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Special Lecture
06/28/06
Things are Seldom What They Seem
Louis Turner Retired High School Teacher and Co-Author of the high school electricity curriculum CASTLE Electricity (Capacitor Assisted System for the Teaching and Learning of Electricity)
4:00-6:00 PM Candle House 104
All members of the Woods Hole scientific community are invited to attend.
Lecture Abstract: Research in physics education has found that "Teaching by Telling" may be efficient, but it is not effective - especially so with introductory courses. This research has also led many to believe
that, instead of finding a better book, we need to change the way we teach physics. Mr. Turner's presentation will describe one way to do this.
The Modeling Method is a class management style that was developed at Arizona State University by the collaboration of Professor David Hestenes with high school teacher Malcolm Welles. It uses a learning cycle where students working in small groups make measurement, analyze data and present their results to classmates. A paradigm lab introduces each unit. The variables to be measured are determined by class discussion. When the students start a lab, they know the variables they are to measure, the equipment they will use, what a typical run is, and their objective. Each group decides the details of how they will proceed. This learning cycle lets students construct their own understanding and fosters critical thinking in more than one way. The Constant Velocity Model will be used to illustrate how the Modeling Method accomplishes these objectives.
The U.S. Department of Education has recognized the Modeling Method as an exemplary curriculum. Only one other curriculum has been so recognized. It was developed in the early 1990s and is now used by hundreds if not thousands of teachers nationwide.
Louis Turner is a 1955 graduate of Dartmouth College and received a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering in 1956. After working for two years at RCA as an electrical engineer, Mr. Turner began his 43-year teaching career. He taught physics, AP physics, and astronomy at Mount Hermon School from 1958-1969, Athens College in Athens, Greece from 1969 to 1971, and Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio from 1971 to 2001.
Mr. Turner retired to Falmouth in 2001. He is one of several co-authors of CASTLE Electricity (Capacitor Assisted System for the Teaching and Learning of Electricity). He is currently writing a unit on magnetism. Mr. Turner has been trained in the Modeling Method, a highly interactive classroom management style where students learn for themselves rather than having an authority figure tell them what they should know. It is one of only two science curricula that has been deemed "exemplary" by the U.S. Department of Education. Mr. Tuner is largely responsible for CASTLE Electricity being part of the Modeling Method. He has run a number of workshops all over the country for physics teachers in both CASTLE Electricity and the Modeling Method.
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