College Classroom Week 7 - Not dumb, different

Week 7:
They‟re not dumb, they‟re
different. College Classroom
The
February 20, 2013

Week 7:
They‟re not dumb, they‟re different.
Beth Simon, Ph.D.
Computer Science and Engineering
Director, Center for Teaching Development

Stacey Brydges, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Matthew T. Herbst, Ph.D.
Director, Making of the Modern World
Program,
Eleanor Roosevelt College

Today…
3

collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu #tccucsd

Discussion Directed from
4
Quotes
Sources:
They‟re Not Dumb, They‟re Different (Eric‟s story)
UCSD TA and Instructor comments from course
The History of Women


Discussion procedure
5

1. The person with the ball will give the first
comment. (Hang onto the ball until the next
slide.)
2. After that, everyone is welcome to comment.
3. When we advance to the next slide, pass the ball
to your right.

Today, you are instructors, not students.
Start your comments with
 “When I‟m the instructor…”

The Eric Experiment [1]
6

I still get the feeling that unlike a humanities
course, here the professor is the keeper of the
information, the one who knows all the answers.
This does little to propagate discussion or dissent.
(p. 21)

Assessment, Expertise Development, How People Learn,
Learning Outcomes, Cooperative Learning, Fixed/Growth Mindset

7

There was a Hispanic woman who sits next to me
who is already having trouble with the material.
She tells me she spends seven hours a night on
homework and needs to get an “A” to receive an
ROTC scholarship next year.
(p. 22)


8

The lack of community, together with the lack of
interchange between the professor and the
students combines to produce a totally passive
classroom experience.
(p. 25)
What is not as well understood are the various
ways in which this already hard subject [science]
is made even harder and more frustrating by the
pedagogy itself.
Assessment, Expertise Development, How People Learn, (p.29)

9

If you find you do not understand something from
the last chapter, you must wait until after class to
see wither the professor or the teaching assistant.
The professor’s office hour is busy and there is
not much time for in-depth help. The teaching
assistant, while well-meaning, has problems
communicating in English, and is only around on
certain days of the week.
(p. 26)

10

“…the greatest stumbling block to understanding”
was the lack of identifiable goals and the absence
of linkage between concepts.
(p. 29)


11
Implications for teaching
From the teachers…


Eric‟s physics professor: [1]
12

Students not interested in the physical world have
a harder time, since they don’t know and usually
don’t care, how things, cars, bodies, weather, the
heavens, work.
(p. 30)


Teaching the History of Women [2]
13

For the opportunity to introduce both the Middle
East and women’s history to a captive and diverse
audience, I am very grateful. But challenges
abound, beginning with the time-consuming
obstacle of students’ ignorance of even the
region’s basic geography…


14

[H]ow, in this tense climate, can we present our
students with honest, critical, and nuanced
information about contentious topics…


Peer Instruction
15

Before class:
students read the text, watch online lectures
complete a reading quiz, online assessment
During class: Periodically, between mini-
lectures,
1. instructor poses a conceptually challenging question
2. students vote individually
3. students discuss the concept in groups of 2-3
4. students vote again
5. class-wide discussion led by instructor, ending with the
correct answer(s) is confirmed

Halving Fail Rates using Peer
16
Instruction [3]
Standard Instruction Peer Instruction “fail rate” refers to the
30% number of students
24% 25% earning a W
25%
(withdraw), D, or F
20% 20% grade out of the total
Fail Rate

14% 16% number students
15% passing (A,B,C) or
11%
10% 10% failing (W, D, F).
7%
6%
5% 3%

0%

Comparison in Fail Rates in SI and PI course offerings.
Changes marked with a * are statistically significant.


Halving Fail Rates using Peer
17
Instruction [3]
By designing a course to better support students
in their attainment of learning goals, standards
can be preserved while facilitating “easier”
learning.


Tobias‟ conclusions:
18

But as least as important as content…will be
changes in the “classroom culture” of physical
science
 more attention to an intellectual overview
 more context (even history) in the presentation
of physical models
 less condescending pedagogy
 differently challenging examinations
 more discussion, more “dissent” (even if
artificially constructed)
 more community in the classroom
([1], p. 31)

19
Next week:
Alternatives to Lecture
Watch for Homework 8 post

Check the teaching statements Google
spreadsheet for your peer review
assignments


20

Unskilled and Unaware of it [4]
21

When people are incompetent in the strategies
they adopt to achieve success and
satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do
they reach erroneous conclusions and make
unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs
them of the ability to realize it.
(p. 1121)


Unskilled and Unaware…
22


23


24


Unskilled and Unaware
25
Conclusions
 in domains where they have no intuition at all
(“translating Slovenian
proverbs”, “reconstructing an 8-cylinder
engine”) people do not overestimate their
ability, rate themselves worse than their peers

 when they have a “minimal threshold of
knowledge, theory or experience”, people
poorly estimate their own abilities and the
abilities of their peers
(p. 1132)

References
26

1. Tobias, S. (1990). They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking the
Second Tier. Tuscon, AZ: Research Corporation.
2. Scalenghe, S. (November, 2012). Teaching the History of Women in
the Middle East and North America. Perspectives on History, 50, 8.
http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2012/1211/Teaching-
Womens-History-Forum_History-of-Women-in-the-Middle-East-and-
North-Africa.cfm
3. Porter, L., Bailey-Lee, C., & Simon, B. (2012). Halving fail rates
using peer instruction: a study of four computer science courses.
Under review.
4. Kruger, J. & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How
difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated
self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
77, 1121-1134.


27

What is not as well understood are the various
ways in which this already hard subject [science]
is made even harder and more frustrating by the
pedagogy itself.
(p. 29)


28

[my classmates] will have had no training in
working collectively. In fact, their experience will
have taught them to fear cooperation, and that
another person’s intellectual achievement will be
detrimental their own.
(p. 24)


29

[F]or the most part, “why” questions are neither
asked nor answered. The preference is for “how”
questions…[Eric‟s] classmates didn‟t appreciate
his interruptions, however. They seemed to “lose
patience” with his “silly „why‟ questions.” These got
in the way of the mechanics of finding the right
solution to their assigned problems.
(p. 20-21)


30

… students in a science class try to identify
people who score well and then constantly
compare their scores (or time studying or answers
on homework) to their own. I have never been in a
class before where my grade had any effect, real
or perceived, on anyone else.
(p. 23)


31

If physicists learned to regard every one of those
250,000 introductory physics students – most of
them somewhat better than “ordinary” – as having
something valuable to contribute and much to gain
from science, there might be no science “crisis” at
all.
(p. 32)


Eric‟s physics professor: [1]
32

I assume the students in [introductory physics] are
preprofessionals who have already decided on a
career in science and are in class to lean problem-
solving techniques that will be required of them in
their careers.
(p. 30)


33

My experience to date suggests that one of the
most effective teaching strategies is to address all
topics in comparative global perspective, drawing
particular parallels with the history of women in
the United States and Western Europe.


34

The best classes I had were classes in which I
was constantly engaged, constantly questioning
and pushing the limits of the subject and myself.
(p. 25)


College Classroom Week 7 - Not dumb, different

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