Re: [Phys-l] a different kind of math background quiz

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

Unfortunately things like this "quiz" take on a life of their own, and are
often used inappropriately.  Also since I have evidence that has been
confirmed by Colletta and Phillips that a Piagetian test serves as a
predictor of success,  I think people should look in that direction.

However this "quiz" might scare off some students, but which ones?  A
Piagetian test can not really be self graded because the good ones require a
free response.  And the Piagetian test predicts the maximum gain that a
student can get on either the FCI or FMCE, but not necessarily the final
grade.  For that you go to the VOSS by Hestenes...  And it is possible to
have gain on a Piagetian test so a post-Piagetian test is somewhat better
correlated with gain than a pretest according to my data.

I take educational things very seriously because I have seen so many
misconceptions about education, and about physics.  Just recently on NPR
there was a story about an economist who has gone into putting lectures on
economics, science, and math on YOUTUBE.  His NTN3 lecture is substantially
correct but with some goofs.  He talks about weighting someone as 150kg, and
the person pushes a 10kg weighed ball.  The use of weight is inappropriate
and should be "massing" to try to separate weight from mass, and the
magnitudes display a lack of understanding of simple metric units as the
masses are a bit too large for typical objects.  Why have a story about an
amateur teacher when the PHET project probably does much more to help
educate students, and can actually show how their work is based on research.
PHET can help students, and can increase gain in understanding.  Again it is
a case of people thinking that education can be done by anyone without
realizing that it can be researched and that it requires training to become
skilled.  Would you allow an economist to remove your appendix because he
took an anatomy class?

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> John!
>
> You didn't "take seriously"  JD's
>
> claim:
>
>
> "The following does *not* answer the question that was
> asked ... but list members may find it amusing and/or
> useful anyway."
>
> regarding:
>
> JL's request:
>
>
> > I'm looking for an online, self-grading quiz that students can use to
> see if
> > they have the mathematical background to do well in trig. based
> introductory
> > physics course.
>
>
> bc not amused, instead frustrated.
>
> p.s.  Now that John C.  has give the criteria,** is there a volunteer?