Re: [Phys-L] kinematics objectives

[jbellina <inquirybellina@comcast.net>]

However, most of those invisible and abstract concepts are understood in the beginning through metaphors, and the students are likely to have ideas about those.  I wonder if there is ever what one would call a clean slate.

joe

On May 9, 2013, at 11:41 AM, Philip Keller wrote:

> Maybe I should have said "build intuition" rather than "target misconception".  Because in many cases, my students come in with no sense of the subject at all.  They have no misconceptions about momentum, energy, charge, electric fields, vectors...for all of those things, they are a clear slate, ready for only those misconceptions that I give them :)
>
> But they most certainly do believe that objects prefer to be at rest.  And they believe that objects retain a memory of forces that no longer act.  The FCI tests both of these notions multiple times.  Those particular misconceptions must be attacked.  

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Physics
Co-Director
Northern Indiana Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Collaborative
574-276-8294
inquirybellina@comcast.net