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Re: common denominator



I am also teaching (adjunct) at a two year college of CUNY, but in the
day. One section of physics and one of astronomy. My experience does not
match that of Herb Gottlieb. In the physics class (2nd semester general,
non-calc physics), most are reasonably motivated but very poorly
prepared. One student admitted at one point that she had never
understood the difference between velocity and acceleration, thus had
never understood how you can have an acceleration when the velocity is
zero. This came up in a discussion of how you could have an electric
field at a point where the potential is zero.

Almost universally students come out of first semester with no
understanding of the conservation of energy nor of the meaning of
potential energy. Most are pretty near helpless with vectors.

I have had a discussion with the Chairman just today about the question
of standards and failure rates. Let's just say that grade inflation
continues to thrive and the desire to keep customers happy still
dominates. The teacher is asked to "cover" an amount of material that
totally precludes any depth of understanding whatsoever. The theory
seems to be that "Even if one takes much more time and goes into much
more depth of conceptual understanding, the students (many of them at
least) will not understand it anyway, so let's pretend we are really
teaching physics by covering as much as the professor can talk through
and we'll find a way to pass them".

This is clearly at variance with an abundance of published research on
these questions, but I think the overwhelming majority of college
physics teachers remain blissfully unaware of what the research is
finding and most show little interest in learning. Perhaps this is
because even when they do learn, their departments and colleges will not
support improved instruction and the raising of standards -- especially
if the price involves facing reality. Obviously this situation is by no
means unique to this institution (or this department).

We are supposed to cover: Harmonic motion, waves, electric forces and
fields, dc circuits, magnetic forces and fields, electromagnetic
induction, ac circuits, as well as a major chunk of optics, including
lots of homework problems, in 3 hours per week (no recitation). I would
maintain that is (putting it charitably) not realistic. If in the future
I can give the FCI to a section of students at this school (say after
the first semester), I know the results will be complete disaster. But I
doubt that anyone wants to know that.

As the years go on, we are required to cover more and more, in less and
less time, with students who are weaker and weaker at entrance, and make
sure that the grade averages go up and up.

I was shown today the grade distribution for the physics department.
There were about 44% A's and B's, more than 80% C- and above, a GPA, I
imagine of around 3.0. Around 10 years ago I saw a statistic that
nationwide the F/WU rate for first semester physics (and calculus) in
college was over 50%. Obviously we are curing that, but at what cost?

TIMSS anyone?