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Changing Classroom Designs: Easy; Changing Instructors' Pedagogies: Not So Easy…

Authors:
Nathaniel Lasry at John Abbott College
Nathaniel Lasry
Elizabeth Charles at Dawson College
Elizabeth Charles
Chris Whittaker at Dawson College
Chris Whittaker
Helena Dedic at Vanier College
Helena Dedic
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Abstract and Figures

Technology-rich student-centered classrooms such as SCALE-UP and TEAL are designed to actively engage students. We examine what happens when instructors adopt the classroom but not the pedagogy that goes with it. We measure the effect of using socio-technological spaces on students' conceptual change and compare learning gains made in groups using different pedagogies (active learning vs. conventional instruction). We also correlate instructors' self-reported instructional approach (teacher-centered, student-centered) with their classes' normalized FCI gains. We find that technology-rich spaces are only effective when implemented with student-centered active pedagogies. In their absence, the technology-rich classroom is not significantly different from conventional teacher-centered classrooms. We also find that instructors' self-reported perception of student-centeredness accounts for a large fraction of the variance ( r 2 = 0.83 ) in their class' average normalized gain. Adopting student-centered pedagogies appears to be a necessary condition for the effective use of technology-rich spaces. However, adopting a new pedagogy seems more difficult than adopting new technology.
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Changing Classroom Designs: Easy;
Changing Instructors’ Pedagogies: Not So Easy…
Nathaniel Lasry*§, Elizabeth Charles˜§, Chris Whittaker ˜, Helena Dedic§ and
Steven Rosenfield§
* Department of Physics, John Abbott College, Montreal Canada H9X 3L9 and
˜ Department of Physics, Dawson College, 3040 Rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal Canada H3Z 1A4
Department of Physics, Vanier College, Montreal, Canada H4L 3X9 and †
§ Center for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada H3G 2V8 ˜
Abstract. Technology-rich student-centered classrooms such as SCALE-UP and TEAL are designed to actively
engage students. We examine what happens when instructors adopt the classroom but not the pedagogy that goes
with it. We measure the effect of using socio-technological spaces on students’ conceptual change and compare
learning gains made in groups using different pedagogies (active learning vs. conventional instruction). We also
correlate instructors’ self-reported instructional approach (teacher-centered, student-centered) with their classes’
normalized FCI gains. We find that technology-rich spaces are only effective when implemented with student-
centered active pedagogies. In their absence, the technology-rich classroom is not significantly different from
conventional teacher-centered classrooms. We also find that instructors’ self-reported perception of student-
centeredness accounts for a large fraction of the variance (r2=0.83) in their class’ average normalized gain.
Adopting student-centered pedagogies appears to be a necessary condition for the effective use of technology-rich
spaces. However, adopting a new pedagogy seems more difficult than adopting new technology.
Keywords: Classroom design, architecture, SCALE-UP, TEAL, technology, pedagogy.
PACS: 01.10.Fv, 01.30.Cc, 01.30.lb, 01.40.-d, 01.40.Fk, 01.40.gb, 01.40.jh, 01.50
INTRODUCTION
Traditional classroom settings are teacher-centered.
They place instructors at the front of the classroom
with all students facing the instructor. This traditional
classroom architecture is implicitly based on a
‘transmission’ model of learning: an expert transmits
knowledge to attentive novices. Much of the physics
education literature has been devoted to developing
student-centered pedagogies1 that are shown to be
more effective than traditional teacher-centered
approaches such as lecturing2, 3. Classroom lectures
have been particularly criticized, at least since Blight’s
1972 book: What’s the use of Lectures?4 Initially
constrained to teacher-centered class architectures,
pedagogical approaches were developed to enable
student-centered learning in these settings. For
instance, approaches such as Peer Instruction3, 5-7 were
developed to engage students in a lecture hall and
enable them to co-construct knowledge by pairing and
sharing their conceptions. These student-centered
active-learning approaches are quite effective, despite
being constrained to teacher-centered classroom
architectures. Classrooms can be redesigned to fully
support student-centered active collaboration. Among
designs that have been well documented to support
student centered pedagogies are Student-Centered
Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate
Programs (SCALE-UP)8, 9 at North Carolina State
University and Technology Enabled Active Learning
(TEAL) at MIT10, 11. We choose not to distinguish
between SCALE-UP, TEAL and the implementation
of the classroom design that we studied. We focus on
the similarities between these architectures and
collectively call these designs socio-technological
spaces because the technology facilitates social
collaboration and the co-construction of knowledge.
In this study, a socio-technological space was
presented to instructors as a classroom architecture
that facilitates collaborative approaches and more
generally student-centered pedagogies. However, a
number of instructors that adopted the socio-
technological classroom did not effectively adopt the
pedagogy it was designed to support. We examine
what happens when instructors adopt the technology-
rich classroom but not the student-centered pedagogy
it supports.
STUDY DESIGN
We compare two classroom architectures used with
two types of pedagogy. Classrooms were either
redesigned socio-technological spaces (e.g. TEAL) or
traditional teacher-centered classrooms. Pedagogies
were either student-centered or conventional teacher-
centered. Researchers assisted a few classes from each
of the six participating instructors to determine
whether the pedagogies used were conventional or
student-centered. The six participating instructors were
also asked to complete a self-report instrument on how
teacher-centered or student-centered their instruction
was. This instrument, the Approaches to Teaching
Inventory (ATI)12 is composed of 22-items that can be
broken down into two sub-scales – (1) conceptual
change/student focused (CCSF) and (2) information
transmission/teacher focused (ITTF). Each subscale
comprises 11 items. ATI results were used along with
researchers’ observations to establish where teachers
might be positioned along a continuum of teacher-
centered to student-centered.
Students participating in this study were enrolled in a
first semester introductory mechanics course.
Students’ conceptual learning was assessed using the
Force Concept Inventory13 during the first and last
week of the term. We then calculated average
normalized gains for each section2. We also performed
a complementary analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)
to determine whether groups differed in FCI scores at
the end of the semester (post-test), taking their
incoming (pre-test) scores as a covariate. FCI data
from three years were aggregated - F08, F09 and F10.
In total we collected data from 214 students in the four
groups examined (see Table 1). Finally, we examine
the relationship between the ATI (instructors’ self-
reported student-centeredness and teacher-
centeredness) and the normalized gain for each
instructor’s group.
TABLE 1. Number of students in four groups studied
Socio-Tech
Classroom
Conventional
Classroom
StudentCentered
ActiveLearning
56
49
Teacher-centered
Instruction
51
58
RESULTS
We begin by comparing the average normalized gains
obtained by students in Active Learning versus
traditional teacher-centered instruction. As expected2,
we find that Active Learning pedagogies produce
statistically greater learning gains than traditional
teacher-centered pedagogies. When comparing
classroom designs, we find no statistical difference
between the average normalized gains obtained by
students in socio-technological classrooms and the
gains obtained in conventional classrooms settings.
However, an interaction seems to be present. Socio-
technological classrooms architectures yield both the
greatest and smallest average normalized gains.
Indeed, the largest normalized gains are found in
socio-technological classrooms that use Active
Learning pedagogies; The smallest normalized gains
are found in socio-technological spaces that use
traditional teacher-centered instruction. Socio-
technological spaces are not effective in of themselves.
They effectively support Active Learning pedagogies
but are ineffective at best when used with traditional
teacher-centered instruction.
FIGURE 1. Active Learning pedagogies produce larger
normalized gains, regardless of classroom design. Classroom
designs do not significantly differ from each other. Largest
gains are found in socio-technological designs that use
Active Learning. Smallest normalized gains are found in
socio-technological designs that use traditional teacher-
centered pedagogies.
We also analyze the correlation between instructors’
self-reported ATI subscales (CCSF and ITTF scales)
and the average FCI gain for their class. We find a
surprisingly high correlation between the student-
centeredness scale (CCSF) and the average FCI
normalized gain for their class (r = 0.91). In contrast,
instructors’ perceived teacher-centeredness (ITTF
scale) correlates weakly with FCI gains (r = 0.33).
These results suggest that a large part of the variance
(R2=0.83) in average FCI gain for a class can be
explained by the instructor’s perception of student-
centeredness.
FIGURE 2. Instructors’ self-reported student-centeredness
(CCSF) is strongly correlated (r = 0.91) to their class’
average FCI gain.
However, the instructors’ degree of teacher-
centeredness does not seem to impact students’
conceptual change. Indeed, the instructors (self-
reported) ITTF score accounts for a small amount of
variance (r2 = 0.11) in their class’ average FCI
normalized gain.
DISCUSSION
When designing technology-rich classrooms, teachers
and administrators often assume that the technology
will enhance students’ learning. Empirical studies of
technology-rich student-centered spaces have shown
benefits such as more meaningful construction of
knowledge and deeper understanding8, 10. These
studies document the use of technology-rich
classrooms with the student-centered pedagogies they
have been designed to support. To our knowledge, no
studies have explored the use of socio-technological
spaces in the absence of the student-centered pedagogy
they are designed to support.
Our results show the primacy of pedagogy: active
learning pedagogies produce larger normalized gains
than teacher-centered pedagogies, regardless of the
classroom architecture. Socio-technological classroom
architectures are designed to enhance the effect of
student-centered pedagogies. Hence, the effective use
of these socio-technological environments requires the
adoption of student-centered active learning
approaches. Instructors and administrators interested
in adopting technology-rich spaces must be aware of
the need to adopt active learning pedagogies. This
finding can be viewed in light of past findings on
educational technology, namely that technology itself
is not a surrogate for good pedagogy14, 15. For instance,
Peer Instruction has been implicitly associated with the
use of wireless clickers in classrooms. Yet, Peer
Instruction works equally well without clickers, using
flashcards for instance14. When used in support of
learners’ effort and not merely to present content,
recent meta-analyses show that technology can be an
effective learning tool 16.
When used with a teacher-centered pedagogy, socio-
technological environments yield the smallest
normalized gains of all four groups. This result might
be explained by the mismatch between the classroom
architecture and the implicit instructional model it
supports. Lecture-halls are designed to support
teacher-centered lecturing. Socio-technological spaces
are designed to support student-centered pedagogies.
One may have expected that socio-technological
spaces would be more effective than lecture halls even
for lectures because of the many affordances offered
by the technology. We find that traditional classrooms
are better suited (albeit marginally) for lectures. This
somewhat counter-intuitive result can be explained by
the uncanny observation made by one of the
researchers. Our socio-technological spaces feature
workstations organized in round pod-like
configuration seating four students, with one computer
for every two students. Being seated in circular
arrangements, students are no longer facing the ‘front’
of the classroom. On one occasion, a researcher was
observing a student asking a teacher-centered
instructor a question. Although the question was
pertinent to the entire group, the instructor moved to
the former front of the classroom and began to address
the group as a whole. However, being seated in
circular arrangements, most of the students were no
longer facing the instructor and were therefore
unaware of a possible learning opportunity. Together
with the data shown in Figure 1, this suggests that
socio-technological environment may hurt students if
used with teacher-centered pedagogies.
Survey results for the six participating instructors on
the ATI12 revealed interesting findings concerning
their self-reported perceptions of how information
transmission/teacher focused (ITTF) and how
conceptual change/student focused (CCSF) their
0.0#
1.0#
2.0#
3.0#
4.0#
5.0#
6.0#
rWorld rEffort eMediate
% of total coded statments
Student's Epistemic Beliefs AL group
Comp.
instruction was. We find a surprisingly high
correlation (r = 0.91) between normalized gain and
self-reported student-centeredness (CCSF) but not so
large (r = 0.33) with teacher-centeredness (ITTF). Our
first surprise is that instructors do not view teacher-
centeredness and information-transfer as orthogonal to
being student-centered conceptually-focused. What is
more striking is the finding that a self-reported
instrument correlates with a measure, not of the
teachers themselves but of their students’ learning. We
find this result interesting and would welcome
replications.
CONCLUSION
Instructors and administrators are often attracted to the
newest educational technologies. However, for an
educational technology to be adopted effectively, the
pedagogical model it supports should also be adopted.
Our results show that socio-technological classroom
architectures are only effective when implemented
with student-centered active-learning pedagogies.
Much support should be offered to instructors adopting
new socio-technological environments because
adopting the newest educational technology may be
easier than adopting the pedagogy it is designed to
facilitate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported by a Quebec Ministère de
l’Education Loisirs et Sports grant through the
Programme d’Aide a la Recherche sur l’Enseignement
et l’Apprentissage (PAREA, grant# PA 2009-005).
Individual researchers also acknowledge support from
their institutions John Abbott and Dawson Colleges as
well as support from the Center for the Study of
Learning and Performance.
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  • Nov 2021
  • J CLEAN PROD
Effective Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) requires appropriate pedagogies that engage learners in transformative learning. These pedagogies include reflective and active learning, involving experiential, collaborative and learner-centred activities. This paper discusses student experiences and perceptions of an interdisciplinary social science ESD course at a UK university that incorporated reflective and active learning by using a ‘flipped classroom’ (FC) design and innovative assessments. FC creates time in class for reflective and active learning by moving content acquisition to pre-class study. Adoption of the flipped classroom in social sciences is rare and literature on use of FC for ESD is very scarce; hence this paper offers valuable insights into the design of a flipped social science ESD course, and participants' responses. Results of two surveys demonstrate very positive student perceptions of the course, and illustrate several benefits of the FC design. Over 90% of respondents agreed that in-class active learning exercises made the classes more engaging and the material more memorable than usual, offering useful opportunities to put information/learning into practice, with most students expressing strong agreement. In-class mini-lectures were nevertheless also appreciated, as were reflective practices. A large majority of the students considered the workload reasonable. Findings also reveal the importance of incentivising pre-class preparation using graded assessments such as quizzes, which additionally helped students understand/remember content, and gave confidence about contributing in class. It is clear that the active and reflective learning that FC facilitates engages students in ESD. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for successfully implementing this approach.
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Student-Centered Activities for Large- Enrollment University Physics (SCALE-UP)
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The primary goal of the SCALE-UP Project is to establish a highly col -laborative, hands-on, computer-rich, interactive learning environment in large-enrollment physics courses. We know from extensive educational research that students should collaborate on interesting tasks and be active -ly involved with the material they are learning. The physics department at North Carolina State University has had considerable success with small classes taught this way and is now searching for the best way to "scale-up" the innovations so that students taking our large enrollment engineering physics courses can benefit. We are folding together lecture and lab with multiple instructors in a way that should provide an economical alterna -tive to traditional lecture-oriented instruction. The project involves the development, evaluation and dissemination of new curricular materials that will support this type of learning. In comparisons to traditional instruction we have seen significantly improved performance in problem solving, increased conceptual under -standing, improved attitude and much higher success rates for females and minorities. This was accomplished at little or no additional expense. Because of these successes, we believe the SCALE-UP Project has the potential to radically change the way science, engineering and mathemat -ics are taught at large colleges and universities. Project Status There have been three phases to the SCALE-UP project. The first phase was conducted in a traditional lecture hall with long narrow tables and fixed seating. We are currently in our Phase 2 implementation in a renovated room that seats 54. Construction of a 99-seat Phase 3 classroom will commence soon. Preliminary blueprints for a new Physical Sciences Instructional Lab Building also include space for two SCALE-UP classrooms.
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What Forty Years of Research Says About the Impact of Technology on Learning A Second-Order Meta-Analysis and Validation Study
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Full-text available
  • Mar 2011
This research study employs a second-order meta-analysis procedure to summarize 40 years of research activity addressing the question, does computer technology use affect student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms as compared to classrooms that do not use technology? A study-level meta-analytic validation was also conducted for purposes of comparison. An extensive literature search and a systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 25 meta-analyses with minimal overlap in primary literature, encompassing 1,055 primary studies. The random effects mean effect size of 0.35 was significantly different from zero. The distribution was heterogeneous under the fixed effects model. To validate the second-order meta-analysis, 574 individual independent effect sizes were extracted from 13 out of the 25 meta-analyses. The mean effect size was 0.33 under the random effects model, and the distribution was heterogeneous. Insights about the state of the field, implications for technology use, and prospects for future research are discussed.
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Resource Letter: PER1: Physics Education Research
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  • Sep 1999
The purpose of this Resource Letter is to provide an overview of research on the learning and teaching of physics. The references have been selected to meet the needs of two groups of physicists engaged in physics education. The first is the growing number whose field of scholarly inquiry is (or might become) physics education research. The second is the much larger community of physics instructors whose primary interest is in using the results from research as a guide for improving instruction.
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Introduction to SCALE-UP : Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment University Physics
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SCALE-UP is an extension of the highly successful IMPEC project (Integrated Math, Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry), one of NC State's curricular reform efforts undertaken as part of the SUCCEED coalition. Basically, we are utilizing the interactive, collaboratively based instruction that worked so well in smaller class settings and finding ways to economically accommodate classes of up to 100 students. Relative to students taught in traditional classes, SCALE-UP students are better problem solvers, achieve nearly four times the gain on some conceptual tests, have better attitudes toward science, and report greater satisfaction with their instruction. Failure rates for females are half those in regular classes. For minorities, the failure rate drops by a factor of four. Technology is used to provide a phenomenological focus for students, allowing data collection, analysis, mathematical modeling, and advanced simulations. As student attention is drawn into analyzing different physical situations, teachers circulate around the room and engage students in Socratic dialogs. Lecturing is minimal, primarily for motivation and to provide an overview of topics. The main objectives of the course will be presented, along with a discussion of some of the instructional techniques we employ.
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Peer instruction: From Harvard to the two-year college
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Full-text available
  • Nov 2008
We compare the effectiveness of a first implementation of peer instruction PI in a two-year college with the first PI implementation at a top-tier four-year research institution. We show how effective PI is for students with less background knowledge and what the impact of PI methodology is on student attrition in the course. Results concerning the effectiveness of PI in the college setting replicate earlier findings: PI-taught students demonstrate better conceptual learning and similar problem-solving abilities than traditionally taught students. However, not previously reported are the following two findings: First, although students with more background knowledge benefit most from either type of instruction, PI students with less background knowledge gain as much as students with more background knowledge in traditional instruction. Second, PI methodology is found to decrease student attrition in introductory physics courses at both four-year and two-year institutions. © 2008 American Association of Physics Teachers.
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How Does Technology-Enabled Active Learning Affect Undergraduate Students' Understanding of Electromagnetism Concepts?
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  • Jan 2004
Educational technology supports meaningful learning and enables the presentation of spatial and dynamic images, which portray relationships among complex con-cepts. The Technology-Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) Project at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology (MIT) involves media-rich software for simulation and visualization in freshman physics carried out in a specially redesigned classroom to facilitate group interaction. These technology-based tec learning materials are especially useful in electromagnetism to help students conceptualize phenomena and processes. This study analyzes the effects of the unique learning environment of the TEAL project on students ’ cognitive and affective outcomes. The assessment of the project included examining students ’ conceptual understanding before and after studying electromagnetism in a media-rich environment. We also investigated the effect of this environment on students ’ preferences regarding the various teaching methods. As part of the project, we developed pre- and posttests consisting of conceptual questions from standardized tests, as well as questions designed to assess the effect of visualizations and experiments. The research population consisted of 811 undergraduate students. It consisted of a small- and a large-scale experimental groups and a control group. TEAL students improved their conceptual understanding
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Interactive-Engagement Versus Traditional Methods: A Six-Thousand-Student Survey of Mechanics Test Data for Introductory Physics Courses
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  • Jan 1998
A survey of pre/post-test data using the Halloun–Hestenes Mechanics Diagnostic test or more recent Force Concept Inventory is reported for 62 introductory physics courses enrolling a total number of students N6542. A consistent analysis over diverse student populations in high schools, colleges, and universities is obtained if a rough measure of the average effectiveness of a course in promoting conceptual understanding is taken to be the average normalized gain g. The latter is defined as the ratio of the actual average gain (%post%pre) to the maximum possible average gain (100 %pre). Fourteen ''traditional'' (T) courses (N2084) which made little or no use of interactive-engagement IE methods achieved an average gain g T-ave 0.230.04 std dev. In sharp contrast, 48 courses (N4458) which made substantial use of IE methods achieved an average gain g IE-ave 0.480.14 std dev, almost two standard deviations of g IE-ave above that of the traditional courses. Results for 30 (N3259) of the above 62 courses on the problem-solving Mechanics Baseline test of Hestenes–Wells imply that IE strategies enhance problem-solving ability. The conceptual and problem-solving test results strongly suggest that the classroom use of IE methods can increase mechanics-course effectiveness well beyond that obtained in traditional practice. © 1998 American Association of Physics Teachers.
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Clickers or Flashcards: Is There Really a Difference?
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Full-text available
  • Apr 2008
A growing number of physics teachers are cur-rently turning to instructional technologies such as wireless handheld response systems —colloquially called clickers. Two possible rationales may explain the growing interest in these devices. The first is the presumption that clickers are more effective instructional instruments. The second rationale is somewhat reminiscent of Martin Davis' declaration when purchasing the Oakland Athletics: "As men get older, the toys get more expensive." Although personally motivated by both of these rationales, the effectiveness of clickers over inex-pensive low-tech flashcards remains questionable. Thus, the first half of this paper presents findings of a classroom study comparing the differences in stu-dent learning between a Peer Instruction group using clickers and a Peer Instruction group using flash-cards. Having assessed student learning differences, the second half of the paper describes differences in teaching effectiveness between clickers and flashcards. About Peer Instruction Peer Instruction (PI) is a student-centered instruc-tional approach developed at Harvard by Eric Mazur. 1 The method has been welcomed by the science com-munity and adopted by a large number of colleges and universities due, among other reasons, to its common sense approach and its documented effectiveness. 1,2 A schematic description of the PI method used in this study is shown in Fig. 1. In PI, the progression of any given class depends on the outcome of real-time student feedback to Con-cepTests: multiple-choice conceptual questions. In the early 1990s, students displayed their answer to Con-cepTests using a show of hands and later flashcards. Instructors would then count or estimate the number of students holding each alternative conception. Due to the tediousness of counting flashcards in large en-rolment courses, flashcards were replaced with wired classroom communication systems 3 and later with wireless clickers.
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Peer Instruction: A User's Manual
Article
  • Jan 1996
I. OVERVIEW. 1. Introduction. 2. Peer Instruction. 3. Motivating the Students. 4. A Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing for a Peer Instruction Lecture. 5. Sample Lecture. 6. Epilogue. II. RESOURCES. 7. Mechanics Baseline Test. 8. Force Concept Inventory. 9. Questionnaire Results. 10. Reading Quizzes. 11. Concept Tests. 12. Conceptual Exam Questions. Appendix: Disk Instructions. Index.
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The Physics Teacher
Article
  • Sep 1999
"The Importance of Graphs in Undergraduate Physics" by Christopher Deacon (TPT, 1999, 37, 270)"Quibbles, Misunderstandings, and Egregious Mistakes" by Clifford Schwartz et. al. (TPT, 1999, 37, 297) Keywords (Audience): High School / Introductory Chemistry
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