Physics Modeling Workshops for School Technology Infusion

This report was compiled in Dec 2008 from project final reports written in 1999 and 2000 Physics Modeling Workshops for School Technology Infusion A two-year grant in the Eisenhower Higher Education Math-Science Program (1998, 1999) administered by the Arizona Board of Regents Principal Investigator: David Hestenes Co-Principal Investigator and Project Director: Jane Jackson (Jane.Jackson@asu.edu) Department of Physics, Box 871504 Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-1504 SUMMARY Arizona students’ understanding of the force concept doubled to tripled after two years of teacher implementation of the Modeling Method of Instruction Two four-week modeling workshops in summers 1998 and 1999 cultivated school leaders in science reform with technology, and these leaders extended the Modeling Method to ninth grade and junior high in four modeling workshops in summer 2000 Fourteen universities nationwide replicated our Modeling Workshops in summer2000 BACKGROUND In 1998 and 1999, the Arizona Board of Regents awarded $50,000 each year to ASU for a series of two four-week summer Modeling Workshops for 22 high school physics teachers Concurrently, Northern Arizona University (P.I Dan MacIsaac) was awarded $50,000 each year for similar workshops for another 18 teachers Teachers with no experience using classroom technology were asked to attend the NAU workshops In 1999, the University of Arizona (P.I J.D Garcia) began a similar two-year Eisenhower-funded grant for teachers in southern Arizona In 1998 the Arizona Community Foundation awarded $25,000 to ASU to buy 25 of these Arizona teachers classroom technology to implement the Modeling Method of Instruction in high school physics At the advice of the MicoRel Division in Tempe, of the Medtronic Corporation, the Medtronic Foundation awarded $15,000 for classroom technology for the other 15 teachers (all in metropolitan Phoenix) in these workshops These two equipment grants resulted in eleven schools providing computers for the teachers’ classrooms in that year Arizona StRUT, a company funded by Intel, Motorola, and other corporations, donated several refurbished computers to each teacher who applied for them In 1999 the Medtronic Foundation awarded another $15,000 for 20 needy physics teachers who use Modeling Instruction We and the teachers are deeply appreciative HIGHLIGHTS OF RESULTS We are pleased to report the following results of the workshop series at both universities • Arizona students’ gains in understanding of the force concept doubled to tripled after two years of teacher implementation of the Modeling Method of Instruction, as measured by a widely used objective instrument, the Force Concept Inventory • • • • • Most teachers’ understanding of the force concept improved to mastery level, and teachers’ problem solving skills improved, as measured by the Force Concept Inventory and another objective instrument, the Mechanics Baseline Test The number of computers in classrooms of teachers doubled, and the number of scientific probes for data-gathering tripled The Medtronic Foundation and Arizona Community Foundation grants account for the majority of scientific probes obtained Some schools reported increased enrollments The modeling workshops cultivated school leaders in science reform with technology, and these leaders began to expand the Modeling Method to ninth grade and junior high in five modeling workshops statewide in summer 2000 for teachers in isolated rural schools, inner city Phoenix, and suburbs Fourteen universities nationwide replicated our Modeling Workshops in summer 2000 The purpose of this grant was to create a corps of leaders in school technology to support continuous improvement of science courses in their schools Inservice physics teachers participated in 18 full days of training in summers1998 and 1999 and two days of follow-up in subsequent academic years They improved physics pedagogy by incorporating the modeling cycle, inquiry methods, critical and creative thinking, cooperative learning, and sound use of classroom technology They improved their physics content knowledge in mechanics by immersion in this subject during the workshops They formed or strengthened their local physics alliance to support physics teachers professionally Anticipated outcomes identified in the proposal were: • for the physics teachers: expertise in the scientific use of classroom technology, increased content knowledge, better instructional strategies, and an infrastructure for lifelong professional development • for the student population: better understanding; long-term, more students taking physics and an increased enrollment of underserved students • for other science teachers: more familiarity with classroom technology and its appropriate use in their curricula All short-term outcomes were met The project was a resounding success! Modeling Workshops In three to four week summer Modeling Workshops, teachers revamp their high school physics course to incorporate technology and insights of educational research Instruction is organized into modeling cycles that engage students in model development, evaluation, and application Students collaborate in planning and conducting experiments, use MBL probes and software to collect, organize and analyze data, and present to the class their group's experimental procedure, interpretation, and findings Modeling Instruction is a detailed implementation of the National Science Education Standards The need for classroom technology; effect of two technology grants Modeling Instruction is best implemented with computer lab stations of three students Thus to 10 student-used computers and sets of MBL probes are needed for a typical class In surveys that we conducted of the 220 Arizona physics teachers in 1997, we found that few of them had adequate classroom technology Most teachers had at least one or two computers (though often antiquated like Apple IIs), but they lacked laboratory interfaces, microcomputer based laboratory (MBL) probes, and software to enable the computers to be used effectively as scientific tools For many teachers in our program, getting probes is hard unless teachers are fortunate to have a benefactor like the Medtronic Foundation to jump-start the process by providing an incentive for their school to match funds The results were excellent! (The story is told in final reports to the Medtronic Foundation and the Arizona Community Foundation: ASUMedtronicReport99-00.doc and AzCommFndReport1999.doc ) THE FIRST MODELING WORKSHOP AT ASU (SUMMER 1998) The mechanics workshop is described in detail elsewhere; see the course description and sample daily calendar for PHS 530 at http://modeling.asu.edu/MNS/MNS.html Thus we describe only specifics of the 1998 workshop • Demographics of the 22 high school teachers who participated are: teach outside the Phoenix area are female teach at rural/small town schools teach at urban disadvantaged schools • Fifteen teachers had no previous experience with the modeling method of instruction, three had participated in pilot modeling workshops in the early 90s and were updating, and four had taken the (shorter) ASU undergraduate course, PHY480: Methods of Teaching Physics in a previous academic semester • The total number of students taking physics in their courses was about 1600 in 65 sections The median percentage of girls was 50%, and of economically disadvantaged minorities was 20% • Local Eisenhower (or other) funds pledged were $7800 All but one teacher received the funds, to the best of our knowledge • All teachers acquired e-mail and were subscribed to their listserv at ASU • The workshop was rated outstanding and extremely useful by every participant • Almost universally, teachers agreed that four weeks are necessary and sufficient to fully learn the modeling method Only two teachers stated on their evaluations that they would have preferred three weeks • The workshop leaders, Sean McKeever and Sheila Ringhiser, received universal acclaim for the high quality of their instruction • The October visits by the workshop leaders were exceptionally innovative! Sheila Ringhiser observed Susan Poland’s classroom teaching, then they traveled to David Hill’s school and observed him Those three then visited Mark Barner’s classroom All said that this was valuable because each of them learned good teaching strategies and could see the teaching conditions of the others, which were quite different due to different economic situations Problems encountered and changes needed in future similar projects: • Local Eisenhower funds, which were intended to reimburse local teachers for housing, travel and lunches, were declined by one teacher whose school district refused to give advancement on the salary scale if local funds were used to support her in the workshop Three other teachers reported the same policy against “double dipping” The solution is to recommend that LEA funds be used for instructional materials for implementation • The follow-up weekend in October was attended by 17 of the teachers Others had conflicts: athletic coaching, a wedding, church responsibilities, and sickness The teachers valued the weekend, for they hadn’t had time in the summer workshop to the last unit; but a better strategy must be found to allow full participation Some said that working on a weekend gave them no time to recuperate from the week’s work so they were exhausted Two Saturdays in the fall should work better • Workshop leaders told us that, since they are peers, they feel uncomfortable about discriminating in course grades • • We need to develop strategies for building local physics alliances and training in leading school inservices There wasn’t much time for either of these activities during the workshop, and the teachers had their plates full with learning the modeling method Next summer the teachers will be ready to focus on these concerns At least three full-time weeks were needed by the project director to administer and evaluate the project Summary of quantitative research findings (a full report is available from Jane Jackson) Student data: In spring 1998, teachers administered the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to their physics students to establish a baseline All students in the 1998-99 academic year took the FCI in the first week of class They took the FCI again in April 1999 as a posttest All FCI results include data of 129 students of four teachers in the NAU modeling workshop, since they submitted complete data on time to be analyzed Results for courses of the 17 teachers who sent us all three data sets (i.e., baseline ’98 posttest and ‘98-99 pretest and posttest) (Three figures are available as print copy from Jane Jackson.) • The average student FCI posttest score was 49.4%, compared with the baseline of 41.3% in spring 1998, for over 800 students in matched courses of 17 teachers This is a good improvement, slightly less than in our national Modeling Workshop Project Another way of looking at data is with the “Hake factor”, or normalized gain, g This is defined as the actual gain divided by maximum possible gain Thus the mean normalized gain, expressed as a percentage, is = For the courses of the 17 teachers who sent us all three data sets (i.e., their students’ baseline ‘98 posttest and ’98-‘99 pretest and posttest scores), =32%, which is slightly less than for our national Modeling Workshop Project but much better than for traditional instructional methods In 1997-1998, the normalized gain for over 800 students of the same teachers was estimated at about = 21%, which we and others find to be typical nationwide for traditional physics instruction in high school, college and university (We assume the same pretest FCI scores in 1997 as for 1998 generally a good assumption), • FCI pretest and posttest data for students of all 22 teachers who had submitted both of these tests by May 10, 1999 are broken down by course type Honors students achieved higher gains in understanding than students in regular/conceptual physics courses This is to be expected because conceptual courses not include all aspects of the force concept Both increases were about 10 percentage points lower than those in our nationwide project (AP data are analyzed but are not significant because only two courses were submitted.) • A good correlation is apparent between students’ gain in understanding with their teacher’s degree of implementation (comfort level) of the modeling method, as self-reported in October 1998 Thus = 35% to 40% for students of teachers who reported a “good” to “very good” implementation, but =26% for only “fair” implementation This trend is in accord with the findings in our nationwide project Teacher data: 21 teachers at the ASU workshop took the FCI and the Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT) on the first day of the workshop Sixteen teachers took the Views about Sciences Survey (VASS), which assesses their world view of science For the FCI, the teachers’ median score was 93% (high of 100%, low of 40%) For the MBT, the median was 65% (high of 100%, low of 35%) On the VASS, all but two teachers exhibited an “expert” profile For the ASU and NAU workshops together: For the 16 teachers in rural schools, the median FCI pretest score was 80% and the median MBT was 58% For the 22 who teach in suburban or urban schools, the median FCI was 87% and the median MBT was 77% This shows that rural physics teachers came into the workshop with a somewhat poorer conceptual understanding of force and motion, and considerably poorer problem solving skills! • We find little correlation between a teacher’s FCI score and their students’ mean posttest FCI score THE SECOND MODELING WORKSHOP AT ASU (SUMMER 1999) Nineteen high school physics teachers participated for 18 days in the Eisenhower-funded Physics Modeling Workshop in second semester content at Mountain Pointe High School in Tempe Union High School District in summer 1999 One-fifth were women or disadvantaged minorities; one-fourth teach at urban disadvantaged schools, and one-fifth are from rural schools Fifteen returned after taking the first semester modeling workshop during the previous summer The other four had previously learned Modeling Instruction in mechanics in an ASU course in “Methods of Teaching Physics” or in our Pilot Modeling Workshops in the early part of the decade Teachers had 30 hours per week of instruction plus homework Two follow-up Saturday sessions were held in January, for a total contact time of 120 hours The course carried four semester hours of graduate credit in physics at ASU Expert high school physics teachers skilled in the Modeling Method, Jeffrey Hengesbach and Sean McKeever, were peer leaders The workshop continued the Methods of Physics Teaching course which thoroughly addresses most aspects of high school physics teaching, including integration of teaching methods with course content as it should be done in the high school classroom [1,2,3,4] The workshop incorporated up-to-date • results of physics education research • best high school curriculum materials • use of technology • experience in collaborative learning and guidance The first few days were devoted to review and discussion of the experience of all participants in teaching mechanics by the modeling method To facilitate this, they brought a written account of their own experience to the workshop, including difficulties, surprises, rewards and disappointments After general discussion, participants divided into groups to prepare written reports on conclusions of the review This analysis has two purposes: (1) To make each teacher explicitly aware of his/her own teaching practice and how it compares with the modeling method; (2) To identify pedagogical problems that need more work, either to improve the whole approach or to help individual teachers After this "debriefing" and further discussion of the modeling method, teachers were presented with exemplary curriculum materials and organized into action research teams (ARTs) to review and refine exemplary materials in current electricity (model-adapted CASTLE curriculum), electricity (microscopic model), and underpinnings The goal was to work the best features of software and curricular materials into our modeling units Teachers were encouraged to incorporate alternative materials and ideas from their own experience They (a) analyzed models implicit in the materials, and (b) organized the materials into coherent modeling cycles Each team prepared and presented a two-day mini-workshop to the rest of the teachers outlining the goals, underlying models, and instructional design that are essential for students to develop a coherent understanding of the material The entire class critiqued, evaluated and discussed how to organize the units into a complete curriculum Modeling workshops are designed to engage teachers in collaborative critique and redesign of the physics curriculum The teachers themselves must assume responsibility for continuing the cycle of collaborative testing and design that is essential to deep and lasting educational reform They need infrastructure to support them in this, including teacher alliances, partnerships with the university physics department, and electronic networking Accordingly, ways to organize and strengthen local physics alliances were addressed in the workshop All participants continue to be subscribed to a modeling instruction listserv list at Arizona State University Since all teachers pledged to be school leaders, the workshop leaders gave them guidance in leading inservice workshops on effective use of classroom technology with science teaching reforms “Cooperative Agreements for the Use of Eisenhower Funds” committing local education agency (LEA) resources to the project were sent to all schools; $5800 was pledged for 16 participants in 13 LEAs All but two teachers reported that their schools actually spent the pledged amounts in support of them EVALUATION OF SECOND YEAR OF IMPLEMENTATION A QUANTITATIVE: STUDENTS A thorough objective evaluation was conducted of the effectiveness of instruction in classes of all participants This includes assessment of student understanding of the force concept (which has several dimensions) The evaluation instrument, Force Concept Inventory (FCI), is well established, with an extensive data base to support objective evaluation comparing results from high schools and colleges throughout the nation [1,3,5,6,7] Most teachers gave the FCI as a pretest, and all gave it as a post-test, in the 1999-00 school year Seventeen of the 19 participating teachers in the 1999 workshop taught physics in 1999-2000 Student results for the 13 teachers who sent us post-test data as of May 19, 2000 are: FCI 2000 post-test average class score: 55% normalized gain (Hake factor, see Ref 5): = 0.40 These numbers are an improvement over the previous year’s results, which were: FCI 1999 post-test: 49% = 0.32 (None of these numbers change when we re-compute them for the nine teachers who attended both workshops and for whom we have FCI data over the three years.) The 1999-2000 FCI scores are a large improvement over the abysmal baseline posttest scores before the teachers’ first modeling workshop in summer 1998 For the nine teachers for whom we have all data over the three years: FCI 1998 baseline post-test: 36% estimated = 0.14 This is evidence that student understanding of the force concept doubles to triples, as measured by , after two years of implementation by the teacher The results presented here are in general agreement with our results for 20,000 high school physics students nationwide, except that these baseline posttest scores of nine Arizona teachers are worse than the typical FCI posttest score of about 42% under traditional instruction Figure (available as print copy from Jane Jackson) shows the student mean FCI posttest score of 11 teachers in 1999-2000, compared to the baseline FCI posttest score two years prior (For comparison with teacher - leaders nationwide: Twenty-six of the 40 physics teachers who participated in the NAU and ASU modeling workshops in mechanics in 1998 submitted a complete set of baseline, pretest, and posttest FCI data For the students of those 26 teachers, the mean baseline posttest score was 40% This is comparable to the baseline score of 42% for students of 100 teachers in our nationwide Leadership Modeling Workshop series, Phases and (1997 – 1999) After a year of implementation, the Arizona student posttest score was 49% This is comparable to the posttest score of about 53% in our nationwide program After two years of implementation, student posttest scores averaged about 55% in the nationwide Leadership program, with = 39 Thus this group of Arizona teachers did just as well as national leaders, even though only 20% of these Arizona teachers have a degree in physics or physics education but 40% of the teachers in our Leadership program have these degrees Three levels of physics are offered in some high schools: regular (which uses only algebra), honors (which uses trigonometry), and Advanced Placement or second year physics Of the 17 teachers who taught physics in 1999-2000, 70% taught regular, half taught honors, and one-fifth taught AP or second year physics The data have not been broken down by course type B QUANTITATIVE: TEACHERS Assessment of teacher understanding of the force concept was via the FCI and the Mechanics Baseline Test [8] These two tests were given at the start of each workshop For the 12 teachers who participated in both workshops and taught physics in the year between the workshops, and for whom we have complete data, results are: FCI: 90% in 1998, increased by percentage points in 1999, MBT: 68% in 1998, increased by 10 percentage points in 1999 These improvements show that the workshop in mechanics not only resulted in improved teacher understanding of the force concept but also sharpened teachers’ problem solving skills, for that is the focus of the MBT Figures and (available as print copy from Jane Jackson) show the two sets of teachers’ FCI and MBT scores Included on the figure are some teachers who participated in the two Northern Arizona University modeling workshops In the MBT figure, all but one of the teachers who didn’t improve their score in the second year were not assigned to teach physics in the year after the first workshop This indicates the importance of immediate implementation of the workshop learning C QUALITATIVE The commitment of the participants and their high schools to technology infusion and educational reform was assessed by several qualitative measures, including: (a) Purchase and installation of appropriate computer hardware and software for the teacher's classroom (b) Implementation of the Modeling Method in the teacher‘s physics classes (c) Technology training of other science teachers in the participant’s school (d) Adoption by local teachers in other sciences (and at other grade levels) of some of the teaching techniques and technology (e) Formation (or strengthening) of an alliance of local physics teachers These data were gathered using a self-reporting form Results as of spring 2000 were: a) The 14 teachers who participated in both workshops now have 106 computers in their classrooms Over half of these are additions or replacements Some are new, and some are donated refurbished 486’s or pre-PowerMacs from Arizona StRUT, a corporate-funded business Rural teachers are worst off; the teacher at Mohave High School still uses Apple 2e’s (not by choice) In 65% of classrooms, there are enough computers so that three students can work at each lab station; for the other 35%, four students must work at a lab station The number of photogates doubled, motion sensors tripled, and force probes increased eightfold over the two years of participation Grants from the Medtronic Foundation and the Arizona Community Foundation account for the majority of scientific probes obtained A few teachers prefer to use calculator-based lab systems (CBLs) rather than computers; the number of CBLs doubled over the two years The number of teachers’ classrooms connected to the internet increased from to The Internet is not crucial to this project b) Of the seventeen teachers in the 1999 workshop who taught physics in 1999-2000, 70% said that they regularly follow the modeling cycle, and 30% said that they frequently follow it Half rated their understanding of the modeling cycle as very good; the other half rated it good One-fourth rated their overall implementation of the modeling cycle as very good, 70% as good, and teacher as fair The majority said that the modeling cycle is much better than traditional lecturing, with respect to their students’ understanding of course materials; and 40% said it is better FCI posttest data bear this out 100% use whiteboards regularly All but two regularly ask students to work in groups Twothirds regularly or frequently ask their students to debate their ideas in class Half lecture seldom, and the other half lecture sometimes 65% say that their students react favorably to the modeling cycle, and the other 35% say that their students react very favorably Each of these indicators of implementation is better than in the previous year c), d), and e): The 17 participating teachers in 1999-2000 reported that they taught something that they’d learned in the workshops to 67 other science and/or math teachers at their school Almost one-third of them led a school in-service (on CBL use, MBL use, whiteboarding strategies, Graphical Analysis software) Chemistry teachers and biology teachers expressed interest in having modeling workshops, and two applied to be in our modeling workshop in mechanics in summer 2000 because they like what they see happening in their schools’ physics classes More than one-third of the 17 teachers participated in a Local Physics Alliance (LPA) action research team (ART) during second semester to continue developing and refining “underpinnings” curriculum materials that they had started in summer 1999 They met in a large group on several Saturdays and holidays and in small groups of or at other times, to prepare a two-week modeling workshop for teachers of ninth grade and junior high physical science and math Their efforts bore fruit in four 1- and 2-week workshops in summer 2000 in inner city Phoenix, Bisbee (for rural teachers in Southeast Arizona), Glendale, and Tempe Long-term goals are to increase the number of students, and particularly underserved students, who take physics For the 14 teachers who participated in both workshops, the number of sections of physics that they taught remained constant at 40, and the number of students held at 900 However, these figures not tell the whole story, for in some schools the number of sections increased and additional teachers were asked to teach physics I quote from an e-mail from a participant, dated April 24, 2000: I just got the master schedule for science for next year at our school We increased sections of physics All the comments that we have seen from other schools on modeling and increase in sections seem to be true This is not really a scientific correlation, but students are learning and interest is definitely up The word is getting out This is the first time in the 17 years that I have been at that we have had to have a second physics teacher The percentage of girls and disadvantaged minorities held steady at about 40% and 20%, respectively Our extensive data in our nationwide program indicates that Modeling Instruction is gender-neutral It is probably too soon after only two years to see an enrollment increase; but teachers who were in our pilot workshops from 1990 to 1992 say that a larger percentage of girls take physics since they started using Modeling Instruction LONG-TERM BENEFITS Long-term benefits to the schools of participants (the LEAs) were accruing through continuing work of staff to • assist teachers to lead school inservices and district staff development workshops, • assist in LPA strengthening and infrastructure for university - LPA partnerships, • help schools and school districts implement improved staff development, and extended contracts and/or release time for expert teachers, • organize action research courses and graduate content courses designed especially for physics teachers, • advise teachers, schools and school districts on classroom technology infusion DISSEMINATION The program was disseminated by talks given by • Project Director Jane Jackson at the American Association of Physics Teachers (AZ-AAPT) Summer meeting in San Antonio, Texas in August 1999, • Jeffrey Hengesbach, workshop peer leader, at the Arizona section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AZ-AAPT) meeting in October 1999, • Phil Gilbert, participant in both workshops and co-leader of the University of Arizona modeling workshop in 1999, at the SAMEC meeting in Feb 2000 at Benson Documents describing how to replicate the series of Modeling Workshops were prepared for distribution to interested faculty nationwide With our aid, faculty in fourteen universities from Maine to Hawaii were awarded Eisenhower or other funds to hold Modeling Workshops in summer 2000 The faculty rely on our documents, which save them a great deal of time and enable them to organize their workshops more effectively REFERENCES [1] M Wells, D Hestenes, and G Swackhamer, A Modeling Method for High School Physics Instruction, Am J Phys 63: 606-619 (1995) [2] Modeling Instruction in High School Physics (NSF Grant ESI 9353423), D Hestenes, PI Information about the workshops can be obtained by visiting the Project’s web site at http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling.html [3] D Hestenes, Toward a Modeling Theory of Physics Instruction, Am J Phys 55: 440-454 (1987) [4] D Hestenes, Modeling Methodology for Physics Teachers In E Redish & J Rigden (Eds.) The changing role of the physics department in modern universities American Institute of Physics (1997) [5] R Hake Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses Am J Phys.66: 64-74 (1998 ) Also, unpublished data in the Modeling Workshop Project for more than 20,000 students [6] I Halloun and D Hestenes, Initial Knowledge State of College Physics Students, Am J Phys 53: 1043-1055 (1985) [7] D Hestenes, M Wells, and G Swackhamer, Force Concept Inventory, Physics Teacher 30: 141-158 (1992) [8] D Hestenes and M Wells, A Mechanics Baseline Test, The Physics Teacher 30: 159-156 (1992)  ... The modeling workshops cultivated school leaders in science reform with technology, and these leaders began to expand the Modeling Method to ninth grade and junior high in five modeling workshops. .. Swackhamer, A Modeling Method for High School Physics Instruction, Am J Phys 63: 606-619 (1995) [2] Modeling Instruction in High School Physics (NSF Grant ESI 9353423), D Hestenes, PI Information... project was a resounding success! Modeling Workshops In three to four week summer Modeling Workshops, teachers revamp their high school physics course to incorporate technology and insights of educational