A few comments on recent threads primarily 'opening day activities' and
'energy as primary' and some of the pedagogical discussions that have gone
with these [all in lieu of actually starting to do some serious preparations
for classes!]
1) While the 'old, tried and true' has no guarantee of being optimal or
even minimally effective, logic suggests that it has a good probability of
being quite useful. That logic is based on the fact that the 'tried and
true' has survived at least a couple hundred years of waves of the 'new best
thing', sometimes multiple assaults by the same 'new best thing' as these
keep being rediscovered and put forth under a variety of names.
2) We shouldn't minimize, marginalize, or otherwise dismiss the teaching
efforts of our predecessors--it is really insulting to do so. We shouldn't
assume they were idiots and failed to do anything useful--clearly such is
not true. I'm sure many, if not most, measured their success in teaching by
looking at the accomplishments of their students. Those accomplishments are
the technological, scientific world around us. Somebody did learn
something!
3) It was suggested that we have all been taught by guided inquiry, all
through our education. While there is some truth to that, it is also true
that most often the guidance was TELLING US or SHOWING US--the very methods
often condemned.
4) For the most part, I think we teach ourselves--we do construct our own
understandings. However, we don't do that in a vacuum--a vacuum of
information. We actually DO need to know some facts, be shown some demos,
be taught some procedures in order to be prepared to engage our brains and
work at 'figuring it all out'. I'm sure guided inquiry essentially does all
this, but these preparations can also be done in other ways as well.
5) Learning through reading and lectures seems to me to be essential for
'life-long learning'. Learning on one's own outside the classroom is not
going to be nicely structured with a facilitator standing behind you. While
there can certainly be a place and a time for 'discovery' type learning,
there better also be plenty of reading/lecture learning involved in a
student's experience if they are really to cope in the 'information age.'
6) Yes students ARE customers--but customers of a special type. Actually,
for the public schools, it is the taxpayer and the society that is the
customer. The only real rationale for supporting public education with tax
dollars is for the welfare of the society--to produce citizens with the
intellectual tools and skills to be productive members of the society (and
when the schools fail at that you get reactionary but understandable
responses like NCLB). We need to keep that in mind when giving too much
power to parents or (heaven forbid) the students themselves. For private
schools and colleges and universities, the students are customers. They are
paying for our services to help prepare them to be even more successful and
productive in that society. However, just like buying a membership in a
gym, the processess is really a partnership and the student has to become a
willing and dutiful participant in the process for it to be successful.
7) Education is still somehow 'stuck in the 70s' with visions that 'all
students are created equal' and if anyone fails to understand anything it is
somehow the fault of the teacher and/or the pedagogy. Special education is
stuck in this rut (my wife has an EDS in special-ed so I get all kinds of
info). Some, mostly administrators and perhaps academics who spend no time
with the students, seem to feel that most 'mentally retarded' (not the PC
term but still the most widely used) are just SLOW--given enough time and
extra help they can achieve most 'normal' educational goals. With a very
small percentage of exceptions--that just ain't true! We also seem to think
that every student should be able to understand college physics at the level
of at least a high-school instructor. That ain't true either. We can waste
an awful lot of time and energy striving for that 100% goal and in the
process drive away a lot of potential scientists if we aren't careful. Sure
we can reach more students than we have. I personally believe all students
should have a conceptual level course before getting into typical algebra or
calculus level problem solving courses (I know some vehemently disagree with
this). But we can't get them all to give up Aristotle no matter how hard we
try. Some people just can't do it. I can't sing a lick even though I would
love to. I struggle to keep my handicap near 10 despite 50 years of intense
effort. Despite reviewing it every year, I really can't keep the workings
of a transistor straight in my head--somehow that drains out immediately
after teaching it (meaning deep down I really don't understand it well).
What all this means is that we have to carefully examine our goals for
students at all the various levels of instruction and be realistic about
what is really useful and what can reasonably be accomplished with any given
set of students.
Enough ramblings....
Rick
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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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Free Physics Educational Software (Win & Mac)
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
Energy 2100--class project
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/ENERGY_PROJECT/ENERGY2100.htm
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