[RUME] At M.I.T., Large Lectures -- Calculus Concept Inventory

[Jerome Epstein]

Richard has referred to a paper on the web on the Calculus Concept 
Inventory.
A much more comprehensive paper, with solid reporting of results from 
both traditional and Interactive-Enagement sections, is in preparation 
for publication we hope in the next 6 months.
We are happy to send anyone who requests a pre-print of this paper. Send 
request to me at    jerepst at att.net

Jerry Epstein

Richard Hake wrote:

> Some RUME subscribers may be interested in a recent post  "At M.I.T., 
> Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard - REDUX #2" [Hake 
> (2009)], especially with the advent of the Calculus Concept Inventory 
> [Epstein (2007)].  The abstract reads:
>
> ********************************************
> ABSTRACT:  Sara Rimer's New York Times report "At M.I.T., Large 
> Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard" concerning John 
> Belcher's "Technology-Enabled Active Learning" (TEAL) program has 
> received widespread attention (about 30,000 hits on Google).
> Recently, guest blogger Diana Senechal (2009) in her provocative post 
> "What's with those clickers in physics class?" criticized TEAL on the 
> basis of (a) comments published in the NYT by a few disaffected MIT 
> students, and (b) her own preference for lectures over what she 
> perceived as "group buzz, multiple-choice problems, and clickers."
> Similarly,  Margaret Harris' PhysicsWorld criticism of TEAL relies 
> primarily on the comments of  a few disgruntled MIT students.
>
> But neither student comments nor one's own preferences provide valid 
> gauges of the *cognitive* (as opposed to the *affective*) impact of a 
> course on the *average* student.
> As repeatedly emphasized, the cognitive impact of a course is best 
> gauged by pre-to-postest normalized gains on valid and consistently 
> reliable tests developed through arduous quantitative and qualitative 
> research by disciplinary experts.
>
> Although this idea is gradually gaining traction in undergraduate 
> astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, geoscience, engineering, 
> calculus, and physics, most of academia has turned a deaf ear.  But 
> similar ideas, independently suggested by physics Nobelist Carl Wieman 
> (2005) may attract more attention.
> *******************************************
>
> To access the complete 27 kB post please click on 
> <http://tinyurl.com/kqfpxy>.
>
> Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
> 24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
> Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
> <rrhake at earthlink.net>
> http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/
> http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/
> http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/
>
> REFERENCES
> Epstein, J. 2007. Development and Validation of the Calculus Concept 
> Inventory, in "Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on 
> Mathematics Education in a Global Community," 7-12 September, edited 
> by Pugalee, Rogerson & Schinck; online at
> <http://math.unipa.it/~grim/21_project/21_charlotte_EpsteinPaperEdit.pdf> 
> (48 kB).
>
> Hake, R.R. 2009. "At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the 
> Blackboard - REDUX #2," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at 
> <http://tinyurl.com/kqfpxy>.   Post of 13 Sep 2009 08:31:05-0700 to 
> AERA-L, Net-Gold, and PhysLrnR.  In addition, the abstract was 
> transmitted to various discussion lists.
>