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Re: Re[2]: My view of science and science teaching



Je 10:08 AM 6/12/98 -0700, Leigh Palmer skribis:

I feel this goes unrecgognized by many teachers. The problem is somewhat
greater than that, however. A couple of years ago I taught a mechanics
course at second-year level in which I discovered *after my own teaching
of the material* that, while the students knew and could apply Newton's
second law of motion mathematically

-> -> They did not believe it! <- <-

Intriguing.

It was a shock to me, a naive fellow who had been teaching for a bit
less than three decades.
I discovered this by setting up a simple demonstration and asking the
students to predict what would happen. They pretty much all failed to do
so correctly, and the demonstration was a revelation to them. It is
somewhat unsettling to realize that I (and my colleagues) must have been
turning out nonbelievers as physics graduates for all that time.

"Somewhat unsettling". You don't exaggerate, do you? ;-)

Seriously, I am very interested: What types of demonstrations have you=20
tried or considered? How do you handle the followup? And perhaps most=20
important: Do _these_ students now believe in Newton's 2nd Law? =20

Hmm, imagine starting each subject with a demonstration yielding results=20
counter-intuitive (to many students). There are some great possibilities=20
in this. I would welcome comments and discussion of actual ways & means.

Ken Caviness

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| Ken CAVINESS Physics at Southern Adventist University |
| caviness@southern.edu ESPERANTO =3D Lingvo internacia |
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