Some subscribers to Phys-L and Physoc may be interested in a recent
post "Re: Is Physics Difficult? understanding acceleration, etc..."
[Hake (2010a)]. [This is a sequel to "Is Physics Difficult? (was Why
are we still asking silly questions?) (Hake, 2010b).] The abstract
reads:
********************************************
ABSTRACT: Jatila van der Veen, in her post "Re: Is Physics Difficult?
understanding acceleration, etc..." wrote: "To see whether students
understand a concept, try having them DRAW their interpretation of a
concept such as acceleration, and write a short explanation of their
drawing."
Better yet, try having students *operationally* define kinematic
terms such as position, velocity, and acceleration by means of
DRAWINGS as in "Socratic Dialogue Inducing" (SDI) Labs
<http://bit.ly/9tSTdB>. My experience has been that such student
endeavor requires extensive guidance supplied by (a) the SDI lab
manual, (b) fellow students during collaborative discussion, and (c)
the Socratic instructor in response to students' questions or lab
manual entries.
Thus SDI labs, as most other constructivist-type "Interactive
Engagement" methods are *not* "minimally guided," an appellation
applied by Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark KSC (2006) to "constructivist,
discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching."
KSC then proclaimed them all to be failures, contrary to the mountain
of evidence for their success relative to traditional methods of
instruction.
********************************************
"When we say force is the cause of motion we talk metaphysics, and
this definition, if we were content with it, would be absolutely
sterile. For a definition to be of any use, it must teach us to
*measure* force; moreover, that suffices; it is not at all necessary
that it teach us what force is *in itself*, nor whether it is the
cause or the effect of motion."
Henri Poincare (1905) [My *emphasis*.]
REFERENCES [All URL's shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 5
December 2010.]
Hake, R.R. 2010a "Re: Is Physics Difficult? understanding
acceleration, etc..." online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/gTiuwT>. Post of 5 Dec 2010 19:58:35-0800 to AERA-L,
Net-Gold, & PhysLrnR. The abstract and link to the complete post is
being distributed to various discussion lists and are also on my blog
"Hake'sEdStuff at <http://bit.ly/gtg6fD>.
Hake, R.R. 2010. "Is Physics Difficult? (was Why are we still asking
silly questions?)" online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/9F2jMJ>. Post of 17 Nov 2010 13:11:56-0800 to AERA-L,
Net-Gold, & Physics First. The abstract and link to the complete post
were transmitted to various discussion lists and are on my blog
"Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/cHd5LJ>. As of 7 Dec 2010
13:30:00-0800 this post had initiated the following threads on the
PhysLrnR archives: (a) 51-posts in November at
<http://bit.ly/h6Cksd >, and (b) 9-posts in December at
<http://bit.ly/evxmX0>. To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs
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