[Phys-l] Paradigm Shift?

[David Craig <craigda@lemoyne.edu>]

> The pace must slow down so students can comprehend what they are  
> trying to learn.


Tell that to the MCAT folks.   (What a noxious force THAT is on the  
introductory curriculum!)

Seriously.   If your programs are anything like ours, numbers in the  
introductory sequence are driven largely by pre-health types of one  
stripe or another.   If we revamp the courses and cover half the  
current material they'll never have seen 3/4 of what's on the MCAT,  
except maybe in a Kaplan course.

Until we began offering a sequence that essentially "teaches to the  
MCAT", our biology department was sending their students to the  
community college for their physics, almost killing (literally) the  
physics program in the process.   (That was all before I began here.)

These discussions do not take place in a world in which only the  
opinions of physics educators matter.

Not, mind you, that I disagree with the point the original poster was  
trying to make...

David Craig


<http://web.lemoyne.edu/~craigda/>