Using Whiteboards to promote self-explanation

One of the reasons teachers are such good physics problem solvers is due to the many opportunities we have had to explain our thinking on how to solve problems to our students. This form of self-explanation has been shown many times in the research literature to improve learning significantly compared to non-explainers. It would seem wise then to give our students an opportunity to explore self-explanation as a way of helping them become better problem solvers. This workshop will introduce teachers how to use inexpensive whiteboards to improve student’s problem solving using self-explanation. You will be invited to engage in the process in the same way as the students would by providing explanations to both conceptual and numerical based problems (please bring a calculator). Co-operative group tactics will be embedded within the workshop to help you ensure that all students are self explaining in your classroom.

"Glenn Wagner has been a physics and science educator for the past 20 years. He takes great joy in learning how people learn, so much so that he is in his second year of a Ph.D. program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He has written numerous articles related to physics teaching and is constantly trying new, research-based ideas in his physics classroom to improve student learning. Glenn Wagner was a winner of the 2009 Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence and is a past-president of OAPT.