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Re: What to "cover" (Was dimensionsless units etc.)

Reform can always start at any point in the school system, but there is one good indicator for starting in middle school. The TIMMS report showed that US students fared well up to 4th grade. The major slide starts in middle school. Yes, we do need to train better teachers in the grades, but remember that most grade school teachers tend to be concrete thinkers.

A second reason for middle school is that is the age when there seems to be a window of opportunity due to the rapid brain development, that is the prelude to development of abstract thinking skills. This is precisely what Shayer, Adey, and Yates have been able to do with their curriculum. They are currently investigating the lower grades, but one fact emerged from their research. The curriculum that they used seems to be effective in increasing students thinking skills to where up to 70% achieve abstract thinking at the end of HS. Similar attempts at earlier ages seem to be able to advance the development of the higher stages of concrete thinking, but they do not produce abstract thinking ability. Their curriculum uses essentially very guided inquiry methods to build thinking skills. These are the prerequisites for most of the sciences, especially physics. Their curriculum also teaches some science as a by product.

I have found that a Piagetian test serves as a very good predictor for student ability to learn physics concepts. Without the prerequisite thinking ability, it is not possible to get very far in physics. With the good thinking ability students zoom ahead easily. As a result, I feel that the average HS physics course should be a good place to improve student thinking ability, and I have had good success in doing this. Since the majority of HS physics students will never take another physics course, and only a very small minority will ever go on to a career in science, we need to give then the best thinking ability, at the possible expense of a few pieces of curriculum.

I am very doubtful about the great ideas in physics course. Most students will not be able to understand the concepts very well without the necessary background in the more classical physics. I would point to the articles at http://www.phys.ksu.edu/perg/papers/narst/ especially the one by Wittman. Has the great ideas curriculum been evaluated for effectiveness by pre and posttests? I suspect that the students in that type of course just memorize and forget. I take the point of view that all curricula should be pre and posttested, and until then they should be treated as experimental only. Education is currently in the same state medicine used to be in. Doctors never really knew how good their treatments were until they bought into the idea of rigorously testing the remedies. If doctors still relied on testimonials the way educators do, we would still be treated with leeches for most ailments.

Soon we may be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the PER curricula. The best comparative evaluation needs to be about 4 years after the PER inspired courses. They should be effective in raising the general thinking ability of students. Thinking ability increases have the strongest effect in the long term, with only limited effect in the short term. This is the lesson that can be learned from the Shayer and Adey research. I would point out that Feuerstein has also shown that his program can have better effects in the long term. Is anyone looking at this?????

John M. Clement


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators
[mailto:PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu]On Behalf Of Dewey Dykstra, Jr.
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 10:20 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: What to "cover" (Was dimensionsless units etc.)


...The "ultimate" solution is to promote middle school curricula which
promote better thinking ability. This makes more possible l
ter on.

John M. Clement


Why wait to start there? It is clear that children think and quite
powerfully from birth (at least). They accomplish the major intellectual
feat of figuring out language FROM "SCRATCH" so to speak.

There are good examples that illustrate we do not have to wait
for children
to be able to think in math ed (see articles by Paul Cobb and
group) and in
science ed (in particular the work of Sr. Mary Gertrude Hennessey in Wisc
who was a student of Peter Hewson's). While the "science might not be all
that great" it is clear that children in Karen Gallas' book, Talking Their
Way Into Science, are thinking quite well, too.

Dewey


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann

"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.

"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
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