Re: AP students

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Hi all -
        John's remark is very revealing.  I shall take this opportunity
to comment on postings by him, Hake, Tarara, Ugawa, Clement, Rauber,
and Cohen.
        The discussion overtly contrasts the teaching of concepts with
the teaching of problem solving.  This puzzled me.  I don't know how
to do problem solving without understanding concepts.  But it all became
clear with John's use of the word algorithms.  Then I remembered that
there are teachers who do teach physics as a set of algorithms - formulas
to be dusted off and used in various circumstances.
        For shame!  Although there are unfortunately texts that
encourage this kind of teaching.
        So there is a covert thread that has run through the discussion
that involves a pun on the expression "problem solving".  People in the
group apparently have different understandings of what a problem-solving
course consists of.  So we haven't really been communicating.
        As I look at the calculus-based AP exam, I think that it is
very demanding of conceptual understanding.  I have used old such
exams as final exams in my courses, along with pre- and post- course
fci's.  The two seemed to correlate pretty well (very good students
are very good at most everything).  But it is possible to beat the game
on the AP (not at the level of 5, but maybe on the level of 3) by
coming in with a head full of briefly remembered formulas.  So my
response to Hake is that I think he doesn't have a very good grasp
of the AP.
        Tarara, I think, gives us alternatives that are too limited.
It is not "algorithmic mode" versus anything else.  It is learning
to think using mathematics as part of the language.  Physics and
chemistry seem to be the only high school courses where that can
happen - but it will not happen with teachers who teach algorithms.
        Ugawa persists in failing to understand the subject of discussion
and tries to fit everything in to some kind of Procrustean philosophical
bed.
        I am basically in agreement with Clement, except for his comment
about algorithms.  If you can't construct the algorithm that you are
using then you don't
know what you are doing (Feynman: "What I cannot create I do not
understand.")
        To Rauber and Cohen I point out that many of our best scientists
and engineers were educated in other countries.  And very few engineering
graduates have careers that actually involve doing engineering.  There
is also the small embarassment of the Mars mission that failed because
of failure to use consistent systems of units.  There is a famous speech
by Goodstein in which he pointe out that our graduate schools mostly
educate non-U.S. citizens in science.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack


On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, John Barrer wrote:

> New to my school, I inherited a variety of second year
> (and some first year) students for APB. On our
> circuits and fields test, there was one question;
> given three identical resistors in a series/parallel
> circuit (2 in parallel with one in series with the
> pair), how does the current change in the remaining 2
> resistors when one of the parallel pair burns out
> (opens)? The vast majority of the second year students
> got this question wrong, but yet could quite easily
> solve end-of-chapter problems. These students had been
> thru a traditional course last year. I'd maintain that
> "problem solving ability" should at least include
> (maybe focus on) solving problems of this sort where
> one cannot simply rely on a set of algorithms. I think
> this is an example of the value of non-quantitative
> problems in assessing conceptual understanding. John
> Barrere  Apex Hs   Apex, NC
>
>
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