Predict--Students are given a situation or problem and are asked to predict what will happen when something is done to change that situation. Observe--Once the change has been made, students carefully observe what happens. Explain--They compare their predictions with what happened and explain their findings, giving reasons, particularly, for any differences between predictions and results.

What his students needed, Curt decided, was a more active learning environment, one that encouraged--no, demanded--student participation in the learning process. Teaching in a lecture format simply was not accomplishing this. So, what would?

Well, for years Curt had been using computers in the classroom to aid in the analysis of data. In the late 1980s, however, it dawned on him that he might go beyond using computers merely for analysis and instead use them to transform the way his students learn physics. In particular, he was excited about the possibilities of using electronic probes that interface with a computer; such devices would enable his students to actually collect and analyze data themselves, fostering a predict-observe-explain learning process that Curt felt was essential to getting his students to understand-not just memorize and regurgitate-important physics concepts.

So first, Curt set about getting computers for his students (no easy task in itself). Then he searched for--and helped develop--a "second generation" of software tools that would enable the active learning environment that Curt sought for his students.

The first generation of computer technology was 'do the old lab experiment and hook a computer to it and the computer would do graphing or fitting.' The second generation demands the active engagement of students. It's predict and observe and explain...Students are really engaged with the experiments. After they set them up, they can interact with them and see exactly how things changed.

More specifically, these software tools allow students to

• visualize patterns of data.
• use graphical representations in ways that enable them to avoid getting lost in the data setup and collection details that accompany most lab activities.
• experiment easily with different parameters in the same lab setup.

Examples from Graphs and Tracks software, available at http://www.aip.org/pas. For examples of some of the other software that Curt uses in his classes, see http://vernier.com/cmat/tst.html, http://vernier.com/cmat/rtp.html, and http://www.wiley.com/college/sokoloff-physics/.

Click here to see a larger version of this graph.

Click here to see a larger version of this graph.

These tools are expressly designed to help students understand relationships between data and concepts and to engage their interest in physics.

But it's not just the technology...
Along with--and equally as important as--his computer-enhanced teaching strategies, Curt has implemented other active-learning techniques such as guided group work and formative assessment activities. These activities are not computer-dependent per se; however, in his teaching, Curt blends computer-dependent and computer-independent activities into a synergistic framework for learning.

The hope is that [the computer work] will feed nicely into how I am interacting with the students and how the students are interacting with each other, even when we are not in lab...

Now, I'm not sure if the technology in and of itself is essential to start doing this 'elicit-confront-resolve' approach [a variation of the predict-observe-explain approach], but it might be essential. It's not the only reason [this approach] works, but the technology allows us to do it. And this new way carries over into the rest of our class.

The result is a set of learning activities that reinforce each other, providing students with challenging, engaging and effective science learning experiences.

What happens on a typical day in Curt's classroom?

What I do in the classroom is quite different because I'm not preparing a lecture. It's very intense, because I have to be listening all the time and also thinking about the next question I want to pose to them that moves them from that point to the next point. That's the challenging thing--trying to think ahead at the same time I'm trying to listen to what they're saying.

Sounds great, but are the students really learning better?
In a word--yes. Posttests show that when tested on conceptual understanding, Curt's students perform significantly better than their counterparts in traditional physics courses, as indicated by the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) results presented in Table 1, below.

The FCI, designed by David Hestenes and colleagues, is widely used in the physics community to assess student understanding of the basic issues and concepts in Newtonian dynamics (Hestenes, Wells & Swackhamer, 1992). Questions are multiple-choice and are written in non-technical language, but included correct answers are attractive distracters that specifically address common-sense misconceptions about physics.

To enable consistent comparison of performance on the FCI of students from diverse institutions (from the most to the least selective), Richard Hake of Indiana University introduced an "average normalized gain" factor (Hake, 1998). Hake developed what has become known in the physics community as the "Hake factor" while researching the difference between traditional physics classes and what he calls "interactive engagement" classes in terms of students' pre-instruction and post-instruction performance on the Force Concept Inventory test. The significance of the Hake factor is that it adjusts for the fact that percentage improvement is normally easier for those who start with lower pretest scores than for those who initially score quite high.

According to Alan Van Heuvelen, a nationally recognized physics educator at the Ohio State University's Department of Physics, Curt's two-year college physics students are performing as well as Harvard students in similarly taught courses.

When you plot Hieggelke's students' posttest results on the Force Concept Inventory along with the results of students taught by other faculty who use the interactive engagement approach to physics, his students' outcomes compare favorably with those of students taught by Eric Mazur at Harvard University.

That's impressive. But how do students respond to a new learning environment?
Of course, tests are only one side of the achievement story. Are students willing, for example, to take charge in an interactive environment, to accept that the responsibility to learn is theirs? If Curt's students are any indication--and we think they are-the answer is yes, many will. As a student in Curt's Engineering Physics course put it,

A teacher may be a spoon feeder--giving you plenty of examples--but that doesn't do it for me. I've got to do it myself. Watching the professor do it is not going to help. I've got to do it on my own.... In this course, we teach ourselves and each other.

In labs, for instance, students get their primary feedback not only from the instructor, but from the hands-on experiments and simulation-based problems that they themselves set-up and control. And they're not only learning physics--they're liking it, too. Students made this clear when describing their labs to us:

Nick: The computer-based exercises in the class were awesome.

Paul: There was a video camera part that was excellent-seeing the movement step by step, each frame....

Andy: Analyzing it, breaking it down by cut. Cropping them, taking them in.

Nick: We could never do that on our own. We can't visualize it without the computer. We can't possibly test it. But to have that was incredible. That was amazing. I loved that lab!

Steve: That was the best lab.

Nick: And that last one we did, we used a spring with a mass on it. Compressing it, and letting it go, and finding out its forward motion, amplitude, and things like that gives you a better understanding, as there is less, probably no, experimental error in that.

Susan (interviewer): So you are visualizing this? What is happening when you set up the parameters?

Paul: You are watching the compression and expansion of the spring on the computer screen.

Nick: That was cool. Yeah, we were talking about the strengths of using simulations. The three of us are working with differential equations now, so we can do them a different way. We can work on them with the simulations. A lot of things popped up in the simulation program that I hadn't ever thought about with differential equations. Just working the problems in the chapter on differential equations [in our textbook] is not enough to pass the test. The book teaches you how to do things, how to work spring problems out. It'll work everything out with the spring problem, but it won't teach you exactly what's going on with the physics. That's not going to be enough to pass his tests. For his tests you have to know the physics and how to work out a problem. That simulation lab taught me the concepts of the physics, so from that alone I got the concept.

Curt's students are also quick to point out the power and meaningfulness of visualizing physics concepts: how the use of technology enables this visualization and how visualization leads to new insight into everyday experiences.

Alice: [As a result of this course,] I try to visualize things more.

Maggie: I think of physics more. I'm doing it.

Alice: Yeah. Driving down the road, I think of physics more. Like when we were doing acceleration, I link it together. I'm going up a hill, so my velocity--my acceleration--is decreasing. You think in terms of math.... Going around the curves--that acceleration thing, that's why I don't fly off the road. {laughter}

In short, the technology in the lab has changed the way these students understand and appreciate physics not only inside the classroom, but outside as well.

Wow!
Now, how can I get my students to learn like that?
Curt's story may sound simple, but it's not. The truth of the matter is, change is hard. And in this case, you can't go about it without a plan. Through the following links, we offer you a more complete and comprehensive story of Curt Hieggelke's--and his colleagues'--efforts to improve the quality of student learning in the hopes that his experience may serve as a guide to others.