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: ??? ??? ???




Generalizing about Physics students in Australia is a bit of a tall
order for me, Ludwig, but I guess that most people here would agree -
my kids don't "tinker" much, and plastic moulded toys, once taken
apart, do not go together again! They would rather play virtual
reality games, read books or watch TV (in that order) than play
outside in our large yard or tinker with things mechanical. I was
much the same (no virtual reality games though) so who am I to
criticise, but I did spend more time outside as a kid. And as for working on
car engines, etc., they may or may not be more complicated, but
as us adults don't have time to do that now, why would our kids?

When I went to Uni. after an all-girls school, it was very evident
that I had missed out on all the mechanical, hands-on experience most
of the guys had had. ( My school Physics teacher didn't even let us
plug circuits into the 9V dc supply by ourselves, in case we electrocuted
ourselves.) Most of my students now, male and female, seem to have
about the level of hands-on experience that I had.

I refuse to be unduly depressed by this though - I'd rather
concentrate on how to make Physics relevant to this new world, than
miss the old. Computers do encourage logic thought and persistence
(even the games), and TV does open a range of windows on the world
(it's not all LA studios) and our kids are less likely to swallow what
authority dictates whole now. Our Physics students seem to be better
at organization, project-work and verbal expression, and want
(demand?) to know how the subject connects to the real world. I need
to teach in ways that value those skills.

I do see one main problem for Physics however. I think that
education, and the sorts of careers kids aspire to at the moment,
value using technology, software packages etc. to pull material
together without needing to know their detailed workings,
"get the job done" & produce a glossy product. When I first studies
computing, the first lectures were on machine code, even though we
were never going to use anything lower-level than Fortran! Now the
first thing students learn is how to manipulate Win95 packages
without opening a user manual. This is a
fine exercise in synthesis, but clashes fundamentally with the Physics imperitive
to take a particular task or issue and analyse it deeply. I suspect
this has a lot to do with the "unfashionable" air Physics has at the
moment (apart from its title not being a job description, unlike
"Marketing" etc.).

The comments about third-world countries & technology (availability
of TV) have been interesting too. I'm worried that the "age of
communications" may unify the "haves", but in places where access to
clean water is a dream, the communications age may make the gulf even
wider. And in the shanty towns of Bangkok or Djakarta, there may be a TV running
but watching it with 10 others on a dirt floor, after completing your
second or third job for the day to make enough cash for food, is not
a good environment for learning!

Sorry about the pessimistic end!

Margaret

What follows was a long P.S. in my last message. It deserves a new subject.

P.S.
Yes, "thinking's fun", as you wrote, Leigh, and as confirmed by Margaret
on the other side of the globe. I wish my students would agree. Yesterday
I asked, in a Conceptual Science course for non-science majors, "who can
explain changing shapes of the moon to a child?". Nobody raised the hand.
My first thought was "intimidation"; they do not want to be singled out
for an explanation. So I said "I will not ask you to perform. I only want
to know. Would you (pointing to a student in the first raw) count the number
of hands raised when I turn my face toward the blackboard, please." I turned
and waited. Then I turned back and asked about the outcome. "No hands were
raised" she said.

I was depressed. Do you have such students in Australia, Margaret? Phys-L-ers
from other countries, try to describe your situations. How do you deal with
the issue? My approach is "to do the best I can". I would prefer, however, to
be instructed (by those who control education) to reject such students.
But, as Donald pointed out last year, the system does not allow for this.
How should we deal with the issue?
Ludwik Kowalski



Dr. Margaret Mazzolini
School of Biophysical Sciences and Electrical Engineering
Swinburne University of Technology
P.O. Box 218,
Hawthorn VIC 3122 Australia
email: mmazzolini@swin.edu.au
phone: (61 3) 9214 8084 fax: (61 3) 9819 0856