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Not all capable students have the interest nor desire to become physics
majors. I had no interest in becoming a physician, a lawyer, or a
multitude of other professional people even though I was capable. Why
should I think in an egocentric way that all capable students should
enjoy physics just because I enjoy it?
I think there is little, if any, value to a student's sitting through a
course in physics without being reached. It is not important that a
student enjoy his courses; I'm unclear as to why you raise the issue.
Don't we need capable people in other professions? I tell all of my
advisees that they should make their professional choice based on
enjoying the work. They should find a profession where on Sunday they
look forward going to work on Monday, and being sad that on Friday they
have to wait until Monday to get back on the job. Obviously, people who
spend Monday and Tuesday talking about what they did on their past
weekend and the rest of the week planning for the coming weekend aren't
working in the appropriate field.
Ah, you are a hedonist! My own personal philosophy (which I will inflict
upon my advisees, but which I clearly label as my own inexpert view) is
that if one can achieve the sort of outcome it is wonderful. I must
confess that I don't feel that way on Sunday night (I have two lectures
to give on Monday), but I find my "job" overall so rewarding that I'd do
it for free now that my financial worries are long past.
Kansas has had an open door policy for years. Any student graduated from anLeigh, you have been teaching for a number of years. Do you find any
differences in the students now than when you first started teaching?
You apparently are finding what I find that students aren't comfortable
with working through problems algebraically. Our freshman want to
substitute numbers in immediately and then manipulate algebraically
equations loaded with numbers, many of which are in scientific notation.
Fortunately, we are able to work with them and are successful in
converting most of them to solving problems algebraically first, then
substituting numbers at the very end.
That problem has always been there, but it is more prevalent now than it
formerly was. Ther has been a deterioration in these skills over my 30
years of teaching, and British Columbia high school students are better
prepared in math and science than those of any other state or province
on the continent by some actual measurements. My problem is exacerbated
by the adoption five years ago of a more "inclusive" admissions policy,
targeted hypocritically at increasing our numbers and the formula based
grant from the province. We have lost many excellent high school grads
to the university across town, UBC. Formerly we got the cream because we
had a higher admission standard than UBC (I think). Our Dean was hot to
trade quality for quantity. I'm pleased to report that the pendulum here
is now swinging back, but it will be too late for me. I face compulsory
retirement in September 2000.
It is the second semester of the conventional first year course in which
we try to cover almost all of one of the many Halliday & Resnick clones.
I have 29 students left after the first midterm (the first Friday of
October - they can drop without penalty the next Monday), so I can afford
to pay attention to individuals. The trouble is that they don't seem to
know (or else believe) that they are in trouble; I see very many fewer
students than ought to be coming to see me. This is the slack semester
for this course; often in spring it has enrolments approaching 200. They
have a golden opportunity and they do not avail themselves of it!
I'm in a department of 30 faculty. We infrequently graduate more than tenI am in a department of 4.5 FTE (six faculty members). I am currently the
students per year in our programs. I think the most we ever graduated was
just over twenty. Realistically we could devote the same sort of time to
instruction that your musicians do.
I know my evidence is only anecdotal, but I am convinced that the lectureIf by lecture you mean reading notes and doing derivations without any
mode is only superficially efficient.
The students aren't learning fromI agree unless there are interactions between students, and professor. We
the lectures.
The least I can do for them is to entertain, and that I tryI have absolutely no argument with you here.
to do. Any learning that occurs *en passant* is gravy. I have a friend
who is an excellent theoretical physicist and a talented lecturer, and
also a prominent physics educationalist. He thinks the lecture mode is
terribly ineffective, an opinion he impressed on me in 1994. I was on the
other side of that argument back then; I'm coming over to his side now,
I'm afraid. As I point out above, I don't think it is unreasonable that
we pay a great deal of individual attention to students who want to
become physicists.
needs, including their considerable intellectual needs, and I think theyAre you talking about elementary and secondary school, or are you thinking
benefitted greatly from that attention. My students don't have that kind
of support behind them for the most part; I think we should recognize
that the need exists and do something about filling it. Perhaps private
science lessons for budding scientists are as appropriate as private
music lessons for budding concert artists (and many, many more who don't
go on to the profession take them, too).
This points out one of the differences between the American and British
In the 94-95 school year I was a visiting scholar in the Cavendish Lab.
in Cambridge. The students there receive weekly "supervisions", hour
long one-on-one or one-on-two encounters, weekly with a faculty member or
grad student. I'm sure it is very expensive, but I'm also sure that it is
money well spent. Their undergrads are excellent! Here in Vancouver some
parents (especially among the ethnic Chinese community) are willing to
pay fees comparable to music instruction fees for their children to
receive tutoring in mathematics. These are the best students, not the
worst, who are taking this instruction.
I appreciate them and don't believe we differ in basic beliefs.
Just some of my radical ideas.
Leigh