Whenever I teach elementary education majors, I make a point of having them do activities and use materials of the sort that they will use in their classrooms as teachers. It is true that many elementary education majors, and indeed many elementary education *teachers* are far below the level of scientific and mathematical understanding that they are required (by virtue of state and national standards) to teach. It is impractical to think that the physics community will be able to "cure" this situation by teaching one-semester courses for pre-teachers, or working with in-service teachers for a couple of weeks every summer in small groups. While these efforts are useful, we just can't put enough usable information in the hands of enough people that way. Teachers need *daily* support with their "content." This is why having a good curriculum with excellent ancillary teacher resources is essential.
Vickie Frohne
-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu]On
Behalf Of Rick Tarara
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 12:55 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: "Effective" teaching methods
John,
Have you taught elementary-ed majors recently? Joe can better comment, but
this is a strange _group_. You will get a few highly dedicated students who
can be some of the best you see. However, you see more at the other end.
Scarily, many are math-phobic! [I suggest that even at the elementary level
we need to split the curriculum into language arts and math/science with two
different teachers.]
The point here is that a good many of these elementary-ed students/teachers
ARE NOT very far from their students in terms of science understanding.
This then does suggest that what works on them may indeed work well for
their students as well! ;-)
Hope I haven't offended any El-Ed types that might be on the list--of course
you were the dedicated, best in class types (obviously so if you are reading
this list). ;-)
Rick
*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
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