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Re: Jackson on Jackson

Not all capable students have the interest nor desire to become physics
majors. I had no interest in becoming a physician, a lawyer, or a
multitude of other professional people even though I was capable. Why
should I think in an egocentric way that all capable students should
enjoy physics just because I enjoy it?

I think there is little, if any, value to a student's sitting through a
course in physics without being reached. It is not important that a
student enjoy his courses; I'm unclear as to why you raise the issue.

I've forgotten your original statement, Leigh, but I was referring to career
choices, not university courses.


Don't we need capable people in other professions? I tell all of my
advisees that they should make their professional choice based on
enjoying the work. They should find a profession where on Sunday they
look forward going to work on Monday, and being sad that on Friday they
have to wait until Monday to get back on the job. Obviously, people who
spend Monday and Tuesday talking about what they did on their past
weekend and the rest of the week planning for the coming weekend aren't
working in the appropriate field.

Ah, you are a hedonist! My own personal philosophy (which I will inflict
upon my advisees, but which I clearly label as my own inexpert view) is
that if one can achieve the sort of outcome it is wonderful. I must
confess that I don't feel that way on Sunday night (I have two lectures
to give on Monday), but I find my "job" overall so rewarding that I'd do
it for free now that my financial worries are long past.

I'm sure we all have experienced your feeling at one time or another. Again,
I don't remember the original statement you made which prompted this
response. I remember once a high school friend who was guidance counselor
for one of the community colleges in California telling me about a student
he had who wanted to be a machinist. Steve said that the young man was too
smart to be a machinist and that his wife and her family wanted him to do
something else (translate that to mean better). I told Steve that he should
tell the student to become the best machinist that he can become. I believed
that advice 35 years ago and believe it now. If being a machinist gave him
satisfaction then he would be far happier and live longer than by doing
something else.

Leigh, you have been teaching for a number of years. Do you find any
differences in the students now than when you first started teaching?
You apparently are finding what I find that students aren't comfortable
with working through problems algebraically. Our freshman want to
substitute numbers in immediately and then manipulate algebraically
equations loaded with numbers, many of which are in scientific notation.
Fortunately, we are able to work with them and are successful in
converting most of them to solving problems algebraically first, then
substituting numbers at the very end.

That problem has always been there, but it is more prevalent now than it
formerly was. Ther has been a deterioration in these skills over my 30
years of teaching, and British Columbia high school students are better
prepared in math and science than those of any other state or province
on the continent by some actual measurements. My problem is exacerbated
by the adoption five years ago of a more "inclusive" admissions policy,
targeted hypocritically at increasing our numbers and the formula based
grant from the province. We have lost many excellent high school grads
to the university across town, UBC. Formerly we got the cream because we
had a higher admission standard than UBC (I think). Our Dean was hot to
trade quality for quantity. I'm pleased to report that the pendulum here
is now swinging back, but it will be too late for me. I face compulsory
retirement in September 2000.

Kansas has had an open door policy for years. Any student graduated from an
accredited high school could attend any one of the six universities. That
will change by the year 2000 because the Board of Regents just passed a
qualified admissions policy.

It is the second semester of the conventional first year course in which
we try to cover almost all of one of the many Halliday & Resnick clones.
I have 29 students left after the first midterm (the first Friday of
October - they can drop without penalty the next Monday), so I can afford
to pay attention to individuals. The trouble is that they don't seem to
know (or else believe) that they are in trouble; I see very many fewer
students than ought to be coming to see me. This is the slack semester
for this course; often in spring it has enrolments approaching 200. They
have a golden opportunity and they do not avail themselves of it!

We never have that many students. About 20 is all we can expect in the
calculus based physics which is taught once each year. However, we will
graduate with physics degrees about 25% of these students. Maybe we could do
better with wholesale adoption of the less is more philosophy, but we
conduct small classes and pretty highly interact with the students already.
Our problem is recruiting students to come to Fort Hays State University and
study physics.

I'm in a department of 30 faculty. We infrequently graduate more than ten
students per year in our programs. I think the most we ever graduated was
just over twenty. Realistically we could devote the same sort of time to
instruction that your musicians do.

I am in a department of 4.5 FTE (six faculty members). I am currently the
only full time tenured faculty member. The others are temporary,
non-tenured, and/or part time.
I know my evidence is only anecdotal, but I am convinced that the lecture
mode is only superficially efficient.
If by lecture you mean reading notes and doing derivations without any
chance for discussion, I agree. Very boring too. I had a young PhD fresh out
of Harvard for an instructor in an undergraduate economics class many years
ago. He read from his notes the whole period. When the whistle blew
signaling the end of class, he stopped in mid sentence, folded his notes,
walked over to his coat, put it on, and walked out of the room without
saying another word. That's the extreme. I don't lecture that way, and it is
not what I meant by the lecture method.
The students aren't learning from
the lectures.
I agree unless there are interactions between students, and professor. We
also use a lot of demonstrations and media in our classes, but one can be so
involved this way that very little material gets covered. I know from
personal experience that unless I make a schedule for myself and follow it,
I might be just starting magnetism by the end of the semester when the
syllabus said we would cover that and optics.
The least I can do for them is to entertain, and that I try
to do. Any learning that occurs *en passant* is gravy. I have a friend
who is an excellent theoretical physicist and a talented lecturer, and
also a prominent physics educationalist. He thinks the lecture mode is
terribly ineffective, an opinion he impressed on me in 1994. I was on the
other side of that argument back then; I'm coming over to his side now,
I'm afraid. As I point out above, I don't think it is unreasonable that
we pay a great deal of individual attention to students who want to
become physicists.
I have absolutely no argument with you here.
I paid a great deal of attention to my own children's
needs, including their considerable intellectual needs, and I think they
benefitted greatly from that attention. My students don't have that kind
of support behind them for the most part; I think we should recognize
that the need exists and do something about filling it. Perhaps private
science lessons for budding scientists are as appropriate as private
music lessons for budding concert artists (and many, many more who don't
go on to the profession take them, too).
Are you talking about elementary and secondary school, or are you thinking
about the university level student?

In the 94-95 school year I was a visiting scholar in the Cavendish Lab.
in Cambridge. The students there receive weekly "supervisions", hour
long one-on-one or one-on-two encounters, weekly with a faculty member or
grad student. I'm sure it is very expensive, but I'm also sure that it is
money well spent. Their undergrads are excellent! Here in Vancouver some
parents (especially among the ethnic Chinese community) are willing to
pay fees comparable to music instruction fees for their children to
receive tutoring in mathematics. These are the best students, not the
worst, who are taking this instruction.
This points out one of the differences between the American and British
educational systems. There seems to be a kind of elitism in the British
system. On the other hand our colleges and universities are going the other
way and trying to educate everyone.

Just some of my radical ideas.

I appreciate them and don't believe we differ in basic beliefs.
Leigh




Roger Pruitt