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Re: Text omission = lost pedagogical opportunity



Interesting approach, Jack. I certainly support anything that exercises
students' critical and logical thought processes. I guess my big concern
is the constraint of time (both mine and the students'). I can't expect
them to understand (or regurgitate) everything I have said. For some
things it has to be enough that they have heard it once, so that perhaps
in a later course the seed will become available for germination.

But how will this philosophy affect your textbook - does it mean that you
will include derivation regurgitations among the end-of-chapter problems?
In what way will this philosophy affect the text presentation itself?

hmmm . . . I'm not sure I would appreciate the math teacher requiring
our physics majors to memorize the rigorous proofs of math theorems; but
a semi-quantitative narrative presenting and supporting the theorem
(perhaps in outline) might be in order. (This would be more difficult
than the rote regurgitation, though.) . . . hmmm . . . I anxiously await
a peek at your writing!

-Bob


Bob Sciamanda sciamanda@edinboro.edu
Dept of Physics trebor@velocity.net
Edinboro Univ of PA http://www.edinboro.edu/~sciamanda/home.html
Edinboro, PA (814)838-7185
-----Original Message-----
From: JACK L. URETSKY (C) 1996; HEP DIV., ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB, ARGONNE,
IL 60439 <JLU@hep.anl.gov>
To: phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu <phys-l@atlantis.uwf.edu>
Cc: JLU@hep.anl.gov <JLU@hep.anl.gov>
Date: Friday, March 13, 1998 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: Text omission = lost pedagogical opportunity


Hi Bob-
Then I'm not sure that your presentation is worth the effort, without
much more follow-up.
My present philosophy is to require students to memorize and
regurgitate any proofs presented in class. Successful regurgitation
usually
requires three or four attempts (the first time). After a while,
though,
the message gets through for most students.
I am incorporating this philosophy in the calculus text that I
am presently writing.
Regards,
Jack
*********************************************************************
Hi Jack,
I have never used this as a test question, but I would
guess that probably noone would be able to do it - unless, perhaps, they
were specifically told that it might be a test question. But even then
I'm not sure if many, or any, of (my) today's students would be able to
do more than memorize (without a real understanding) the proof. I think
my students of the 60's and 70's would have done better (but this, too,
is a guess).

I am troubled by this, because the difficulty is clearly NOT
mathematical
(in the calculational sense). I think perhaps that people's
difficulties
with such arguments from symmetry have common roots with people's
difficulties in clearly recognizing and articulating distinctions and
similarities in general - everything is one hazy mush!

-Bob

Hi Bob-
What fraction of your students can reconstruct your argument
without notes by the end of the course?
Regards,
Jack
********************************