lecturing for SCIENCE

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/problem-with-lecturing.html

The Force Concept Inventory- tests the fundamental understanding of the three laws of newton. Relatively simple questions that cannot be answered by physics students, they are jargon-free, the test was given before and after a term and the fundamental understanding of physics was unchanged (5000 students have taken the tests), the results of the tests were unchanged regardless of the how the students were taught,

http://modelinginstruction.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FCI-TPT.pdf test created by David Hestenes,

To read more about research on how people learn and to see a video of Harvard professor Eric Mazur giving a talk called "Confessions of a Converted Lecturer” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI

Eric Mazure – Research Group, the Mazure Group, mostly in optical research but also in science research and teaching, findings at http://mazur.harvard.edu/education/educationmenu.php - not sure what was published/peer reviewed. He was influenced by the Force Concept Inventory (his you tube video is a great story about coming to terms with his inability to teach fundamental concepts through lecture). He is an advocate of peer to peer learning.

Julie Schell. She works with Eric Mazur and wrote her dissertation about why more professors don't adopt interactive teaching techniques.( http://scholar.harvard.edu/julieschell)

Her dissertation, Venturing Toward Better Teaching: S.T.E.M. Professors’ Efforts to Improve Their Introductory Undergraduate Pedagogy at Major Research Universities was selected as the 2009 Dissertation of the Year from the American Educational Research Association, Postsecondary Education Division.

Carl Wieman summary: he says the problem with the traditional lecture is that it reinforces novice-like ways of thinking by focusing on facts and information rather than helping students develop conceptual understanding. He says the traditional lecture makes an assumption about learning that turns. What Wieman learned watching the graduate students in his lab is that they became experts by doing physics, day after day, year after year. Developing expertise requires extended, focused mental effort. It's like exercise. If you want to get fit, you can't sit and watch someone exercise. You have to do it yourself. In 2001 he won a Nobel Prize for "the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates." Lecture on educational research called Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the Tools of Science to Teach Science. Is at http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/notebook.html

Some articles he wrote:

Why Not Try A Scientific Approach to Science Education (Change; September/October 2007, Vol. 39 Issue 5, p9-15, 7p)

Making On-Line Science Course Materials Easily Translatable and Accessible Worldwide: Challenges and Solutions (Journal of Science Education and Technology, v21 n1 p1-10 Feb 2012. 10 pp.)

A Thoughtful Approach to Instruction: Course Transformation for the Rest of Us. (Journal of College Science Teaching; March/April 2011, Vol. 40 Issue 4, p24-30, 7p)