Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering

Readings

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	General principles of teaching
2	Teaching equations	Chunking Miller, George A. “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Psychological Review 63 (1956): 81-97. Benezet experiment Parts I and III are required. Part II is optional. Benezet, L. P. “The Teaching of Arithmetic I: The Story of an Experiment.” Journal of the National Education 24, no. 8 (November 1935): 241-244. (PDF) ———. “The Teaching of Arithmetic II: The Story of an Experiment.” Journal of the National Education 24, no. 9 (December 1935): 301-303. (PDF) ———. “The Teaching of Arithmetic III: The Story of an Experiment.” Journal of the National Education 25, no. 1 (January 1936): 7-8. (PDF)
3	Taking account of misconceptions; avoid rote learning	Rote learning and misconceptions in mathematics Ma, Liping. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers’ Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1999, Introduction, chapters 3 and 5. ISBN: 9780805829099. Probability and statistics Gigerenzer, Greg, Wolfgang Gaissmaier, Elke Kurz-Milcke, Lisa M. Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin. “Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 8, no. 2 (November 2007): 53-96. Physics Reif, Frederick. “Millikan Lecture 1994: Understanding and Teaching Important Scientific Thought Processes.” American Journal of Physics 63, no. 1 (January 1995): 17-32.
4	Designing homework and exam problems	The problem with problems (to be read after class) Mazur, Eric. “The Problem with Problems.” Optics and Photonics News (June 1996): 59-60.
5	Course design	They’re not dumb, they’re different Tobias, Sheila. They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking the Second Tier. Tucson, AZ: Research Corporation, 1994, pp. 19-32. ISBN: 9780963350404. Design-oriented analysis Middlebrook, R. David. “Methods of Design-Oriented Analysis: Low Entropy Expressions.” In New Approaches to Undergraduate Education IV, Santa Barbara, July 26-31, 1992 Conference Proceedings. Santa Barbara, CA, 1992. Backward design Wiggins, Grant P., and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998, pp. 5-7, 13-16, 18-19, 22, 38-55, 146, 151, 189-190, and 257. ISBN: 9780871203137.
6	Teaching interactively in large and small groups	The 2 sigma problem Bloom, Benjamin S. “The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-to-One Tutoring.” Educational Researcher 13, no. 6 (June-July 1984): 4-16. Reading memos Taylor, Edwin. “Guest Comment: Only the Student Knows.” American Journal of Physics 60, no. 3 (March 1992): 201-202. Lecture system Morrison, Robert T. “The Lecture System in Teaching Science.” Undergraduate Education in Chemistry and Physics (October 18-19, 1985): 50-58.
7	Lecture planning and performing	Walter Lewin teaching physics 8.01 lectures are required; 8.02 lectures are optional. 8.01 Physics I: Classical Mechanics, Fall 1999 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2002
8	Teaching with blackboards and slides	Edward Tufte’s analysis of powerpoint-based communication PowerPoint Does Rocket Science—and Better Techniques for Technical Reports Jean-Luc doumont on slides Doumont, Jean-Luc. “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Slides Are Not All Evil.” Technical Communication-Humanities Module 52, no. 1 (February 2005): 64-70.
9	Political barriers to educational change	Tactics for change Halfman, Robert L., M. L. A. MacVicar, W. T. Martin, Edwin F. Taylor, and Jerrold R. Zacharias. “Tactics for Change.” Occasional Paper No. 11 of the Education Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1972. (PDF) Education and the rise of the corporate state Spring, Joel H. Education and the Rise of the Corporate State. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1972, pp. xi-xiii. ISBN: 9780807031742. Schooled to order Nasaw, David. Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 44-47 and 52-53. ISBN: 9780195025293. Only for my kid Kohn, Alfie. “Only for My Kid: How Privileged Parents Undermine School Reform.” Phi Delta Kappan 79, no. 8 (April 1998): 568-577. Against competition Kohn, Alfie. “The Case Against Competition.” Working Mother, September 1987.
10	Course summary and your questions