Re: HS physics course titles

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

Perhaps, if David's administration people read this thread, it might convince
them to retain "Conceptual".

Furthermore, if one of the more elite public universities uses that term,
does not that make a HS administration a bit presumptuous when denigrating
the term?

http://eres.ucsc.edu/coursepage.asp?cid=630


Note the use, also, of "Elementary Physics".

http://ic.ucsc.edu/courses/#P

bc



Bob LaMontagne wrote:

> Herbert H Gottlieb wrote:
>
> > I suggest DESCRIPTIVE PHYSICS for the course using Hewitt's conceptual
> > book
> > and QUANTITATIVE PHYSICS for the course that includes more algetra and
> > trig.
>
> I guess it's all a matter of local custom and culture - but the term
> DESCRIPTIVE indicates "really dumbed down" in my region - Rhode Island.
> Descriptive astronomy and descriptive geology are our "name that planet"
> and "name that rock" courses.
>
> We have also spent a long time developing a rigorous course for
> non-science majors. However - when naming the course - we deliberately
> used the title CONCEPTUAL physics. The chemistry department has a similar
> course using the word conceptual in the title. Students, and their faculty
> advisors, don't perceive the course as any easier than our General
> Physics, just a different mode of analysis.
>
> I'm not sure exactly why the administration in David Strasburger's school
> find the word "conceptual" that demeaning - I don't think that renaming
> the course will not result in someone, somewhere, belittling whatever name
> is chosen simply because the letters AP aren't present.
>
> Bob at PC