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Re: What Flows?



If we insist on the students accepting certain language because we know it
is right, then what kind of critical thinking are we preparing them for.

I'll take that as a genuine question, though the lack of a question mark
seems to make it rhetorical. The answer is simple. We are preparing them
to think rigorously, and that is the kind of thinking we admire most.

Right, this was intended as a question. As has happened before, I, too,
have a simple answer, but, as before, it is not the same as you suggest.

As an example, how do you expect a student to understand a mathematician
when he is speaking *ex cathedra* and uses the expression "in general"?
To a mathematician that means "always without exception" in common speech
"in general" means "usually", implying that there exist exceptions! The
two meanings are, if not 360 degrees apart, at least 180*. The student
must be told that; there is no way for the information to reach him
otherwise, and he will never understand what the mathematician is saying
until he knows it.

But your example of rigorous thinking in response to my 'question' about
critical thinking involves students _already knowing_ someone else's
meaning for an expression _before_ that person uses it. In this example, I
don't see much critical _or_ rigorous thinking going on, plain old, already
knowing maybe, but not critical thinking. I don't see critical thinking as
already knowing the meaning of and agreeing with what someone else says.
For me critical thinking is a process of trying to decide what it is that
another apparently means and deciding whether one agrees with this idea or
meaning and why. _Already_ knowing and agreeing has no critical thinking
to it, this state may be the _result_ of some sort of critical thinking,
but from all I've seen (the 'heat' and units/dimensionality debates being
merely the most recent examples) the position here is that students must
accept because what is said is Right, Correct, or True. (Van Neie's note
today on "Who is the Authority" seems quite to the point here.) This
provides _no_ practice or experience in or exposure to critical thinking.
This sort of acceptance is _not_ a kind of thinking that I admire at all,
neither the kind of thinking cultivated in the students nor the kind
practiced by the instructor.

I see no rigor in this example, but the most superficial. I do not see
this 'rigor' as equivalent to 'critical' as in the expressions "thinking
rigorously" and "thinking critically".

The example given above also suggests that one can know something merely by
being told, in this case it is suggested that this is the _only_ way ("no
way...otherwise"). I agree that one might be missing at least a portion
(if not a lot) of the mathematician's meaning if one is not aware of the
possibility of this distinction. I find it much more likely though that,
once told or many times told, many people will still not 'understand' or
realize the meaning, until they stumble across an apparent breech between
their understanding of the mathematician's meaning and the mathematician's
meaning itself made manifest in some aspect of the mathematician's
subsequent behavior. The resulting disequilibration of the student(s) can
serve as motivation to resolve itself through further interaction with and
observation of the mathematician's behavior and 'critical' thinking on the
part of the student(s); that is if the mathematician will cooperate
sufficiently and the situation allows in the students' perception of the
situation.

Hence, being told is not the _only_ way by which the students can come to
understand this notion. In my experience it is the _least_ likely way that
I expect most would come to understand this aspect of a mathematician's
meaning, *ex cathedra*. Unfortunately, if students are convinced that in
this field True knowledge only comes from authority, then it is less likely
for them to conceive of the mathematician as being cooperative or that
situations would allow them to resolve the 'breech,' they are left to
conclude that it is _they who are the problem for not 'knowing' in the
first place; a conclusion which most (upwards of 90% and more) of the
students in mathematics and physics in fact appear to settle upon.

My answer to the 'question' is that "insist[ing] on the students accepting
certain language because we know it is right" is no preparation for
critical thinking at all in the sense that I mean by critical thinking.

In my mind the important question is how does someone 'get' meaning in the
first place? This is what my teaching is about. As Dave says, I find that
I have to start where the students _are_ and get _them_ to consider _their_
notions in the light of the phenomena. _They_ have to decide whether to
change notions and what the new notions are that make the most sense when
they do decide to change. My role is to get them to pursue this process.
Rigor for me then is not adherence to someone else's notions, but to always
pushing one's sense of the fit between notions and phenomena, one more
step; always trying to decide why one has decided about the notions
concerning about the phenomena as one has and always searching for the
limits of these notions.

"Heat" is the same kind of terminology. If used rigorously it leads to an
understanding of entropy. Used sloppily it can prevent the attainment of
that degree of enlightenment.

This is not how it happened originally according to my understanding of the
history of the ideas and in the context of what I think you mean by "If
used rigorously..." is the case. I do not see it happening in the
classroom in general. I don't even see it here on Phys-L! The fact that
'we' have not all used "heat" in the same way seems to have led to much
careful, critical thought. Again, I point to the questions raised by Van
Neie and the manner and spirit in which he is attempting to raise them.

What I see is that they are prepared to rely on others for Truth and not
prepared for any sort of independent thinking at all. Why else do we pull
our hair out at the mindlessness of our students, except that teaching by
transmission of truth from authority trains mindlessness. Those students
who think for themselves are branded as troublemakers and the system
attempts to beat them down.

That's fantasy. Did you think for yourself, Dewey? I did; no one beat me
down. I used to annoy the bejesus out of some of my teachers but they
were quite tolerant. I think I've learned quite a bit of physics, but I
didn't always see The Way. In some cases I had it beat *into* me.

My background is not the same as 99+% of my students. People did try to
beat me down. What I see is that most students _are_ beat down. Clearly,
it is not fantasy to me or I would not have said it.

If it is fantasy, then why is it that we do not get better 'results' from
our teaching (even of the physics majors, our _smallest_, most elite
constituency!) and why have I sat in so many sessions in undergraduate,
graduate school, and as a faculty member with faculty wondering out loud
why the students did not think more independently? (None of these places
are really 'backwater' schools, certainly not Case Tech and UT-Austin)

If you are essentially happy with things as they are or you believe that
things are as they must be and we cannot do better, then there is no need
to change. If you can ignore the findings of research in student
conceptions (more than 3500 citations exist in one bibliography on this
subject, the majority of which are written by physicists with I expect at
least as good a preparation in physics as yours or mine), if you can ignore
the results of diagnostic testing such as the FCI (both the data presented
in the original articles and that which Hake has been giving talks about
and sending out, hopefully to be published in some form soon) and
Minstrell's Dynamics Diagnostic and the Motion and Force Conceptual
Evaluation from the Tufts Tools for Scientific Thinking Project, then okay
there is no need to change. I have not been able to ignore this sort of
thing since I first was put in the front of the classroom facing the
students and had the opportunity to examine what they do.

I am decidedly not happy at all with the general results of physics
teaching. As far as I'm concerned these results diminish the profession of
physics and what it has to offer to society and itself. I cannot force
anyone else to believe as I do, but I can try to get my practice of physics
teaching to be what makes better sense to me and try to explain this to
others.

"Deep down we know what the answer is." Yes, and it appears we have
_different_ answers. ;^)

... still.
no arguments here.

We are on fundamentally incommensurate paradigms concerning the nature of
knowledge and knowing. (I was going to say different wavelengths, but that
connotes too much similarity. The differences between our views is much
more radical than that.) I was raised on the one I perceive you are using.
I no longer find it useful nor that it fits what I see happening either
with individual students, groups of students in physics courses, or physics
instruction in general. I am glad to explain my view as I have time to do
so, but I do not insist that you change your mind on these issues. Please
realize that while I am likely to continue changing and may hold different
views in the future, it is probably not realistic to expect that I would
revert back to the paradigm in which I no longer believe. I cannot require
you to make changes in your views. I leave you to make your own decisions
in that respect.


Pacem, or is it pace?

It's "shalom", or "salaam" if you're right handed.

as always...

Dewey

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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/SN318 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@varney.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper
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