Re: Beichner's book

[Robert Cohen <Robert.Cohen@PO-BOX.ESU.EDU>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Clement [mailto:clement@HAL-PC.ORG]
> Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 11:27 PM
>
> [snip]
>
> There is some evidence that
> students have to understand acceleration well before they can
> understand the
> idea of force.

This fall I will introduce forces before even introducing the word
"acceleration" so I am very interested in this statement.  What qualifies as
"well"?  Understand in a qualitative way or quantitative way?

I'll report back in December as to how well this will work but I tried out
something similar last year and it showed enough promise for me to try to
improve upon it this year.

Other snip's with my comments follow:

> Worse yet some of the students will not be able to reliably apply
> proportional reasoning.

I agree. For this reason, I will be spending the first couple weeks
investigating proportional reasoning using constant speed as a context.

> The ideas in that
> section should be
> judiciously brought out when they are needed and well motivated.

I agree.  For this reason, I use the context of constant speed in order to
introduce many of the tools Beichner provides in his chapter 0 (except
vectors).  A formal treatment of vectors will be introduced after projectile
motion because only then do I find it is really necessary (from the
students' point of view).

I'm not at the point where I'd recommend the same approach for Beichner's
chapter 0 - I'll know better in December.
____________________________________________
Robert Cohen; rcohen@po-box.esu.edu; 570-422-3428; http://www.esu.edu/~bbq
Physics, East Stroudsburg Univ., E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301