Radiolab, and telling other people's stories

If you listen to Radiolab, you should listen to this week's podcast/show and then read this blog post - this is a spoiler.

In Radiolab, they tell the story of Yellow Rain, a chemical weapon (a fine yellow powder) dropped by the Russians on the Hmong after America pulled out of Vietnam.  They interviewed a Hmong immigrant who remembered seeing this powder and its effects -- whole villages sick and many dying. His niece translated for them.

According to the story, President Reagan used the discovery of this chemical weapon to justify producing nerve gas and renewing our chemical weapons program.

But it turns out it wasn't a chemical weapon at all -- it was bee poop. (And we learned some fascinating things about bee poop along the way - bees don't poop in their hive and, after hibernation, leave en masse to poop - leading to "yellow rain.")  The symptoms of the Hmong were likely due to dysentery and other diseases that ravaged the area during the war and they mis-attributed it to the bee poop.

But the story takes an interesting (and exceedingly uncomfortable) turn when the Hmong interviewee and translator respond to the "bee poop" theory - furious and in tears - they feel set up: they've been brought in to finally tell the story of the atrocities the Hmong faced in Vietnam - but instead these atrocities are shown by Radiolab to be "bee shit." You hear their voices, and then you hear a Harvard biologist and chemical weapons expert. The Hmong man protests: "With my own eyes I saw this... ". The interviewer is inappropriate - really pushing the case - "but he can't say ..." and, "this is hearsay."

Finally the translator says: "for the last 20 years no one was interested in the Hmong people. He agreed to do this interview because you were interested.  No one has cared and you were interested. That the story would be heard and the Hmong deaths would be recognized."

The Radiolab staff present the debate they had regarding whether or not to air the interview. Krulwich argues that there is a truth of the story - chemical weapons weren't used; the Hmong were confused; America used this misinformation to further its own chemical weapons industry - and that this story is important to tell and tell truthfully.  To the  interviewees, however, this isn't the story that needs telling (or it's one of many) - the story they want to tell is the atrocities faced by the Hmong - a story that never gets told and they felt they finally had someone who would hear and tell their story.

It made me think (anew) about whose story we're telling when we do research (and think about Amy's paradigms). We presented to our department seminar two weeks ago - and one of the 4 students we studied closely (and discussed during the seminar) was there at the seminar.  Though we used pseudonyms it was clear that it was her. In the story we tell, her scores don't budge when discussing the nature of science across the semester, but her actions do - her group does some really profound stuff. So it's an interesting story - but to stand there, with her in the room, and tell *her* what she learned, and how that knowledge was not declarative knowledge - felt like I had robbed her of the agency I sought to provide in the inquiry class.  We pulled her into the conversation about what she had learned, she didn't seem dismayed by our analysis, and I felt like we offered a meaningful and, in one way, truthful representation of her experience in inquiry.  At the same time, it was *me* pointing to what, from her experience, *I* found useful and worth telling.  And in that was I was silencing her  and saying what part of her story needed to be heard.

It also makes me think about who chooses what we focus on when we teach. Inquiry does a good job at this (though lately I think I've steered conversation towards the parts I find most meaningful). - I remember reading something a while back about how science takes something kids find fascinating - like a frog, a butterfly, or trucks or something - and strip away a lot of what they find interesting and beautiful to present a scientific fact/truth/theory. You ask people to give up something when they do science.  In inquiry, students with glasses study their glasses - the shape and what lasers do as they travel through; they've brought in pictures of their cats' eyes; data from their ophthalmologist; talked about working with bulls and speculate about bull color vision, etc. This feels like it somewhat addresses the thing I'm concerned about, but I would like to see more of the participants' stories (as authored by the participants) in my work.

Student evals

Saw this in the Atlantic and found it intriguing. It's a student evaluation that is good at predicting student learning (as measured on tests).  Done in K-12 schools, but I can't imagine it wouldn't apply to higher ed.

The 36 questions from which these 5 are drawn are each related to one of 7 categories (which all, cutely, begin with "c"):
  1) Caring about students (encouragement and support)

  2) Captivating students (learning seems interesting and relevant)

  3) Conferring with students (students sense their ideas are respected)
  4) Controlling behaviour (culture of cooperation and peer support)

  5) Clarifying lessons (success seems feasible)

  6) Challenging students (press for effort, perseverance and rigor)

  7) Consolidating knowledge (ideas get connected and integrated)

1. & 2. are considered part of the "control" metric. The study notes that students who take this evaluation vary a lot in their evaluation of teachers (some they treat with respect and some they don't) - so it doesn't boil down to disrespectful students, but respect-inducing teachers.

3. & 4. seem really similar ("stay busy" doesn't seem the same as "doesn't waste time" - isn't "busy work" an example of that? - but they call 3 a measure of a teacher's "control" and 4 is a measure of a teacher's "challenge") -- these seem to be more anticipated than the other 3 - I would think that MOST people would think that 3 & 4 are what matter.

5. I *love* (also considered part of "challenging students")-- although I'm pretty sure I don't do nearly enough of that.

At first I was surprised/sad that #1 wasn't in the top-five. But when I think of my best teachers (Woolard, Robinson) I do not think of them as particularly caring toward me but they did; they were exceedingly professional, intelligent, organized; we did not waste time and neither did they. They clearly loved their subjects, were always learning and trying new things, and took the job seriously.

The teachers who were most caring - where I felt noticed and liked (Hale, Bridges - who knew and liked all their students) - made it possible to get through the day in a way others didn't. But I can see what that might not always translate into test scores.

2 - "captivating" - seems the closest measure of TE that's on there.



Other items that were mentioned as being on the survey (but not in the top-5):

"Teachers in the hallway treat me with respect, even if they don't know me."

"This class feels like a happy family."

These make me really intrigued. I'd like to see the survey, and see a classroom that scores highly overall.  Can't find a copy online, though.

I also wonder if this kind of a survey would apply to academia in general (the administration treats faculty with respect. The administration behaves the way that faculty want them to. The administration doesn't waste time. The administration learns to correct its mistakes.) - would a school that ranks highly have greater test scores among its students??

Context, transfer and NOS

Irene and I are working on a paper on NOS as procedural, rather than declarative knowledge.
In it we look at what students do at the beginning and at the end of a semester; and we look at their surveys at the beginning and end of the semester.

The survey data doesn't change; the video data does. Our argument: procedural knowledge regarding the nature of science (what to DO) is different from declarative knowledge about the nature of science. Procedural knowledge changed; declarative didn't.

But my claim to Irene initially was that I wasn't buying our story -- if I were to come to her house to cook dinner, you would think I was a terrible cook - I defer to authority, don't know how to do simple tasks,  etc.  After two months of cooking in her house and knowing where things are and what kind of foods her family likes, I would look like a great cook. But what would have changed is NOT my "nature of cooking" skills, but just my familiarity with her kitchen. I was always a decent chef - I was just thrown off by the new kitchen and social situation.

(In fact, I was once on a sheep station in New Zealand and was asked if I might make the morning coffee. After 10 minutes of trying to find a filter, I came back and said I just didn't know how to make coffee. Turns out they use instant granules (they're a sheep station hundreds of miles from anywhere - of course they don't have fresh beans!) - and the ridiculously self-sufficient woman who ran the place shook her head "Americans! Can't even make a cup of coffee!" But I *can* make a cup of coffee! Argh! I looked like such an idiot.)


So my concern is that our students get better over the semester NOT because they learn new NOS skills, but they learn the content, they learn each others' names, etc.

BUT! - my new claim is that "good chef" is a context-dependent kind of thing. I'm NOT a good chef on a sheep station or in Irene's kitchen. And there is no "context independent" NOS skills. Just like I would look like an idiot at the LHC or in a biology lab.

I'm still working this out, but I like it. Procedural knowledge about the nature of science includes how do I act in this room with these people.

I'm thinking a lot of the transfer literature will help with this, because I'm not sure if we should expect NOS (procedural or otherwise) to transfer... and if we don't, what *am* I teaching students in my inquiry class?!

Inquiry: Color questions

After two weeks (8 h. of class) we've discussed if every color is in the rainbow, looked through spectroscopes at a range of colored things, generated ideas about what's going on with the colors we are seeing, turned in a homework and gotten that hw returned. It's time to start doing small-group research projects, and I asked each group to generate a list of questions they're interested in pursuing. Every group had a list - but just one quesiton in particular that they want to pursue.  These questions are:

1. What is the difference between pigments and light? They must be related, but one is light and one is objects/tangible.
2. How does color relate to pointillism?
3. Are colors mixed in our heads or on the page? – that is, do yellow and red lights reach our eye and the brain says “orange” or is what is sent to our eye “orange”?
4. What would rainbows look like to different groups: the Himba, or colorblind folks?
5. Do primary colors really make all of the colors – does it matter if it is crayons, paint, nailpolish, etc.?
6. Is a rainbow really there? (Where is it?)

These seem really fantastic to me - they aren't silly "science fair" kinds of questions but really connected to trying to understand what's going on in the perception of color and rainbows.  Here's my thinking on what the groups may do and how it is a deep question...

1. What is the difference between pigments and light? They must be related, but one is light and one is objects/tangible.

This group has members with the idea (from HW) that light, interacting with objects, creates colors that we see. Since there is no brown in the rainbow, it must arise from some kind of light/surface interaction.  I see them moving to the position that all that colored objects do is absorb some light out of the spectrum - and the perception of brown arises from the "chord" of wavelengths that return.

How might they get there? Perhaps a study of brown paint/paper/computer screens/iPhones. See if there's a difference? - I'm happy to let this group dive in without too much guidance - they seem independent enough - but I'll have that up my sleeve.

2. How does color relate to pointillism?

 This group had a member who decided in HW that brown didn't really exist -- if we could zoom in close enough, brown things would always always be a mixture of other colored objects. Her examples had to do with dirt - that the things in nature that are brown are always kind of amalgams of other stuff. This got her thinking about pointillism. Awesome, right??

I'm very excited for this group to look at the colors that you get from pointillism - newsprint, ink printers, screens - using microscopes.  This overlaps closely with group 1 - but I think in a unique way. Their ultimate question is, I think, "is brown its own color or will it always be a mash-up?" and "How does adding dots to a pointillist thing change the perceived color when viewed at a distance?" I might start them off with microscopes and color printing.

3. Are colors mixed in our heads or on the page? – that is, do yellow and red lights reach our eye and the brain says “orange” or is what is sent to our eye “orange”?

This group has this question about chemical reaction v. physical mixing. They haven't used those terms, but I really think that's at the heart of it. This group has three *very* strong science thinkers- one I've had for the past two semesters. I think if they can articulate a really logical argument for mixing instead of reaction, then this will help the other groups.

How should they begin? Orange objects and orange light and spectroscopes? Again, I'll let them just begin and see where they get. Also computer screens & color would be really easy to address this question.

Tied into this question (I think) is the different "kinds" of yellow - a homgeneal and a heterogeneal yellow and how come our brain can't tell the difference.  If they're quick with their question and feel "done" I can start throwing these kinds of issues their way.

4. What would rainbows look like to different groups: the Himba, or colorblind folks?

 This group wants to ask colorblind people and other groups to make rainbows - this could easily devolve into a science fair project, but I won't let it. :) - There will be some serious patterns in their data that will be great to start thinking about. The hard part is how long it might take to get good data. I have case-studies we could look at...

The more cultural aspect is harder to connect with everyone else's questions. So I might steer them toward colorblindness. Although it would be really cool to see different groups - I'm imagining handing someone a box of 64 crayons and ask them to make a rainbow and see which crayons they choose and in which order.

5. Do primary colors really make all of the colors – does it matter if it is crayons, paint, nailpolish, etc.?

Here's a group who will perhaps be able to say that CMY (that the second group should see) is not just coincidence.  I have paints, I have inks, crayons, pencils, etc. They may come to find that a good "red" paint is actually more magenta.

6. Is a rainbow really there? (Where is it?)

The ontological status of the rainbow! I'm picturing modeling the rainbow as a whole bunch of tiny prisms in the air... and trying to figure out how that could lead to perceiving a rainbow. This one is disconnected - very - from the other groups. And a group that isn't quite as independent (based on their homework and attendance). But if they can start diagramming light rays and color, we might be on to something that will help a lot later on.


I'm trying to be more explicit about what it is I'm doing when teaching inquiry. Here I am thinking about the scientific "horizon" - what are the big disciplinary ideas that their questions might connect to?; I'm thinking about the classroom community - will their research projects connect to one another?; I'm thinking about individual skills - are the more independent students working on the topics where I will need to give less guidance?; I'm thinking of pragmatics: do I have the materials and the time for us to explore that question? will some groups move too quickly while others propose project that might take all semester?

One thing I think really helped with the setting of questions was that they had just received feedback on their homework. In the feedback, I would note things like "When you say brown isn't a color, I think what you're saying is that if I could take a super strong microscope and look at brown, I wouldn't see any brown in there - just flecks of other colors?" (This was a student who talked about dirt and the many minerals that make it up and that none of those minerals are inherently brown.)  - or, for the group with primaries "I'm hearing two related ideas: (1) there are only three "real" colors and (2) the colors in the rainbow are those that come from just two of the three colors."  I know that for my own research, talking it through with someone else who can say back to me "what you're saying is...", is incredibly valuable at homing in on a question. I think that was true here, too.

Remember this for NOS & Definitions papers

Another quote from Jeppsson. I should go back and examine this for the NOS and definitions papers.

diSessa, et al., (2003) suggest that this instability in learners‟ use of language reflects the absence of a metalinguistic commitment to generality and consistency in the use of scientific terms. In addition, in the context of a survey of different types of resources that can help to characterize naive and expert understanding diSessa (1998) mentions nominal facts and narratives. Nominal facts are learned factual statements that derive from novices‟ brief exposure to science, but, according to diSessa, “frequently have so little meaning for students that the meaning and implications of the facts are haphazard consequences of the situation in which students try to use them” (diSessa, 1998, p. 719). For example, „heat is transferred from a hot object to a cold object‟ may be recalled as a fixed phrase without conveying any meaning. Narratives, like nominal facts, are superficial verbal resources that have been memorized with little understanding. To diSessa (1998) narratives are easily learnt by physics students. On the other hand, once a commitment to meaningful, coherent, consistent language used is in place, language can impose a kind of top-down coherence in the appropriate application of p-prims, an early theoretical proposal made by diSessa (1993b). Empirically, Levrini and diSessa (2008) have shown how definitions introduced by a teacher supported students in applying their understanding of proper time across a wider range of contexts. However, Levrini and diSessa do not document how definitions guide the application of particular p-prims. Thus, absent from this work is the characterization of how language interacts with specific intuitive knowledge structures to support understanding and reasoning in a way that resembles the work on gesture (Roth & Lawless, 2002) and equations (Sherin, 2001, 2006) reviewed above.

Jeppsson summarizes recent research.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508406.2012.691926

Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding continuity between novice and expert reasoning (e.g. Amin, 2009; Clement, 2009; diSessa, 1993b; Gupta, et al., 2010; Hammer & Elby, 2003; Sherin, 2001). Three key themes run through this literature: (1) rather than contrast the knowledge representations of novices and experts in terms of broad types of informational content, researchers are identifying the many sense-making resources available to the novice that could play a role in expert understanding and reasoning; (2) rather than assume language-like propositional representations and computational processes, there is a growing commitment to embodiment, where abstract knowledge and reasoning are viewed as grounded in early bodily-based interactions with the world; (3) it is recognized that external semiotic systems such as language, equations, images, diagrams, graphs, physical artifacts and gestures interact with internal cognitive resources to support understanding and reasoning. 

I love that summary. It helps me situate my own work.

It works with the "Inhaling Calories" paper, with the "5 Laws" paper, and with the NOS paper Irene and I are writing that locates understanding of NOS as not " language-like propositional representations" but contextual procedural knowledge. 

The invention of blue

Radiolab did a story a few months back on color. In it, they mention that old books describe blue things we consider blue in weird ways - not as blue, but as some other color. Blue, as a color category, is "invented" late in most cultures.

I just played around with color on google's ngram (and I could spend an entire day playing/wasting time on ngram)-- see the rise of blue in English! (I'm pretty sure the recent decline is due to the invention of words in general, so every word gets less of a percentage of the whole). I also wonder if "green" is rising in popularity because it's not just a color but a buzzword...

Though going back even further might show blue was a big deal... or we're seeing the statistics of small numbers?

My favorite color - by far - is yellow. But yellow might be past its glory days. Poor yellow.


Also cool to look at is cyan - which is a color that isn't so important until you want to print in color - and its friend magenta (which seems more useful, even outside of the printing process):

That huge spike in cyan shows when CMY printing was introduced (methinks). Not sure about that later spike in 2002. Is the the advent of everyday folks buying color printers?

In fact, looking up "CMY" (and RGB and CMYK) we can see a ridiculously huge spike at its inception. Color displays come into play later:

And, for my regular viewers:

Amy has recently been outpaced by Michael, but both are on the up and up. Sam, ever popular, is nonetheless on the decline. Leslie, sadly, is, and always has been, dead last. Yellow and I have a lot in common.

... the tiniest morsel

From Krista Tippett's interview with Mike Rose:

The assumption is, if someone can’t do something, then it indicates some deficiency, some deficit. And our tendency has been, then, to take whatever task it is, whether it’s mathematics or writing or reading, and break it down into the tiniest morsels and then skill and drill folks through them. Right? And you and I - everybody has seen this a jillion times. You know-- the grammar notebook or the entire remedial course that is just focused on getting the verb tenses right or filling in the blank and that sort of thing. Now, let me say here, that’s all important stuff. I want people to get their verb tenses right. But it seems to me that this approach we’ve taken - which is to assume that if somebody doesn’t get something you’ve got to break it into the tiniest morsels and just focus on that - has just not been that productive. So what do you do? Well what you do do is you create conditions where, right from the jump, you’re giving people intellectually engaging material. And if their skills are so poor that they can’t even read it you read it for them. You get the conversation going around this question in political science or in sociology or in a piece of literature. You generate that - you spark the intellectual activity… if you get this if you get this excitement going, if you get this conversation going, and everybody can contribute because everybody’s - everybody can pull things from their own experience - everyone’s had rich lives of experience. You draw from that. You bring in concepts… The point is, you throw people into the activity. And then along the way you address the bits and pieces. You don’t let those go by the wayside, but you integrate them into a meaningful classroom - into a meaningful engagement that lets them feel like “You know what? I’m in the middle of something here that I haven’t been in before.”

Little known fact: I have thrown up in Mike Rose's trashcan.