arXiv subjects

Nathaniel Lasry

Publications and source records attributed to Nathaniel Lasry.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2013

Just in Time to Flip Your Classroom

With advocates like Sal Khan and Bill Gates, flipped classrooms are attracting an increasing amount of media and research attention. We had heard Khan's TED talk and were aware of the concept of inverted pedagogies in general. Yet, it really hit home when we accidentally flipped our classroom. Our objective was to better prepare our students for class. We set out to effectively move some of our course content outside of class and decided to tweak the Just-in-Time-Teaching approach (JiTT). To our surprise, this tweak - which we like to call the flip-JiTT - ended up completely flipping our classroom. What follows is narrative of our experience and a procedure that any teacher can use to extend JiTT to a flipped classroom.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2007

Peer Instruction: Comparing Clickers to Flashcards

Peer Instruction (PI) is a student-centered instructional approach developed at Harvard by Eric Mazur (1997). The method has been welcomed by the science community and adopted by a large number of colleges and universities, due among other reasons to its common sense approach and its documented effectiveness. In PI, the progression of any given class depends on the outcome of real-time student feedback to ConcepTests: multiple-choice conceptual questions. In the early 1990s, students responded to ConcepTests using flashcards showing their answer. Instructors would then estimate the proportion of students holding each alternative conception. A few years later Mazur began using wireless handheld devices - colloquially called clickers- to replace the flashcards. Previous users of clickers in university classrooms had reported benefits such as increased rates of attendance and decreased rates of attrition (Owens et al., 2004; Lopez-Herrejon & Schulman, 2004). This paper empirically measures the specific contribution of clickers to conceptual learning and traditional problem solving skills as compared to low-budget flashcards. Results show that clickers do not provide any learning advantage when compared to flashcards. Nevertheless, clickers offer many advantages from a teaching perspective which should be considered.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2006

Physics Magic

The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce something unexpected. Since expectations are linked to preconceptions, a demonstration making use of a flaw in a preconception will result in something unexpected. Given the numerous misconceptions in physics, many demonstrations can be dressed up as magic tricks. The first objective of this paper is to share with other physics teachers the excitement of creating and using magical classroom demonstrations. The second objective is to provide interested instructors with practical means to convert a classical demonstration into a magic trick. To illustrate the procedure, two classical demonstrations will be re-presented as the magic tricks we have presented in our courses. The final goal is to use current ideas in educational psychology to explain why using magic has worked so well in our courses in providing students with a new impetus to learn physics. This description is not meant to be formal, but proposes a theoretical model that fits our classroom observations.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2006

The effect of multiple internal representations on context rich instruction

This paper presents n-coding, a theoretical model of multiple internal mental representations. The n-coding construct is developed from a review of cognitive and imaging studies suggesting the independence of information processing along different modalities: verbal, visual, kinesthetic, social, etc. A study testing the effectiveness of the n-coding construct in an algebra-based mechanics course is presented. Four sections differing in the level of n-coding opportunities were compared. Besides a traditional instruction section used as a control group, each of the remaining three treatment sections were given context rich problems following the 'cooperative group problem solving' approach which differed by the level of n-coding opportunities designed into their laboratory environment. To measure the effectiveness of the construct, problem solving skills were assessed as was conceptual learning using the Force Concept Inventory. However, a number of new measures taking into account students' confidence in concepts were developed to complete the picture of student learning. Results suggest that using the developed n-coding construct to design context rich environments can generate learning gains in problem solving, conceptual knowledge and concept-confidence.

physics.ed-ph↗