Comments regarding various posts about textbooks and asundries
I"ll probably regret this post, but here goes . . .
<rant mode on>
A) I never have understood complaints about textbooks covering too much
material. No one forces you to cover all the sections and chapters in
the book! The extra material makes the book more useful as a reference.
(Disclaimer: unless, the comments mean that the material is therefore
done at a level that is too superficial for the level of the course;
which I'd agree with for the most part)
B) I think by and large textbooks are reasonably well written, there are
some egregious exceptions; and all books have places in them that are
exceptions, but what would one expect. And yes they are fairly similar
in style and coverage, perhaps this is an example of evolutionary
convergence. Take for example Halliday and Resnick and its many
reincarnations, the writing style is clear, the diagrams are fairly well
done and it has good problems. The book can't do it all, the teacher is
there for a reason.
C) I don't know why folks denigrate problem solving so much. Certainly,
if your problems are excercises in memorizing solutions to HW problems
given already, then ability to solve doesn't necessarily indicate much
conceptual understanding. But why write those kind of problems. Problem
solving can often demonstrate conceptual understanding of material if
the problems are chosen well.
| Feynman commented that his lectures were not effective in promoting
| understanding.
He also commented that you don't understand the material if you can't do
the problems. I believe (but don't know for sure) that his marker for
why he thought his lectures failed was the students had an embarrasing
inability at solving problems. Feynman's lectures are very seductive,
its easy to think you understand, when you don't really understand.
|Remember that members of this list
| are atypical, so what students did then, or do now may not be well
|represented by our experiences.
| Also the student population in the 40s was an extremely select group
|compared to students now.
I'm never quite sure how to respond to this kind of comment. However,
I'm young enough that I'm not comparing to the 1940's, I'm comparing to
the 1970's when a lot of grade inflation had already occurred and when
the student population was most decidedly not an extremely select group.
Secondly, while physics professors may be atypical, their experiences
shouldn't be atypical for what is expected out of "A" level students.
|There is evidence
| from anecdotes that in the Ivy League there was the concept of
|"gentleman's C", so I think that slacking off in school and not doing
|the reading has been common even in the 40s.
|
I fear that it has now become the "gentleman's B", and perhaps even a
gentleman's A- in some circles.
| However, that being said there is still no evidence that
| students really learned the concepts in physics better in
| previous eras than they do now.
Probably not, but of course I don't teach just a "concepts" course; I'm
also teaching the ability to apply those concepts (both physical and
mathematical) to the solving of problems.
| We can't go back and give them the FCI or FMCE. So what type
| of evidence could be gathered to substantiate any claims.
| This might be an interesting project, digging into old
| records to try to find out what students actually understood
| back then.
Look at your old tests and you can at least see the level of the
questions that were asked. Other than that you will have to find actual
grade books plus have knowledge of all the hidden variables in the
grading of the course.
D)I agree with some comments of Rick T.
"One of my complaints about much of the 'new pedagogy' that is out there
is that it largely pulls into the classroom, during the limited class
time, those activities that we once expected students to do outside the
classroom.
While some might argue that this is just part of the reality of today's
student, others might argue that we (like the rest of society) are
simply removing personal responsibility from the list of attributes of
today's young adults."
And in response to some dissing of text books,
"Sorry, but these are all ways to once again let students off the
responsibility hook."
While the "new pedagogy" is telling us something important and it
behooves us to pay attention, I do worry that some of the baby is being
thrown out with the bath water. To the extent that a lot of it amounts
to presenting material in cleverly designed pre-digested hunks; which
may develop better conceptual understanding of aspects of physics; it
also removes some/a lot of the personal responsibility for learning.
Where will students get the chance to learn this responsibility? On the
job?
<rant mode off>
________________________
Joel Rauber
Department of Physics - SDSU