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Re: What to teach (was: American students do poorly)



Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:46:52 +0000
Reply-to: phys-l@mailer.uwf.edu
From: "Ian Macdonald" <imacdonald@swin.edu.au>
To: phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu
Subject: Re: What to teach (was: American students do poorly)

About time this topic was reconsidered. I have just come
back from doing some work in Thailand, where they have
exactly the same problem that Australian Universities
have, and now it is explicitly suggested that American
Universities have: We all seem to be teaching too much and
the students are not coping. However, everyone just looks
around at what other universities are doing, and what
other countries are doing, and says "we are no different,
so it is not our problem".

The really disturbing thing is that Faculties that have
relied on Physics departments and Physicists to teach
service courses are starting to think about teaching the
necessary Physics themselves - in the context of their own
needs, using people with SOME knowledge, but not detailed
overview. It is seen as "more efficient" and more easily
controlled - and how much call will there be for
Physicists if we only teach majors?


And they "teach to much" in two different meanings. 1)
The courses are "an inch deep and a mile wide". The
students have fat text books (2 to 3 times the size of
other countries) and they cover an amazing amount
without being able to spend time on any one topic. 2)
The American teachers "teach" by puting the answers on
the board and expecting the students to basically accept
the result and memorize it. In other countries students
were required to struggle BEFORE they were introduced to
the "standard" answer.


School teaching has taken massive strides (at least in
Australia) in trying to break this down - and we have lot
to learn from THEM. Unfortunately the curriculum is still
being manipulated by university academics with a vested
interest in defending first year curriculum - and the
pressure of content still causes the sort of superficial
teaching described. Sad really. It is so self defeating.


Anyway, here is the point for this group.

Before we go to the high schools to enlighten them,
aren't we (collectively) guilty of the same thing? I
think we are doing a disservice to our students by
covering as much as we do in the first year. I would
like your opinions on what it is we SHOULD be teaching
in the first year of physics. Perhaps a good place
would be to answer the following questions:

What is "physics"?

What "facts" should every student know after a year
of physics?

The ultimate question here is "what do they NEED TO KNOW?"
If a content component cannot be justified by a need (best
tested by finding a case example, in the real world of a
student, when it will actually be used) it should not be
there. I say that because the evidence is strong that
_students_ make the test of "Need to know" and if they do
not see a positive response they don't learn it. They have
so much thrown at them in first year they HAVE to make
critical decisions to select the work they will learn, and
the "need to know" test is a simple and obvious one (and
commonly used)

IF the students go on to higher study and need to know
things now commonly taught in first year they are
remarkably efficient at learning it THEN. Anyway as things
are now they learn it when they need it - 'cause they sure
didn't learn it in first year anyway!


What "skills" should every student have after a year
of physics?

How do we best accomplish this in 3-4 hr a week?

Do the answers depend on whether the students are
physicists, chemists, engineers ...?

We must take this into account, or at least in some
universities we will lose the trade.

What is the feeling out there????

Ian



Dr Ian Macdonald
Education Development
School of Engineering and Science
School of Biophysical Sciences and Electrical Engineering
Swinburne University of Technology PO Box 218 Hawthorn
3122 Australia Phone: +61 3 9214 8003 Fax: +61 3 9819
6443 email: imacdonald@swin.edu.au
Gang:
You are going to have to bear with me here--I'm only
thinking at the computer. There are fields where it is
really impossible to even give a nod to everything. A
perfect example is law. They teach by the case method
and have some evidence that when a student can analyze
three or four important cases he can apply the same
reasoning to analyze any case.

Perhaps, we should consider teaching a few important cases
where the fundamentals are interesting in the belief that
if a student can analyze these he/she can analyze any case.
If I had to give a list of candidate cases, I would use the
following: (1) celestial mechanics--Newton, (II)
electromagnetism--Maxwell, (III) optics--Huygen, Young et.
al. (IV) special theory of relativity--Einstein, Poincare,
et. al. (V) models of the hydrogen -- Balmer, Bohr,
Rutherford. (VI) models of the nucleus-- many contributors
--Weisskopf, Bohr, Mayer, et. al.

Now I know I have stirred up a "firestorm". So have at it!
WBN
Barlow Newbolt
Department of Physics and Engineering
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA 24450
Telephone and Phone Mail: 540-463-8881
Fax: 540-463-8884
e-mail: NewboltW@madison.acad.wlu.edu

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."

Neils Bohr