Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: forces



Paul Camp wrote:

I personally think it would be hard to do this but your concerns are
well taken and the need for a longitudinal study, which you seem to
be suggesting, is apparant. My gut feeling is that a carefully chosen
set of topics that are well-understood will hang around a great deal
longer than a broad set of topics covered superficially.

That carefully chosen topics that are well-understood, etc. is a
straw-horse set up to knock down. No data in the world, I believe, will
support broad superficial coverage over in depth coverage. Perhaps you
have stated the problem--what are a basic set of topics that should be
covered?

I tend to think of my job as more one of teaching reasoning skills
applicable across a broad range of problems than one of teaching
specific problem analysis techniques in great detail.

We are in agreement here.

I don't teach
bridge design but I expect that the force and equilibrium ideas
taught in my class will assist my students in qualitative analysis of
their designs should they end up in that career.


Again, we are in agreement. Others have indicated that the calculus
based physics course is a terminal course for engineering students. I
disagree with that idea. As a chemical engineering student many years
ago who was in the first semester of his senior year when the Soviet
Union launched their first satellite, I would have to argue that the
first courses in physics were all important for what followed. Had the
thermodynamics section been left out I would have been cheated and would
have had to struggle in my Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics class.
The statics and dynamics parts of the first semester also served me well
in the statics and dynamics courses in engineering. We often leave out
fluid flow in the calculus based physics course now, but the
introduction that I got in physics helped a great deal in my engineering
courses.

We have a dual degree program, and more of our students get a physics
degree as well as an engineering degree. We have more students in this
program than as pure four year physics majors, although, many of our
students beginning to stay around and get the four year degree before
studying engineering at the graduate level. Perhaps the success of these
programs taints my thinking, but I still ask the question. What is the
success rate of students in the technical areas as a result of these
"watered down" beginning courses?

I think educational innovation is fine, and there are many reasons for
trying new techniques. We must, however, be careful that we don't end up
producing graduates that are less competent some years later.

Roger


Paul J. Camp

Roger Pruitt