Active Learning and POGIL

 It is common to say things in a way the remind us of Yogi Berra's quotes. For example: " Nothing difficult was ever easy" is claimed to be one of his quotes.

"Active Learning" is one of those as by definition learning is an activity. There is no opposite or any other way, can you imagine passive learning. The idea of course is to make a difference between learning through listening to a lecturer, where the learner appears to be passive, not moving, not asking questions, not even taking notes. Just thinking. Thinking then becomes a passive state as if the thinker is doing nothing.

Let's think about this for a moment.

As I am typing this essay and thinking about "Active Learning" I am being creative, or al least trying to be, and imagining a situation in the classroom where I teach. I share with my students some background of the topic, some historical introduction if needed, some connections to other subjects in the course, the topic itself, and asking them to think. One way to ask them to think, is me asking questions.  Questions like: Do you have any questions? Can you please ask me a question? If the topic or idea involves some mathematical solutions then I can ask a question related to the solution of a problem, based on the equations developed during the lecture.

This format is what is normally not defined as "Active Learning". So what we can do is to turn things around and start by asking a question, by setting some framework to the question, and then ask the students -by themselves or in groups- to develop the answer and theories behind the answer. Such an approach is named POGIL in chemical education. It stands for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. For more information about POGIL click here.

With different names similar approaches have been developed with great success, one worth mentioning is David Sokoloff at the University of Oregon who has worked for many years in physics education. The main idea in STEM is the hands on experience. The need to do real experiments, beyond the typical demonstration, where students gather data and learn how to interpret it to the degree where laws can be created to explain the results observed in the experiment. For more information about Active Learning in Physics click here.

Now we face a new challenge with online teaching, how can we make STEM education active online when the instruments to perform experiments are not widely available? What kind of video resources can be produced to replace the hands on experience? This is a challenge that we all are facing, and many great educators are busy working and developing new materials, many of which will prove to be invaluable resources. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a tragic event but we can get something good from it, specially in education. Now hybrid platforms are being created that will help a wide variety of students. Students with different needs that before were boxed in to a single, uniform, educational setting. Now students and teachers will have options in their communication. Asking all the time, are we being active learners?

COVID Innovation

The Curiosity Rover 

SARS-2/COVID-19 has been the most traumatic worldwide social experience of, at least, the past fifty years. The pain and suffering both individually and collectively as many people around the world have suffered the illness and in a way, too many death has been superlative. The economic collapse has been, as well, individually as collectively devastating. No doubt about it.

We should not minimize the devastation but we must, also, see the opportunities. We must not be defeated in our spirit or our souls. We must keep finding ways to make things better and to help our society to improve. This is where science education in particular and education, in general, play an important role. This is a unique opportunity to innovate. To innovate how we teach and how we learn. We can't continue in the XXIst century teaching based on XXth century methods and programs. Institutions of learning have to be transformed radically to meet the needs of our society today. In many ways, large research universities have made changes but in a way, these changes are insignificant compared with the task at hand. Some small Liberal Art Colleges are not surviving due to the demands of this new paradigm. 

As I think, Yogi Berra said: "The future ain't what it used to be".  We can't use the past to guide us without analyzing when and how history will repeat or transform. Some have said (Couros. 2015 page 12) that we are living in a "Printing Press" moment which can be a strong metaphor as there are more than changes in the system of production there are elements of change in the mentality of the citizenry. The new iGeners born and raised in the midst of the information technology age aka the internet are being educated following pre-internet methodologies even though educators are using information obtained there. Education is more than the information provided, information that can be obtained at a minimum cost. What education institutions must provide today is the nurturing of curiosity. The atmosphere and platform for individuals to create and innovate. Guided by experienced individuals who can help, mentor, and direct. This is the new role of the professorship in higher education.

 Science has always been about curiosity. This is why teaching science is so apt for the changes in education. For many years teaching has worked against curiosity in the name of curricular content. Teachers are used to replying to students' inquiries with "wait a moment I have to cover this topic we talk about it later" and "the later" never comes! Curiosity is delicate, easy to break and nullify, it is imperative for teachers to nurture creativity through reinforcing curiosity.

Predicting the Future and the Scientific Method

    It is time for an old draft to come to light. I started writing it several years ago, as you can see but it appears that it is now that becomes more appropriate.

    On August 21st, 2017 we in the USA experience a natural wonder. A total Solar eclipse. The shadow of the eclipse narrow band spanned across the whole northern USA from Oregon in the west to South Carolina on the east coast. This event was special for many reasons and gave us the opportunity to think about the wonders of the natural world.
    As I prepared for my presentation at Warner Pacific University where I guided people through the phenomenon as it was occurring, I started thinking about how humanity has experienced solar (and lunar) eclipses and how metaphorical they have become. The first experience of course was un-expected and the explanation for the event was metaphysical, attributed to supernatural forces, and some eclipses became the signal for some ominous event. But then science happened.
With scientific knowledge a sense of predictability came, if one knows how something works, say the solar system, then future events (like eclipses) can be unmasked and previous events can be explained.    

"Total Solar Eclipse 2017 Path USA Map" by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    This for me is the power and importance that science has. Being able to predict.

    Predictions even though may appear simple they can be misrepresented or they can become the force to cause the prediction (a self-fulfilling prophecy) or they might be the cause that what is being predicted doesn't occur. For the first case, I can mention how as I was explaining the eclipse with a map of the USA with a shadow of where the eclipse would be seen some people misinterpreted the map thinking that the eclipse would be occurring at different times in the US as in the map the shadow was marked with the time. So if it was 9:00 AM in PDX it would have 12:00 PM at NY. People would interpret that as if the shadow of the eclipse was moving from PDX to NY taking three hours to get there not realizing that, in fact, 9 am in PDX is the same time as 12 noon in NY; even the caption in the picture talks about a path!

    The second kind of prediction where we have a self-fulfilling prophecy is when an economic model predicts that there will be a scarcity of some product, as we saw in recent times with the COVID-19 pandemic and toilet paper, causing citizens to hoard toilet paper and thus scarcity. 

    The third kind of prediction is when people react to the prediction thus making the prediction fail. That is the case of the movie Soylent Green that predicted in 1973 that NY city would have 40 million people by the year 2022. This prediction was on a film that represented the feeling of society at the time and was based on statistical projections based on good data at the time. What did happen then was that people realize that the future exposed on the film was not what they desired for their lives and therefore stop moving to NY creating a new trend that made the initial prophecy fail.

    Today, in the midst of a pandemic, we are wondering about the immediate future and the long term. How can we know what kind of future are we creating with the actions we are taking now? Are we going back to normal? Are we going to create a new normal?

    The answers to these questions will take a lot of discernment. But one thing I am sure of is that science should have a central role in decision making. We need to learn how to interpret data obtained by different means. We need to view the environment as integral to our own human existence. We can't forget how everything is connected and how wrong and stubborn ideologies will backfire.

    As a teaching professor in STEM, I feel especially obligated to ask these questions and to help my students develop critical thinking so they will not fall prey to conspiracy theories abundant today in our cyberspace. 

    

The Truth Abaout Test Scores and Grades

It has been a long time since I blogged about science teaching and science education. It is not that there are no more things to talk about, but because other things have come my way, distracting me from this topic. So today I am returning to writing about it because the times require an examination of the situation, in particular to online education.

Halfway this past spring semester 2020, in the USA we had to change the way we do school due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The change was dramatic and affected all around the world. In our case, the main change was that we had to deliver instruction via the Internet. Unintentionally other aspects of the life of the student were affected as well, like for those who were graduating and couldn't get the proper commencement celebrations. For me, one thing that stood out was the way we do the grading of a course, and of course for the students as well. That is why I need to articulate some ideas about grading.

What is it about grades that get in the way of education?

Is it the social stigma of a "good grade" that inhibits the performance of students as they focus more on them than on the actual knowledge, Skills, and Convictions that are supposed to be what education is all about?
Let's focus on STEM education. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics have been the driving force of progress. Medicine and in general the wellbeing of our society depends on well-trained professionals in these areas. Many students, young and old, are getting into STEM because they see a bright future.

What are the proficiencies that education is to develop?

These questions are difficult to answer, as the socio-economic conditions framing the context of the relationship between students and their learning is very complicated, it is a complex environment. The complexity comes from the multiple dimensions of the situation, starting with who the student is as an individual, and who is the student supposed to be. Who is the student as a product of his/her environment, and who is the student supposed to be as a product of his/her environment?
Where is the student coming from?
What is the student's background? And, even more difficult, where is the student going?
Where is the student now?
What is the context that the educational institution provides for the success of the student?

Science students, in particular, have to face a series of prejudices, misconceptions, and lies.
On the one hand it has been traditionally supposed to be an area for exceptional, rare, mainly white males, individuals who must sacrifice an open and fun life like any extrovert would enjoy. "In the good old days" these individuals couldn't be good looking, socially active, nor popular with their peers. They were labeled as "nerds."

Making scientists social heroes has been an uphill battle for many years. Few in the past have obtained recognition when due to a social crossroads the moment is right. But in general, it is the economic success of those in STEM that makes it attractive to study.

Coming back to misconceptions. Having a good grade average has been the myth of success. Many students believe that in order to get into a recognized institution to obtain a diploma that allows them to enter the work-force at a high level of income, they need good grades. To the extreme of thinking that an average grater than 3.5 is necessary in order to succeed. This is a major impediment in students' performance as thinking about the grade blocks the student to thinking about the subject matter. The stress of the possibility of getting a low grade highly inhibits the potential of understanding the material that they have to master in order to be able to perform professionally.

That is the main issue with grades as obstacles for proficiency.

Teaching Something Old That Feels New

It is easy to become comfortable when teaching a subject for several consecutive years, so what can one do in order to keep it fresh? Keeping it fresh is not only desired for the sake of the teacher's interest and mental sanity but most important for the feeling that the class is uniquely developed for the present students. Students need to know that they are learning something that is important to them individually. Students need to know that they are learning something that is for their present interests and use and not something old that belongs to the archives of history, unless of course is a history class.

We are here talking about teaching science, science that has old principles, old hypothesis, old theories, and old methodologies. Of course there is the science that is at the frontier of knowledge which normally is an upper division class. Now let's have a discussion of the problem when teaching a lower division class. Some of these old ideas, such as distance, force, vectors, pH, stoichiometry, et cetera are extremely important and are required knowledge at any time so how can we make them fresh?

There is also the question of how deep one has to go? As we think about the knowledge necessary for a particular level. As one difficulty we have up to now is the lack of definition of what a 100 or 200 level courses are in college. So for the time being let's talk about these two levels as one category named "lower division". Let's start with defining the level of lower division as the one where basic nomenclature, basic historical connections, and basic parametric relationships are taught. From the pedagogical point of view there has been a change in recent years in the sequence of the way this concepts are introduced in class, it used to be (and in some cases still is) that teachers would start with defining terms, say in physics teachers would start with units. Now teachers following the active learning or guided inquiry learning methodology start by asking questions and along the way they introduced the vocabulary necessary for the discussion. This a pedagogical methodology that has been developed for a few years more so now with the help of the Internet where flipped learning is becoming more widespread.

With this in mind one can see how with the use of recent technologies like the Arduino or Raspberry Pi students can lear about information and communication technology by playing with these.

Can students use these "toys" to learn about physics, chemistry, or biology?
 

Priming

Painting can be a metaphor for teaching. The painter start with preparing the surface on which the paint is going to be applied as students have to be prepared for the instruction and knowledge the teacher is going to administer.


Recent discoveries in Psychology pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky (Prospect Theory) have shown that the way we think is modulated by our emotional state. The old metaphor of the personality being a horse carriage where the horses were the acting emotions and the logic intellect (the mind) was the guiding influence in our behavior was displaced by a new metaphor of an elephant and its rider. An eloquent account of this new metaphor was clearly articulated by Jonathan Haidt in his book "The Happiness Hypothesis." We now know that controlling emotions is like threading water, like guiding and elephant. This is a critical aspect of the teaching-learning dichotomy in the context of a classroom that has been set based on the old paradigm.

Students come to class with a variety of feelings, from excitement for a new experience to apprehension for the unknown and their previous negative experience in the classroom. Over all there is the pressure that students have based on the grading scheme used in today's system of education. Grading which is supposed to be objective and in reality has a big component in subjectivity. This subjective aspect is based on the reality of the behavior of both teacher and student. These of course will be, as mentioned before, highly emotional.

The metaphor of painting as education allows us to think about the steps taken during the class to impart information, and educate students to be able to acquire the knowledge for the subject of the course. The learning has to be done by the student, not by the teacher. The teacher is there to guide the process by which the student learns, so it is imperative that the teacher is somehow aware of the emotional state of the student. This is where priming comes.

In art priming is the process by which a surface is prepare for the painting. Paint layers that will bring not only a new appearance to the object that is painted but will give that object a new meaning. A canvas becomes a piece of art. Painting is more than just adding paint. Painting is transformation. This is the whole idea of education. This is where the metaphor makes sense!

So when a painter is ready with an idea and a canvas the first thing she does is to prepare the canvas, to prime the canvas. This is done by applying a special coat of special material, the primer, that will bring the surface of the canvas to be ready for the paint. Two aspects in the "ready for the paint", one is to protect the underlying surface and the other is to remove any imperfection.

What would the priming look like in the class room? How would this priming prepare the students and remove imperfections?

What I have tried is the following. First address the mood by being happy beyond a simple greeting, happy in the recognition that is always a blessing to be able to learn, to be in a situation where peace and safety are guaranteed. I use candy and birthday celebrations to make students feel welcomed and aware that they are now in a new setting. In Dr. T.'s classroom.
Second. They take an attendance quiz, which is a review of topic covered in the previous class and will not only remind them of the subject but remove any lack of understanding (an imperfection) that imperils their ability to continue learning.
After it is clear that students understand the questions on the attendance quiz, I mention the importance of the subject matter as it relates to their lives. We work on their use of calculators and relevant math to help them feel confident that they can solve this problems. Building confidence becomes one of the main purpose of the priming. A secondary benefit of this kind of priming is that the attendance quiz which returned the following class can be used as a guide for taking exams.

As the primer is not paint, in class the activity chosen for priming might not be related to the lesson. For instance (happiness) blowing bubbles changes the mood, singing "happy birthday" to someone celebrating changes the mood, or just a piece of candy will do it too.

If you have any ideas about priming in class, will you please share them with me?        

The T equation

In science we have many numbers, constants, equations, formulas, laws and principles that have the name of someone who invested a long time studying the phenomena related to the former. It is hard to know how long they stayed looking and learning about what they were studying. In most cases it doesn't matter. When dealing with pressure we have the unit Torricelli (torr) in honor of Evangelista Torricelli who invented the barometer. I don't know but it is not hard to think that the invention took many long hours to take place and to improve until he was able to have a working instrument. While he was doing this he was also thinking about pressure. How can it be defined? How can it be related to the forces involved? How can it be related to the area? et cetera. [By the way the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level is about 760 torr.] So the names associated to these constants, units, laws, et al. are in a way a representation of the effort of those individuals and the societies where they lived.

There is also the fact that naming things makes it easier to remember. It has been studied that when someone is presented with two individuals, one named Baker, and the other being a baker. It is easier to remember the fact that one is a baker rather than the name of the other. If you want to know more about this read the excellent book by John J. Medina "Brain Rules".
One very useful equation in buffer chemistry is the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation:

pH = pK_a + Log(Base/Acid)

that relates the pH of a solution made with a weak acid or base and its conjugate acid or base. As it is known in chemistry by definition the mathematical operator p stands for the -Log.
So the pH can be calculated from the concentration of the Hydronium ion H₃O⁺ by calculating the -Log,

pH = -Log[H₃O⁺].

The K_a or equilibrium constant for the acid base reaction is calculated from the concentrations of the products and reactants in equilibrium using the following relationship:

K_a = [H₃O⁺][Base]/[Acid] with this relationship and using the properties of Log functions such as Log (AxB) = Log A + Log B. One can derive Henderson-Hasselbalch equation.

Now, traditionally when one is trying to calculate what is the change in pH when a small amount of acid or base is added to a buffered solution one calculates the pH before and after the change occurred, it easy to do by using Henderson-Hasselbalch equation twice, and calculating the change by difference.
I have developed a shortcut by doing the following: First I make the point that I know both concentrations, the initial and the final concentration of both acid and base. I will call them A_i, B_i, A_f, and B_f. (The final concentrations of course can be easily calculated as we know the initial concentrations and the amount of acid or base added to the solution. Let's not waste time here with an example of how to do it.)
The change on pH of course can be written as the difference between pH_f - pH_i

ΔpH = pH_f - pH_i

If we use the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation twice in the previous equation and use the properties of Logarithms we can get to the following condensed equation to calculate the change in pH:

ΔpH = Log (B_{f *} A_i)/(B_{i *} A_f)     This is the T equation!

This very simple equation states that the change in pH is the Log of the product of the final base times the initial acid divided by the initial base times the final acid. Even though we should be aware of the values of the initial and final concentrations the fact of the matter is that as long as we have the acid and base cross multiplied, i.e. if the base is the initial the acid must be the final, the only difference if we do them vice versa is that the sign of the difference will change from negative to positive or vice versa. Which in reality doesn't matter because we normally want to know the absolute value of the change in pH. We know that if we add a base the pH will increase a bit, and if we add an acid the pH will decrease a bit. But what we are interested is in the absolute value, the magnitude of the change.