“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Jane has an impressive background in academia. This is how it led her to Modeling Instruction (MI)...
by Jane Jackson, Ph.D.
"ASU graduate school were the most fulfilling years of my life! I took almost every physics course, and loved every bit of it. David Hestenes was my professor for statistical mechanics and relativity – he taught us geometric algebra. I love how geometric algebra unifies Maxwell’s equations. I aced all graduate courses but one. It was not the lectures that made for success. I have learned very little in lectures. It was the DOING: homework, writing out the logic on my own, outside of class.
My dissertation was in theoretical high energy physics. I published 3 papers, and gave a physics colloquium. In my last year I was a lecturer, and I taught the two mathematical physics courses. I enjoyed teaching -- more so than research.
We both received doctorates in May 1970. There were no jobs for women in physics, so we decided that Paul would seek a job. He got a faculty position at South Dakota State University. I volunteered in the physics department for 6 years, while our two children were young, then taught calculus-based physics for 8 years.
After 14 years at So. Dakota State University, Paul was fed up with the devaluing of education in South Dakota. 'Jane', he said, 'Let’s go back home to Arizona. We’ll both look for a job.' I got one: at Scottsdale Community College (SCC). I taught physics and built the astronomy program, adapting ASU labs. I worked hard to make classes active learning and relevant – not just lecture. It was rewarding.
In 1991 I learned about ASU Modeling Instruction. I saw that it was interactive engagement. It was much better than anything I had been doing. I tried to implement it, but failed. To succeed, teachers need a 3-week Modeling Workshop.
In 1994 David Hestenes called me. 'Jane,' he said, 'I need your help, desperately. I’ve just been awarded $4 million by the NSF, for Modeling Instruction, and my intended project director can’t get released from his job. It will only be part-time; you can still work at SCC.' It soon turned into a fulltime job – and still is."
More about Modeling Instruction (MI) in Jane's words in the next installment...
Add your name to those who support Modeling Instruction (MI) by liking & subscribing to The STEM Secret blog here (there's a subscribe button at the top and the bottom of the page: https://www.thestemsecret.com) and by liking & following The STEM Secret FaceBook page (https://www.facebook.com/theSTEMSecret/?modal=admin_todo_tour).
If you are a Modeling teacher, share your story by sending it to the email listed. If you know a great Modeling teacher, encourage them to send their story to the email listed. cjones.stemprofessionals@gmail.com.
If you are Modeling teacher and want to interact with other Modeling teachers with a question, an issue, a classroom experience, an announcement, or anything other MI teachers might be interested in, post it on the M2M (Modeler to Modeler) blog on the AMTA site. https://modelinginstruction.org/submit-a-blog-entry-to-m2m/
Comments