International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Volume 2, Number 1, January 2008
Return to current issues pageEssays about SoTL
Abstract
Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased?
Professor Scott Overmyer of Baker College, in a discussion list post, raised four points bearing on a question of interest to those involved in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased? My answer: “YES” - judging from the fact that pre/post testing in courses in Newtonian mechanics has demonstrated an approximately two-standard-deviation superiority in average normalized gains <g> for classroom “interactive engagement” methods over “traditional” classroom methods. Similarly, pre/post testing might demonstrate a substantive superiority over traditional classroom teaching for both classroom and distance education that recognize recent advances in cognitive science and emphasize learning rather than teaching. But such demonstration probably cannot be achieved if scholars of teaching and learning continue to rely on low-resolution gauges of students' learning.
View Full ArticleBio
Richard Hake
Indiana University, Emeritus
Woodland Hills, California , USA
rrhake@earthlink.net
After receiving a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois in 1955, I researched high-magnetic-field superconductivity at the North American Aviation in California and then, starting in 1970, at Indiana University as a Professor of Physics. There I also was assigned teaching responsibilities and became aware of the manifest failure of traditional university pedagogy to promote conceptual understanding. I have published over 80 peer-reviewed articles on superconductivity, magnetism, and education; served on the editorial boards of The Physics Teacher and the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation; been an advisor for NSF education reform programs at the University of Dallas, Harvard, and Michigan State; and am a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Since retirement in 1995 I have attempted to promulgate the “interactive engagement” methods that have been relatively successful in undergraduate physics.
Websites:
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi