Re: Would Physics First Increase the Number of Physics Majors?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 23:30 -0400 4/28/03, Bob LaMontagne wrote:

> I am old enough to remember many cure-alls that were
> quickly abandoned - the Keller Plan springs to mind.

I too, remember the fad of the Keller Plan. When I first read about
it, I was entranced. It seemed so obvious. Shortly thereafter I went
to a conference where several people reported their experiences with
it. It was obvious from that experience and others that showed up in
the literature later, that not only was the idea punishingly
labor-intensive, but it hadn't a prayer of getting the students to
some semblance of a common point so they would be prepared for the
next course in the sequence.

I have studied "Just-in-time-teaching" a bit, and even tried some of
it, but I never gave it what amounted to a fair trial so I can't
testify from first hand experience, but what I hear from the users of
this method is that it also is highly labor-intensive, requiring lots
of pre-class review by the instructor, who then has to modify the
days lesson-plan based on the results of the pre-class review of
student submissions. It's not surprising that this hasn't been a
widely accepted innovation.

I can't speak to modeling as a teaching method, since I have not been
trained in it, nor have I tried any of the ideas I have read about,
but it seems to me that one of the problems with it, in the current
educational system is that it mandates that one move through the
syllabus at a slower pace. That's not necessarily bad. I'm an
advocate of giving students more time to digest the new ideas, but if
teachers have to "cover" a certain amount of material in a year so
that students can hope to perform satisfactorily on an EOC test,
then, a modeling approach won't work, since it will be impossible to
get through the whole syllabus and still do justice to the modeling
pedagogy. This wouldn't be a problem if the students came into the
class with enough background that the teacher didn't have to start at
the beginning, no matter where in the system they are. With proper
background, a modeling approach might just do the job, because only
the new stuff would need to be dealt with.

Cliff Swartz has had some pretty acid things to say about the
cyclical nature of "physics teaching reform." Those of us who have
been around for a while know that he has a point.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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