Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-l] detailed + narrow - sophisticated



On 05/19/2010 01:06 PM, Richard Tarara wrote in part:

The main thing about the FCI is that it covers a VERY NARROW bit of the
physics curriculum--actually requires fairly sophisticated understanding of
some concepts--and can be 'taught to'. It is NOT the benchmark for much of
anything other than this narrow, sophisticated understanding of Newton's
Laws. Using it to 'prove' one teaching style better than another is, IMO,
absolutely bogus!

I agree with that in spirit, and agree with N-1 of the words.

I might have used the word "detailed" rather than "sophisticated".

We agree that when students are taught a detailed view of some
narrow concept, that's a recipe for trouble.

I would like to think that a truly _sophisticated_ understanding
of the subject would not be narrow. Narrowness with a pretense
of sophistication is almost the definition of sophomoric.

The idea of a short, multiple-guess test being a measure of
"sophisticated understanding" strikes me as ludicrous. Also,
because of the tendency toward teaching to the test, the idea
of a short, invariant test being a reliable measure of /anything/
beyond rote strikes me as ludicrous.

By way of contrast, if we had a test bank consisting of
thousands of questions, and we constructed each instance
of the test by selecting a sample of the questions, then
rote wouldn't pay, and I might believe some understanding
was involved. But even then, getting from multiple-guess
to "sophisticated" would require quite a leap.