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Re: Constructivist Physics





On Sun, 8 Jun 1997, Mathieu Dubreuil wrote:

David Simmons wrote:

The constructivist teaching seems to provide no room for occasional
destructivist revolutions--the punctuation in the smooth equilibrium.

What a powerfull statement !


It was mine, not Dave's, as you note below.

But I'll still feel the need to counter balance it. Eventhough I very
mush charmed by Dr Simanek view of a gouldian evolution of scientific
knowledge, I'm tempted to diagree with it's objections on constructivism
since it's application is not on the history of sciences, but on
didactics.

The analogy wasn't intended to be precise, so I hope Stephen Jay Gould
will not be blamed. :-)


First, I disagree with your unbalance argument that implicitly reject
constructivist. A sophism could be detect when a association is made
from an agreed statement that contructivism is not the Final Answer to
education and the fact that it's only a fad. Furthermore, neologisms or
catchy new words has you said are still the heart of an evolving
laguage, an evolving science.

Well, *I* don't implicitly reject constructivist ideas, I just approach
*the whole package* with a bit of skepticism. My biggest objection was
that the *label* "constructivism" includes a philosophical package and
teaching strategies which are not at all new, but have been used in the
classroom throughout the history of education. And I'm turned off whenever
some new notion, or a repackaging of old notions, no matter how good they
may be, is accompanied by a load of evangelism and hype.

Secondly, the epistemiologic approach underlining constructivism should
not gouvern the sequence of events in a classroom. This study field
helps nevertheless to grasp the obstacles of tranfering knowledge.
Therefore, in education, the process of evolution of human history or of
creatures is not the most efficient way to transmit knowledge. As Papert
insist, learning is neither a linear process, but a more systemic
phenomenom. We nevertheless have to progress toward a process
respectfull of the human way to organize new knowledge.

And possibly to learn new and better ways to organize new knowledge.


Thirdly, one should be carefull with the argument that most
preconceptions are wrong. On the contrary, most are based on the
interpretation of lifetime encountered events. The importance of
learning process is merely not the transfert of an aristolean view to a
galilean view of mechanics, but on an analytic understanding of a
phenomenum (at least for HS).

I had to go back to my original post to find that what I actually said was
"...*much* of what they already know is wrong." And, I'll add, that much
of it, while not wrong, is not in a conceptual framework useful as a base
for progressing to more difficult concepts. This is especially the case in
physics and mathematics.

[snip]

I must admit that here in Quebec, we suffered a gread deal from
constructivist manuals. Almost blank pages fill with over generalized
questions: Describe what you see...

Even good ideas are often implemented badly in the classroom. Remember
"The New Math"? It was based on sound research, laudable philosophical
principles, sound mathematics, and the usual hype, but it failed in the
classroom. Very often teachers don't have the background to implement a
new idea well, and not all are in a position to get more education to deal
with it effectively.

To return to the history of physics. Historians of science recognize and
spend a lot of effort analyzing scientific revolutions. The major ones
were the Newtonian revolution (17th century) the chemical revolution (18th
century) the atomic revolution (early 20th century) and a very few others.
Between these revolutions were long stretches of slow progress, improving
measurements, extending the scope of data, minor improvements in theory,
but always building very closely upon previous understanding. This is much
like your "constructivist" education.

The revolutions were interesting because they broke this pattern.
Scientific revolutions could be compared to a person building a house,
and, after the porch is built, decides it isn't right and tears it down to
rebuild it an entirely different way. The scientific revolution tears down
a chunk of previous understanding and drastically modifies or replaces it.
This doesn't imply the previous understanding was *wrong*, but that it was
inadequate to further progress. Lately this process is given the overused
fad description "new paradigm".

In the atomic revolution (perhaps still going on), much effort and
discussion was wasted because the new theories *did not* simply build upon
previous understanding. People tried to think of the atom as a "miniature
solar system" which led to absurd conclusions. They tried to think of the
waves of quantum mechanics the way they previously thought about water or
sound waves, generating apparent paradoxes. And then there was
relativity...

My point is that here's an example where the constructivist method of
building upon previous understanding was counter-productive. But the habit
is so ingrained in us that even the best physicists of the time were
reluctant to give up their previous understanding, and inappropriately
tried to apply it to their thinking about the new quantum mechanics.
Students today, encountering quantum mechanics and relativity for the
first time, come against the very same roadblock. And textbooks try to
ease the pain with homely (and sometimes misleading) examples.

Much of the difficulty people have with learning physics is that they try
to build upon previous understanding, and that understanding isn't up to
the task when new and unfamiliar physics is discussed. So one approach,
the constructivist approach, is to determine just exactly what each
students' present understanding is, and slowly remold that into something
more appropriate--a time and energy consuming task.

[I went to school in the old times when Euclidean geometry was required.
Many students got into trouble because they still thought of it as if it
were about real lines on real paper in a real world. Our math teacher
tried to break us of that by showing us the many incorrect conclusions and
paradoxes which result when you fail to realize that math is an axiomatic
structure of abstract concepts which has no necessary connection to the
real world. I.e., pure logic.]

The other approach is to show students the inadequacy of their previous
understanding by concrete examples (experiments and demonstrations) to
convince them of the necessity to mistrust their previous understanding,
start with a blank slate, and face the difficult task of learning new and
more effective ways to deal with physics. This method is not politically
correct these days, simply because it causes enrollment to decline and
generates negative student evaluations of course and faculty.

Perhaps this is not possible with most students. Those physics (and some
math) majors I've had who progressed the farthest and achieved the
strongest understanding are those who *were* willing to abandon naive
understanding (or already had done so before they reached college) and
adopt new and more effective learning strategies. But isn't that what
Piaget taught us is the transition from the concrete to the abstract
levels of understanding? How soon we forget. This quote says it:

The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.
- Andre Gide (1869-1951) French writer.

The sports and fitness folk are fond of saying "No pain, no gain." The
same slogan could be adopted by teachers of academic subjects, in the
promotion of *intellectual* fitness.

To over-emphasize constructivist methodology in the classroom is the easy
way out--another attempt to make learning painless and to massage student
egos. It also postpones the time when those who will later go on in
physics, engineering, or math will have to face the cognitive dissonance
of dealing with subjects which confound naive understanding. It also gives
a false impression of what real physics (as practiced by physicists) is.

-- Donald

......................................................................
Dr. Donald E. Simanek Office: 717-893-2079
Prof. of Physics Internet: dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745 CIS: 73147,2166
Home page: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek FAX: 717-893-2047
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