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Re: [Phys-L] Edu Videos



Again this is pure opinion. Reasonableness arguments are always just
opinion. Conventional is just an appeal to we always did it that way. That
sort of thinking killed a large number of Swiss watch makers and reduced our
auto industry considerably. Neither of these are correct arguments. I
remember when I was on a committee to evaluate smart white boards. I asked
the sales person if they had evidence for improved learning he said: "It
stands to reason...". Everyone in the room seemed to agree. I was very
perturbed and wanted to say "Is there any research which shows this, as your
answer is just opinion?". I bit my tongue because I knew the others would
think I was being obstructionist and impolite. Why do we have to be polite
to sales people who are selling a bill of goods?

The ILDs use prediction from the very beginning. The Real Time Physics labs
may do the first experiment without prediction, but then subsequent
experiments must all be predicted. The concepts are introduced before any
theory. These have been shown to be very effective. You can do lectures on
theory before or after the RTP or the ILDs and their effectiveness is not
altered much. They are extremely effective no matter who does the lectures,
and lectures have been shown by a number of studies to give the same low
results for all instructors.

The Clement & Camp Anchor & Bridging Analogies do not require explaining the
concepts at the beginning. The students come to the concepts by thinking
about the situations. I taught a computer science course that way and
another teacher used my worksheets. A student said the sheets were great
because you learned without realizing you were being taught. I asked him if
he knew who had created them. I had to tell him that it was me. Students
had to experiment using the computer, and I got feedback that using the the
style of thinking I was promoting raised their SAT math grades 100 points.
I only lecture after the exploration.

If reasonableness and conventionalness were good arguments we would still be
using Aristotelian physics. Exploration MUST come before explanation
according to the research, so actually conventional is not reasonable
because it violates what we know happens.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


Furthermore, conventional and reasonable procedure is to
teach the students a little something about the topic before
asking them to formulate hypotheses.