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Re: [Phys-L] Imagine a World Without Religion



This is a philosophical reflection on the comment from Rick "There has been
very little here in that time that is of much use to introductory college
courses and almost nothing useful for high-school physics courses"

I think this has to do with history (of the list), ideas, when they get
posted, who has been around for a while, who is brand new.

Many many questions a new physics teacher could have are answered by a
search of the list archives. In other words it's been said already.

There may be a new spin or a new twist on things. An example is
datalogging, classroom demos and active learning.
Much of what can be said and needs to be said on this topic was
said/posted/linked to years ago. To some (many) of us it is business as
usual, and could even be getting to be old hat. But to a new teacher, it
is of interest and directly relevant. But they may or may not post - they
may not even know they need to know. They will just use Google. Hence
nothing of "usefulness" gets posted.

This topic (datalogging, classroom demos and active learning) has received
quite a shake up with the availability of stuff like the Arduino -
https://www.arduino.cc/. If you delve around on the various forums there
is quite a lot of interesting dialogue, informed and uninformed (depending
on your perceptive) It has probably not touched this forum because 1)
maybe it is a little to technical 2) no-one has bothered to post 3) other
reasons.

*So:* adopting a 'community of learning' view. We don't have an
environment or a practice to welcome newcomers, post occasional unsolicited
updates, news reiteration of interesting critical matters of interest to
'new physics teachers'

Is it a problem that there is nothing/little posted of value to new
teachers? They can google.

I suspect if 10 of us posted each month on something of critical
significance that we have just learned, are engaged in, have researched or
noticed, then things would improve. An invitational style seems to be
helpful. (According to the research on learning communities)

My 2c worth. as to off topic stuff: I just ignore the crappy posts. I
know where to find the delete key. But I guess I have not really tried to
reach out to newcomers in the physics teaching scene either.

Regards

-Derek

On 6 December 2015 at 11:41, Bernard Cleyet <bernard@cleyet.org> wrote:


On 2015, Dec 05, , at 12:33, Bernard Cleyet <bernard@cleyet.org> wrote:


p.s. This is just an estimate, but surely these “rogue” posts are less
then several % of the total, no? But engender such “vociferous”
complaint. Not BTW, that conversation (Imagine a world …) was much longer
than the average; surely indicative that some “rogue” posts are of general
interest.


Wrong!

It was long on another list, and migrated to phys-l.


And my suggestion:

"My final thought(s): I agree some of the posts are rather distant from
physics teaching. However, by posting controversials (sorry for the
neologism) that may engender thought which increases crit. thinking.”

Had been made much earlier: Aaaa, maybe.

On 2015, Jan 17, , at 17:48, kirby urner <kirby.urner@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

I think "cognitive dissonance" hampers learning and students saddled with
belief systems seemingly at odds with the physics under study would be
more
likely to find these beliefs hinder rather than help, given "cognitive
friction" and all that.

Cognitive friction happens within physics itself e.g. if you're a
Newtonian
trying to figure out about why all this fuss about dead-or-alive cats or
whatever.

That's an argument for not dismissing "R-word" posts out of hand, given
the
learning research theme. Statistical studies might be done, about which
religious backgrounds seem least conducive to physics learning. The
literature must be vast already. :-D



bc
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