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Re: Active Physics First in San Diego



[A forwarded message by Colleen Megowan, from the modeling listserv.
Colleen taught at a Catholic high school in California for many years. She
uses Modeling Instruction, and she was a SCAMPI trainer.]


Last week Larry Woolf posted to Phys-L:

1. Is Active Physics a recommended program for 9th grade?

2. If you have used Active Physics, what was your opinion of the program?

I've used (well--it was the text at my old school for 2 years--I can't say
that I used it much) Active Physics in my 9th grade classes and I would give
it a big thumbs down for use in your district. If you're a modeler it will
drive you crazy--there's no way you can do modeling with it. It presents the
material at a very low level and in no particular order. Of course students
like it--it makes very few demands on them to think, and underprepared
teachers like it to because it places very little emphasis on knowing
anything deeply.


3. Can students who take Active Physics as their first year physics course
succeed in AP physics and do well on the AP test?

It depends--there are some students who are smart, motivated and
diligent--they will do well in AP physics and on the test even if they've
never had a physics course before. Most won't. Active Physics minimizes
mathematical modeling so you'll be starting from scratch with that in AP.


4. Do you think students who take high school physics perform better in
college physics than those who do not? Sadler's article states, 'While,
on average, taking a high-school physics course appears to have little
relationship to college physics performance '

I haven't read Sadler's article---I'd be curious to know the basis for his
conclusion. I can tell you that alums--most of them pre-med majors--that
have come back to visit have said they were REALLY glad they'd had physics in
high school--college physics was hard but they could do it whereas many of
their peers simply dropped the course and changed majors. These are kids who
took honors physics in 11th or 12th grade though and not just 9th grade
physics.


5. Is physics in the 9th grade preferred over the more traditional physics
in 11th and 12th grade?

I don't think 9th grade physics is enough for kids who will be required to
take physics in college--I think they need to revisit it in 12th grade at a
higher level of thinking and mathematical rigor. I think the virtue of 9th
grade physics, particularly modeling physics, is that it teaches them to
think and reason, and it prepares them for chemistry.


6. In a physics first approach, does the physics course such as Active
Physics coherently support the subsequent chemistry and biology courses and
does the chemistry course coherently support the subsequent biology course?

Active Physics does nothing in particular to prepare a student for chemistry
unless the teacher explicitly makes the connection for them, and even then
there's very little, and it does virtually nothing to tune up the math skills
necessary for chem.


7. What do university professors think of Active Physics as preparation for
college physics?

8. What do you think of the idea of requiring all 9th graders to take Active
Physics? Do you think that math-and-science-oriented students can
successfully take a more traditional physics course in 9th grade?

I've done Physics First for 6 years and modeling for 3 and I definitely think
motivated students can take Modeling Physics in 9th grade. You have to leave
out the trig and I skipped a couple of the units--momentum and projectile
motion, but they are very capable of doing the bulk of the material. They
take well to modeling--in fact they plunge into it with much greater abandon
than 12th graders who see it for the first time, because they're not so
worried about appearing 'dumb' to their peers or their teacher. They know
that the modeling technique and the material are new to everybody and that
sort of levels the playing field.

Colleen Megowan
Jess Schwartz Jewish community High School
Phoenix, AZ

Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>