of an IRB-regulated research project but the videos below show similar (albeit professionally filmed and produced) examples. The videos come from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Teaching and Learning. You can view some examples here, here, and here.
I also observed the TAs and LAs many times over the course of the semester while they taught to give them direct feedback and to try to draw conclusions about what effect the class was having on their teaching skills and behaviors. We also have important survey data from instructors and their students that should give us a more complete picture of what happened this year.
We’ve got big plans for next year too. The Center for Instructional Innovation is refurbishing one of the older physics labs in the Natural Science Center over the summer. This lab was in desperate need of a refresher. Its changes are all being made to facilitate active learning and inquiry-based labs. The tables in the room will be higher, with the exception of one disability-accessible table that is adjustable, which will encourage students to move around and look at the experiments from different angles. Students will also have access to three sides of the table instead of just one side as it is now, which will foster collaboration because students can look at each other and share ideas easier. There will be tools like white boards at each table and screens to help students and instructors share and display their ideas. The possibilities for learning in this updated lab classroom are endless. I can’t wait to teach in it!
I will also be helping to make the teaching physics seminars even better. We will be looking at the possibility of tweaking the roleplay structure to maximize the effectiveness of their teaching capacity. We may also be looking at how to produce videos about concepts in Physics Education Research (PER) like mental models, common misconceptions in physics, etc. That way we can flip the class and move it closer to a completely activity- and discussion-based seminar that will provide both theoretical and practical experience on teaching. We also want to look at ways to make this instructor-training model applicable to other departments at GSU. Hopefully, I can work more closely on other SIF Active Pedagogy projects so we can share what we are learning.
Last Friday, I participated in TEDxGeorgiaStateU as a speaker, along with fellow SIF Krisna Patel who talked about the incredible potential of the 3D Atlanta Project. You can read Krisna’s blog here. Our talks will not be out on YouTube for several months now so I thought I would post the text of my talk here. (As a side note, I messed up during the presentations and skipped a few points in my talk so this version is more complete than the video version will be.)
Here is my talk, which was tentatively titled “Failing in STEM.”
When I was an undergrad, I was the only woman in my physics program. I was afraid to ask questions because I thought my lack of knowledge would reflect poorly on all women. What I didn’t realize then is that the other students in my class had gaps in their knowledge too. It was normal not to know everything yet. Why would we take classes if not to learn what we didn’t already know?
Now that I am an instructor, I see this mindset in my own students. Many of them are anxious about answering my questions or asking their own. Many students are reluctant to be vulnerable by admitting that they don’t know everything. If students are afraid to make mistakes and take risks, what does that say about science education and the culture of science? What does it say about us if junior scientists think that mistakes are unacceptable in science?
In STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, it is important to ask these questions in the context of underrepresented groups. People from underrepresented groups often believe that stereotypes about their group’s low achievement in science and math are real – that there isn’t really anything they can do to overcome these stereotypes. This is known as stereotype threat, a well-documented phenomenon that is made worse by making mistakes that should otherwise be a normal part of the learning process. People from groups that are underrepresented in science are especially susceptible to internalizing failures and mistakes, seeing them as something that they caused. Just like when I was the only woman in my physics class and afraid to ask questions, people who are underrepresented in science fear that their mistakes will reflect poorly on their entire group rather than just on them alone.
Something that we in science do not hear enough is that failure is a necessary part of discovery. From students who are just starting out to the most accomplished professional scientist, the culture of science does not allow people to acknowledge their failures. The ironic thing is that the scientific method depends on failure. The scientific method relies on the fact that the process of inquiry itself is fallible – that we must constantly refine and improve our ideas about how the world works.
In science education, we are trying to understand how to teach students that making mistakes is okay.
A study published earlier this year looked at three groups of high school science students from low-income areas of the Bronx and Harlem. One group read about the wonderful, unbelievable accomplishments of three world-famous scientists Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Michael Faraday. A second group read about the scientists’ personal struggles, like the discrimination that Curie faced as a female scientist or the persecution that Einstein faced as a Jew in Nazi Germany. The third group read about the scientists’ intellectual struggles, such as Curie’s repeatedly failed experiments at one point in her career.
The study showed that students who read about the personal or intellectual struggles of the famous scientists performed significantly better in their science classes. Not only that, but the students who were initially the lowest achievers were the ones who made the biggest improvements. The students who had only heard about the amazing accomplishments, did not see an improvement in their science grades. In fact, their grades suffered.
Highlighting the failures and struggles of great scientists makes students realize that scientists are human beings. It helps them realize that great scientists are not some special type of ascendant genius to whom they will never measure up.
How students engage in science is tied to whether they see themselves as “doers of science.” People who see themselves as “doers of science” are said to have a science identity, meaning that doing science is an important part of their sense of self. A strong science identity is one of the most important predictors of performance in science class and of having a future career as a scientist. If students think that they are destined to be bad at science and math due to internalized stereotypes, then they do not form a science identity and their performance in science suffers as a result.
So many times I have heard students say “I’m not a science person.” or “I’m just bad at math.” Many of you may have even said these things about yourselves. But many studies have repeatedly suggested that there is no such thing as a “math person” or a “science person.”
Research shows that simply teaching students about malleable intelligence, or the notion that intelligence is not a fixed quantity and is changeable with hard work, vastly improves performance in math and science classes across all levels, especially at the lower initial levels of achievement. Consider that for a moment: simply letting students know that they have the capacity to change their performance makes them perform better in math and science classes. In most science classrooms, however, we are not sending the message that it is okay to fail, make mistakes, or admit when you don’t know something. We teachers need to show students that they can trust themselves to make mistakes.
Changing science education is a start but it is not enough. We also need to shift the culture of science. We need to talk about the reality of being a scientist instead of the idealized vision of what a scientist is and does. We need to stop putting genius on a pedestal. This means talking about the drudgery of doing everyday science and the setbacks of scientists.
Last year, I failed an important exam in my graduate program, which left me feeling completely ashamed. I told my friend Nicole the news and she talked me down, telling me that what I was going through was normal, that failure is not uncommon. I told her I believed her. At that time, I was lying – I couldn’t internalize what she was saying.
Nicole recognized that my experience was anything but unique among scientists. So she started a conversation on Twitter under the hashtag #FailingInSTEM. Nicole tweeted that we need to let our young people know that regular, fallible people do science and that they make mistakes everyday. #FailingInSTEM went viral and stories started pouring in from scientists at all levels about their past scientific failures.
A few scientists talked about failing big exams, which immediately made me feel a little bit better. One scientist said that she spent 30 minutes at a telescope coming up with blank pictures and trying to figure out what was wrong with the parts. It turns out that the dome of the telescope was closed.
Another tweet talked about how a group of scientists were analyzing some space rocks when they found some organic material, or signs of life, Really exciting stuff! But it turned out to be from the bag the rocks were being held in.
Many of those who shared their stories of failure are incredibly successful scientists. Their failures did not ruin their careers; in fact, their failures made them better at doing science.
Destroying lab equipment, failing tests, or completely ruining your experiments – all of that is okay in the long run. No one has all the answers when they first start out. I am simultaneously trying to instill this message into my students and into myself – to build resiliency and openness into our culture. If I hadn’t failed my big exam, I never would have shifted my focus in my graduate program to something that interests me more. If scientists didn’t have failures or make mistakes, they would never know what works and what doesn’t. We would never make progress.
We need to rebrand failure as something productive because it is so important to discovery. Let’s keep the conversation about failure going in our classrooms and in our research labs and online so we can improve the culture of science for everyone.
My name is Monica Cook and I am starting a second year as a graduate student in Physics at Georgia State University. I am delighted that I will be working with the Center for Instructional Innovation this year as a Student Innovation Fellow (SIF). I did my undergraduate degree in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Georgia in Athens where I developed a strong passion for physics and for science in general.
I moved to Atlanta in 2014 to begin my graduate program. Currently, I am a research assistant and a teaching assistant who instructs undergraduate physics labs. My main project as a SIF this year will be to help graduate teaching assistants in physics to become even more effective educators in our active learning and traditional classrooms using evidence-based pedagogical techniques and technology. In addition, I will collaborate with other SIFs who are working on similar projects in Active Learning Pedagogies so we can share our ideas.
I am also involved with an organization called Inclusive STEM, which aims to help underrepresented minorities in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at GSU overcome barriers to access by providing support. You can learn more about Inclusive STEM here or here. Subjects of inclusion in science education will probably come up at some point in my posts on this blog as students’ intersecting identities are inextricably intertwined with their learning styles.
I welcome sharing of these posts (with attribution and a link back to the original page) and I encourage a dialogue in the comments about anything I write here.