This is the first article in a two-part series discussing innovative teaching techniques in college physics classes. Today's installment will focus on interactive programs instated at other universities -- notably Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The next article, which will be printed in tomorrow's issue, will focus on programs at Tufts.
It's just about noon on Tuesday as 120 freshmen assemble in groups of eight around small work tables in the basement of the infamous Frank Gehry building at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A professor is scribbling on one of the many white boards in the room, explaining Gauss's Law to the introductory physics class.
A few minutes pass as the professor lectures, but the relative silence breaks as he poses a question to the class. The room erupts in discussion over the question, as small groups debate the answer before voting on computers stationed at each table. Only 30 percent of the class reaches the right answer, but the professor hands off a microphone to one of the students to explain to the rest of the class how he arrived at the correct solution.
The freshmen sitting in this Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) physics lecture are witnessing the result of six years of work at MIT restructuring how physics has been taught for decades. MIT is one of a number of universities across the country that has revamped the concept of physics lectures as research has shown that traditional lectures are not getting basic concepts across to students.
In TEAL lectures, professors integrate technology with lecture, recitation and laboratory experience to create a more interactive, hands-on learning environment for students. Instead of just passively taking notes during traditional lectures, students watch small experiments performed in class and discuss and answer questions in small groups. The classroom setup -- with many small tables, computers, big whiteboards and projection screens -- is intended to enable better class demonstrations and facilitate group problem solving.
John Belcher, professor of physics at MIT, headed the development of the TEAL lecture model after years of frustration teaching introductory physics to freshmen. Belcher was a popular professor, yet noticed a lack of conceptual understanding among his students. He had received a teaching award from MIT and was reviewed well by students, yet he still had only a 40 percent attendance rate in his 350-student lectures and routinely failed 10 to 15 percent of the class each semester.
"After three years, I never wanted to teach like that again," Belcher told the Daily. He explained that even the students who were passing his class were often just memorizing how to solve problems and never understood the theory behind them. "If you study what students take away from lectures, it's not much," he said.
Professors at other institutions have echoed many of the same sentiments. Harvard University Professor of Physics Eric Mazur told the Daily, "I saw that I was getting high [student] ratings and that the pre-meds in my classes were doing well ... I thought I was doing a good job."
But in 1991, Mazur came across a study that tested physics students on their conceptual understanding of Newton's Laws. According to the study, students' improvement on the test was virtually zero -- even after a semester studying physics.
Doubting that Harvard students could show the same low level of improvement, Mazur decided to test his own students and found nearly identical results. "That's when I tumbled out of my ivory tower," Mazur said. His students, he realized, were learning how to "plug and chug" to solve problems, thinking they had mastered the material, but they were not learning the concepts.
Later, when Mazur explained Newton's Third Law of Motion using the example of a collision between a big truck and small car, he ran into even more confusion with some of his students. Exasperated, he asked students to turn to their neighbors and discuss it amongst themselves.
"I said, 'Turn to your neighbor,' and the class erupted into chaos," he said. "But students talked and argued about it." He soon realized that students were better able to explain it to each other and that -- for most professors -- the better one understands the concept, the harder it is to explain.
After this revelation, Mazur began asking himself how he could improve the quality of his large lecture classes by getting students to interact with each other and the professor. He began developing the Peer Instruction method as a way to improve large lectures without requiring additional classroom space or other expensive resources.
With Peer Instruction, professors pose questions to the class, and students individually think of the solution and then discuss their answers with classmates before the actual answer is revealed. This method, Mazur argues in his Peer Instruction manual, allows students to think critically through arguments being developed.
He relates a physics lecture to a Shakespeare class -- in an English course, students are expected to read the play for homework and discuss it in class. Just as English classes do not only read plays out loud, he argues, physics professors should not just regurgitate the textbook. Traditional physics lectures offer little incentive for students to attend.
Still, both professors have run into difficulty changing lecture styles at their universities. At Harvard, Mazur said that some students complained that the professor does not teach the course anymore -- students are just teaching themselves. At MIT, some said that they were being treated like high school students and even started a petition against the new physics classes. Students argued that the blind can't lead the blind, and that much of their learning occurred outside the classroom -- the only reason that they attended lectures was for their class participation grades. Additionally, TEAL lectures increased time spent in the classroom and required attendance, which was unpopular among students.
Both Mazur and Belcher, however, argue that the new models are still better for all students and that learning gains are significantly greater for students across the board. Belcher says that TEAL is still a work in progress. In the future, he and other professors intend to train students in collaborative problem-solving methods, increase training for professors and work on better integrating fewer experiments into the course material.
"If you want to be a pianist, you can't just listen to piano music," Mazur said. "Just the same, you can't learn physics by listening to a physicist."
Belcher is impressed that TEAL is still running at MIT, as any major educational innovation requires a lot of effort to implement and keep running against the inertia of academia. He hopes that TEAL will continue to succeed in the long term as the program adapts to student experiences.
