Re: [Phys-L] teaching "science research methods"

[Philip Keller <pkeller@holmdelschools.org>]

Part of what we need to communicate to students is that if you try 
something and it does not work, that does not mean you have wasted your 
time.  One thing about the way we present both math and science is that 
we tend to omit all of the dark alleys.  This may be why students are 
afraid to be "wrong".  They don't know that the stumbling around and 
feeling your way in the dark is a normal part of the process.

I see this when I am teaching algebra.  If a student does not know where 
to begin a problem, I will sometimes ask them to start by taking a guess 
(as blindly as their own level of intuition requires).  Then we can 
examine the guess and play with it to try to show that it isn't the 
answer we are looking for.  It is during the process of examination that 
the actual thinking and understanding is going on.

I would be happy to cover n% less material and have more time to devote 
to giving my students opportunities to explore the alleys. But I admit 
that I am aware of a steady pressure to "cover the course".

On 9/18/2015 2:59 PM, David Marx wrote:
> John Denker discussed the ToK in his recent post.  I do discuss this in my
> experimental physics course because in scientific research the goal is to
> advance human knowledge.  How do we know something is knowledge or not?  Yes,
> this is a question for epistomologists. But scientists do use the answer that
> the epistomologists give - that rationality is the best test of truth we have.
>   Rationality is using your existing knowledge and available resources to
> evaluate a question and to make your best judgment.  Is it perfect?  No.  Does
> everyone have the same knowledge and resources?  No.
>
> But scientific training is an attempt to create a common basis of knowledge in
> a given sub-field of science.  The scientific community has created journals
> and conferences as a means to keep others informed of new knowledge and to
> debate whether information is new knowledge.
>
> On another point, experimental science is a creative human endeavor.  On the
> first day of class, the flow chart commonly taught as the scientific method is
> eradicated, and we discuss the shared values of science and the creative
> process that causes two scientists with common goals to follow different paths
> toward those goals.  We discuss the process of making choices based on one's
> background and available resources.  What happens when your path leads to a
> dead end?  What if your path leads to somewhere other than the intended goal?
> This way of learning about how science works is far more interesting and
> relevant that the traditional flow chart representation of science, which
> misrepresents actual science in several ways.
>
> The flow chart implies that one person does all of the steps and does so in a
> relatively short time.  It also often begins with a guess to explain an
> observation, which is labeled as a hypothesis.  Yet, real scientists don't do
> this.  Rather, we are aware of several possible explanations without
> necessarily choosing a favorite until more information is gathered.  The flow
> chart often results in a theory, as if the experimenter also creates the
> theory.  This implies many things, too much to elaborate on here.
>
> I do like the concept of the maze, but as others have pointed out, it is
> necessarily a limited analogy, but superior to the flow chart.
>
> Thanks for the interesting discussion.
>
> David Marx
> Physics Department
> Illinois State University
>
>
>
>
>
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