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Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes



Herb,

I think you are correct about HS and intro Bio courses versus the same
levels of Physics courses. What has drawn deserved flack was the assertion
(if there was one, I don't remember what was initially said) that the same
goes for Ph.D. levels of Bio. Chemistry courses, at least at the intro
College level, seem closer to Physics in their level of critical thinking
versus memorization.

Rick

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Herbert H Gottlieb" <herbgottlieb@JUNO.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes


On Mon, 28 Aug 2000 13:10:06 -0500 Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>
writes:

Frankly, the notion that all one has to do to gain an understanding
of biology, chemistry, or geology is to memorize is far from
true; and is insulting to our colleagues in those disciplines.

I agree 100% with the above ....... etc etc

On the other hand .......
I have no statistics to prove my contention but it has been my personal
experience that many of my former students, on the school honor rolls
with exceptionally high grades in High School Biology, have had a great
deal of trouble achieving equally high grades in our high school physics
courses. I assumed that courses such as the high school Biology require
a great deal of memorization of seemingly unrelated topics together with
test and examinations that mostly test the ability of recall.
Perhaps I am the only one on this list-serv with such experiences.... but
I wonder if anyone else here has had similar experiences.

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where our high school biology textbooks keep getting thicker and heavier
with more and more "facts" for the students to memorize)