Leslie, Kara, Ben and I were night-walking along the ship canal, last night, think-while-talking about the buy-in behavior of some of the E1 participants. It was mentioned during the instructor's meeting that some E1-teachers were hesitant to further buy into the course because they felt what they were doing was not physics.
Leslie mentioned that one of the most important points during her academic career was when she took ownership over her own course of study and decided whether or not a particular lecture was valuable for her, and whether or not to attend. She said that she was torn between her empathy for the teachers who want to take ownership, to decide for themselves what is good for them and what not, and her feeling as an instructor to try to convince them that they should hang around, even if they don't understand why right now, because it might later occur to them that it actually will be useful to them...
We talked about subtleties in how the instructors for E1 and E2 tried to get their participants to buy in, and we talked about what we might do in our own classrooms to get our students to buy in. It was a very interesting conversation, although we didn't really get a result (at some point we just got chocolate and didn't talk about that, any more). Maybe this is a place to talk more about this topic...
(While we were walking and talking, I heard the song Star 69 by Fatboy Slim in my head: "They know what is what but they don't know what is what, they just know what they know what they don't know, what is what...")
Right.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a pretty positive thing for a learner to say "this isn't doing it for me," "this isn't what physics is," and "I see a resolution (and it lies in precise definitions, mathematical certainty, and data)." Choosing to check out for these reasons seems like the person who doesn't vote b/c they looked carefully at the candidates and decided there was no good option (as opposed to the person who doesn't vote b/c they can't be bothered).
On the other hand, I want them to suspend disbelief or just hang on a little longer. (And where I have trouble with myself is that I think their assessment is wrong, but I still value them having it and the way out is a little unclear - other than just acknowledging this and asking them to stick with the class a little longer.)
This is my 2nd time working with K-12 teachers since my very first PER project in grad school way back when - and I am struck (both times this summer) by how similar the buy-in issues are between them an our own students. I think this is a really rich area for discussion and I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of E1 'plays out'.
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