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]

Re: [Phys-l] Quantum of action



The first statement here is consistent with PER and other science education
research. But keeping history out of physics is not. It depends on how the
history is used in the class. For example there is an article about one of
the critics of Copernikus in the latests Physics Teacher. This critic was a
good scientist who dismissed all of the usual criticisms to bring out the
two remaining ones that were valid at that time. The result was that many
bought into the hybrid stationary Earth with the planets orbiting the sun
for over a century. The two criticisms hinged on then unknown physical
concepts. Studying this can help students understand that we make the ideas
and decide if they are correct. Then we remake the ideas when new evidence
comes along. History may be used to help students understand how science
works. TPT, Jan 2012, pp 18 "Teaching Galileo? Get to know Riccioli!..."

A much more important example is that one course in New Zealand? had
students study the history of certain concepts and debate the merits of
these concepts. The result was much higher understanding of the accepted
concepts. Exploring how concepts came about can help students form better
understanding. The results seemed to be similar to what other PER methods
achieve. This example had strong evidence because they compared traditional
and experimental sections. Sorry, I don't recall the reference, but perhaps
someone else does. I even looked for it a bit.

While I would agree that all too often the history is given incorrectly,
that does not mean that it should not be used. It may be that the sequence
of thinking that happened historically may be very beneficial for students.
But they probably don't have to be exposed to all historical thinking, just
the important arguments.

I certainly do agree that pulling rabbits out of hats is not a good way to
do physics, but derivations are also not very good. Redish has shown that
novice students tend to think that derivations justify the use of the
equation rather than provide connections. And until we get the thinking
skills up, most students in the HS intro courses can only memorize rather
than understand. When 75% of graduating seniors do not have proportional
reasoning, teaching then physics, algebra or trig is useless and just makes
them think math and science are opaque. I have actually measure the 75%!

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


Some teachers wonder why the students don't exhibit much in the
way of critical thinking. Gaaack! I can tell you why. They've
been taught, over and over again, that in school, critical thinking
will just get you into trouble.

It is sometimes argued that the history is important, because
it provides a lesson about the /process/ of doing science. Alas,
the textbook version of history is so oversimplified as to grossly
understate how hard it is to do real science. As such it is a
disservice to students, and an insult to all scientists -- past,
present, and future.

If people on this list want to learn the history, I encourage that.
Specifically, I encourage people to learn the *real* history. Read
Kuhn's book, and then go read some of the old-time papers. You will
discover that the old-time scientists were amazingly clever about
some things, and also amazingly confused about some things.

I beseech you to keep the history out of the introductory course.
The intro course should keep things simple, but the real history
is not simple. Delving into the real history would be utterly
impossible due to time constraints, and would be bad pedagogy
even if you had unlimited time. If you're not going to teach the
real history, teaching false history is worse than nothing.

There is no law that says pedagogy must recapitulate phylogeny.