Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Pedagogy



Your comments really struck a chord with me - to a good
degree with our science majors, and to a strong degree with
the non-science majors taking their required physical
science course.

I have rearranged my office by taking out almost everything
but my desk and have brought in a conference table. The
science majors have taken to using the table as a place to
do their physics homework. This isn't too intrusive for me
because they have learned not to ask me trivial questions
because I always answer with a question. I'm their "last
resort". A bonus is that when my meteorology, astronomy, or
conceptual physics students come in, the majors run
interference for me and offer help to them. They enjoy
being able to answer question in other fields using their
newly formed understanding of physics. Any student needing
help has many avenues to getting it, either from me or
their peers.

Getting back to your point, I'm greatly put off by students
who only show up at the end of the course or the day before
an exam and make the requests you outlined in your posting
- despite my constantly encouraging them to come in for
help from either me or my other students. You are entirely
correct about the book sharing. Some have even asked me for
xerox copies of the homework questions. I give daily
reading quizzes on the material I'm going to cover - I
require them to read it before the lecture. I'll get
comments on the quiz indicated that they were not able to
read the material because they don't have a book - and they
find the quizzes unfair.

But this thread is really related to Fernanda. I would
suggest that she have a long talk with one of the
professors that she has had success with (a mentor of sorts
- as has been suggested in other posts). Perhaps an honest
assessment of her strengths and weaknesses might help her
leverage the strengths to get more benefit from the courses
where she finds the teaching inadequate. A sequence of
visits of this type might help her to see the physics
"forest" from the trees.

Bob at PC

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 5/4/2004 at 11:34 AM Michael Edmiston wrote:


Book sharing is also common. This is causing me to
experience a fair
number of the following student requests...

(1) Could I hand in the problems tomorrow because when I
wanted to work
them last night the person I am sharing the book with had
the book and
so I didn't have access to the problems.

(2) Can I take tomorrow's exam a day late because tonight
is the other
person's night to have the textbook, so I won't be able to
study until
tomorrow night.

These don't hold any water with me, and I tell the
students that this
excuse ranks right up there with "my dog ate my homework."
Sometimes
when I tell that to students, they get angry and think I
am not a caring
professor. I tell them that I do care for them, and that
is why I
advise them to buy the book, read it, carefully work
through the example
problems, then solve some problems on their own (for which
the answers
are provided), and then do the assigned problems. And, if
they are
having difficulty on any aspect of this, come and visit me
during office
hours.

The usual reponse after I say this is: "I don't have time
for all that.
Student's need to have lives, you know."


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu