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

["Rick Tarara" <rbtarara@sprynet.com>]

But then the question is not only WHAT is being taught K-12, but what ought
to be taught K-12.  I'm appalled at the total lack of scientific knowledge
and skills at ALL levels of our incoming college students.   The structure
of the solar system or that of the atom SHOULD NOT be new material to
college students nor should the concept of velocity or acceleration or force
or energy.   HOWEVER, they are, and I (for example) have to spend most of my
introductory, 'liberal arts' course just dealing with some of these very
basic concepts, with the nature of scientific knowledge and techniques, so
that I can spend a few weeks in the second semester trying to have students
apply this scientific knowledge and these scientific techniques to problems
in their every-day life (the Global Energy picture is our topic).  These
students, who will never see another science course, would be much better
served if we could work from a basis of some fundamental knowledge and
skills and deal with a wider variety of topics along the societal/scientific
interface.

At the same time, I agree with David (I think) that in light of the apparent
effectiveness of K-12 education, we should not assume that our science and
engineering students are any better prepared (maybe slightly better math
skills) than our liberal arts students.  I have ofter lamented the fact that
science majors do not first experience the 'conceptual' level course {sorry
Leigh and others who seem to despise this label}.  We have a spiral
curriculum, but we don't start the serious science student at the beginning.
It is usually only after teaching this level  that many of us come to a much
fuller understanding of those basic concepts which would have added so much
more meaning to our entire 'majors' curriculum.  I still believe these
courses belong at the High School level, but in a perfect world ALL students
should take a physics course.  {While I would have done so anyway, the
college-prep High School I attended required Physics and Chemistry of the
entire student body--but then we had NO biology courses!}

Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: David Dockstader <DRDOCK00@UKCC.UKY.EDU>


On Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:49:35 -0500 Richard W. Tarara said:
> Shouldn't all of this have taken place in the K-12 'Science' courses, such
> that by the time students get to college the 'specialization' can begin?
Apparently not.  This is why most colleges have general education
requirements!
It is these gen ed requirements that keep most of us employed since in most
schools science majors are a minority.  Another question is should
specialized
courses for majors be taught any differently than gen ed courses.  In
general,
I would think not.  My father was a graduate of RPI in engineering and I
remember the results of an alumni survey that was done just as I was
thinking
about college.  The results showed that by a large margin, the engineers had
rated their engineering courses the least valuable of all their college
courses.  I can only guess that this was because the courses were so narrow
and concentrated on such specific facts the students found the content
inapplicable in their careers.