[Phys-L] Re: student mathematical capabilities

[John M Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

The standards basically have little effect on the quality of teaching.
 However they do have an effect on how much "stuff" is stuffed into
the curricula.  In reality the average physics course is about as well
or as poorly taught as the average math course.  And we now know using
the FCI/FMCE... that the average physics course achieves less than 25%
normalized gain.  So the average math course is in the same boat.
 Both need major restructuring and both math and science teachers at
all levels need retraining.  Indeed the college teachers are probably
the most in need of retraining if my son's experiences at college are
any indication.  So far he has gotten two very incompetent college
physics teachers one of them with an accent so thick that nobody could
understand him.  His HS teacher was also very poor.

My daughter OTOH had David Sokoloff in class, so I am sure she had
some good teaching.

Perhaps we should put our own house in order before trying to reform
math.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> > A question that quickly enters my mind, Are the kinds of
> > things we would put in a standards/outcomes statement already
> > there in current Math curricula standards/outcomes statements?
>
> Is anyone familiar with the standards from the National Council of
> Teachers of Mathematics <http://standards.nctm.org/>?
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