Re: [Phys-l] Unit Conversions (was Mass and Energy)

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

No, I am saying that the upper 5% learns physics and the ideas behind it no
matter how it is taught.  The rest of the students need more.  I am not
suggesting that anyone on this list is too intelligent to understand.  I am
saying that their experiences do not match up with other students.  Since we
all learn by experience and we all construct our own understanding, this
means that we will not immediately understand what others went through.

I do see laziness, and disinterest.  Part of this has to do with the fact
that students are being forced to take classes they have no interest in, and
that will not help them later on.  Part of it is that they know that the
administration will not allow 50% failure so they can easily slide by.  Part
of it is just they know they can get away with it.  But I also see hard
working students.  But there is also the part which comes from the problem
that they simply have extreme difficulty understanding what they see.

Sometimes when you have discomfort with an idea it is because the concept
does not agree with your existing conceptions.  This happens when students
confront NTN3.  The are uncomfortable with it and find it confusing despite
the fact that it is actually quite simple and straightforward.  It could
also be that the concept is wrong, so your discomfort comes from being
required to learn something that is not correct.

I really can not in a single or even many messages show anyone that I have a
fairly coherent picture of what is going on in education, and that it agrees
with the research that I have read about.  The only way to ultimately
completely understand science education is by reading the literature in the
various journals and books, and have some experience in doing it.  Both are
necessary.  Since I have not had anyone even comment on the various articles
that I have mentioned or the authors of these articles, I must assume that
practically nobody has read any of them.  I do know that Arons has been read
by some, and he references some of the research.  Now I am sure that there
are some others who have explored the research much more than I have.  One
of them has corrected me on a few points, but we have been in agreement on
many points.  I also do not agree with all of Arons because there is newer
research.  But his book is a good starting point.

So what I would like to see is a bit of educated "education" debate that may
involve some of the articles written in the journals.  For those who do not
wish to spend money, there is a new APS journal which publishes PER articles
online.  There is an older online journal which seems to have died, but has
a number of articles between 98 and 03.
http://unr.edu/homepage/jcannon/ejse/ejse.html
Just as an informal poll how may have read Heather Brasell's formative
article about the use of sonic rangers and improvement of understanding of
kinematic graphs?  Journal of Research in Science Teaching: Volume 24, Issue
4, Pages 385-395.  Most PER and science education articles were written in
English so it is not like trying to read Einstein's original papers.  I
suspect there are more on this list who have read Einstein's original papers
in translation than Brasell's paper.  In searching for references you might
want to use
http://www.compadre.org
which has a listing of a large number of references, and could be a good
guide to finding relevant information.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



> Hi all-
>  	As I understand the discussion so far, Rick is expressing a
> discomfort with many of John C.'s postings, a discomfort that I happen to
> share.  John essentially finesses the issue by arguing that Rick is too
> smart to understand it.  I would be delighted if Rick could restate his
> discomfort - if discomfort it is - in a way that prompts John to address
> the source of discomfort.
>  	On the other hand, I may be misunderstanding the discussion.  Am
> I/
>  				Regards,
>  					Jack
>
>
> On Sun, 28 May 2006, John Clement wrote:
>
> > You are in the fortunate 5% who achieved a high level of understanding
> as a
> > result of both life experiences and school.  Remember that at one time
> only
> > the upper 20% or less went to college, so that colleges had a much
> higher
> > proportion of formal operational students.  My comment about factor
> label is
> > that it did not help students to achieve a higher degree of thinking.
> But
> > if you are already able to understand ratios, you will immediately grasp
> > factor label.  My comments are aimed at why the large percentage of
> students
> > do not come to good understanding of math and science.