preconceptions (was student evaluations)

[kyle forinash <kforinas@IUS.EDU>]

At the risk of making some of the people who are doing good and
interesting research on the idea that student preconceptions in
science are important I'd like to make the following comment.

First: I agree that it is very important to confront (in as dramatic
a way as possible) the incorrect Aristotelean world view of most
incoming science students. Certainly the FCI is a useful tool for
uncovering some of those misconceptions. And maybe we should spend
even more time finding out what those are so we can address them more
aggressively. But maybe not.

Maybe we shouldn't really care what kind of bizarre and weird thought
patterns are going on in the heads of our students so long as they
can figure out the correct answers to physics problems where the
answers are known. Maybe it is a good thing that each individual has
their own way of looking at things. Maybe these alternative views
eventually will enable them to solve not only the problems where the
answers are known (ie. 'in the book') but also new problems where the
'traditional' way of thinking fails.

This to me is the central significance of trying to address gender
and ethnic diversity questions in science. We need to start with all
the alternative and creative views we can get (the next step is to
test them rigorously to see if they are useful but we have to START
with plenty of creative ideas). The creative part of science is in
thinking of good questions to ask and finding new ways to ask those
questions. Sure we want students to know the traditional stuff, to be
able to work the traditional problems (and get the 'right' or book
answer- a sort of Turing test of physics intelligence). But I do not
think we should ask them to adopt our mental processes or 'believe'
(in any religious sense) in science. Maybe (hopefully!) they'll
develop their own way of thinking of physics and it will be better
than ours!

kyle

> I haven't followed the whole thread on the FCI & evaluations, etc. so I
> apologize if I'm restating a previous point.  For me, the greatest
> benefit of the FCI is in telling me what I have to UNteach before I try
> to do any teaching.
>
> Greg Kifer
>
> "In my life what it isn't what I didn't know that hurt me, it's what I
> knew that wasn't so."  Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
  kyle forinash   812-941-2390
  kforinas@ius.edu
  Natural Science Division
  Indiana University Southeast
  New Albany, IN    47150
  http://Physics.ius.edu/
-----------------------------------------------------