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Re: AP Physics Students

But I'd respectfuly suggest that the issue should not
be framed as to whether traditional methods produce
good scientists and engineers, but rather what happens
to all the other physics students (who in fact are the
majority). Let's say there was a traditional way to
teach hitting in baseball and all the .300 hitters
were interviewed to see what they thought of their
instruction. I suggest that the vast majority would
heartily endorse it. But what about the .225 hitters?
What would they say? The fact that the top 3-4% of the
population can make the conceptual connections given
traditional instruction (ie, heavy emphasis on
quantittaive problems) says, IMHO, nothing about
whether or not this is the best approach for the
majority of our students. John Barrere
--- Robert A Cohen <bbq@ESU.EDU> wrote:
Not only did they become "quite good scientists and
engineers" with
traditional courses but they did it without
computers in the classroom,
the internet, computer-assisted measurements, etc.

I suspect they also did it with quite a few high
school instructors who
were not trained in physics.


----------------------------------------------------------
| Robert Cohen Department of Physics
|
| East Stroudsburg
University |
| bbq@esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA
18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428
|

----------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, RAUBER, JOEL wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hake [mailto:rrhake@EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 2:39 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: AP Physics Students

. . .
What is the evidence (other than vague reference
to our "current
science and technology") that students who went
through such courses
"became quite good scientists and engineers."
And even if such
evidence were to exist, it could be argued that,
for example:
. . .



The evidence is prima facie, would anybody on this
list or in
Science/Engineering education seriously argue with
the following statements
(paraphrasing the evidence)

a) Most successful practioners of
Engineering/Science in Industry or
Academia (as of say 1990)had there education in
rather traditional type
courses, particularly their introductory physics
instruction.

b) The fact that science and engineering practice
has had resounding
successes in the 20th century points to the fact
that they (or more properly
a sufficient subset) became "quite good scientists
and engineers".








disclaimer:
I'm not saying (here) that these traditional
courses caused the successful
engineering/science practice, but I would argue
two points.

1) That the quoted statement above is so
essentially obviously true, "prima
facie", that the opening clause "what is the
evidence . . ." is unwarranted.

2) While the prima facie evidence doesn't prove a
causality as noted above.
It certainly didn't hinder the creation of
successful practioners (in the
sense of creating a sufficiently large set that
achieved the critical mass
necessary to give society all the benefits of
science and technology
advancement that has occured in the last century.)

(Note: I'm not saying that individuals didn't
exist for whom traditional
courses didn't hinder their individual
advancement.)



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