Re: intro chapter on logic

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

No! No! No! No! Nyet!

        The idea of introducing "preliminary material" at the beginning of
a course is a real loser.  That's why math texts are so horrible.  Pick
up any book that is supposed to teach calculus and you'll find yourself
immersed in number theory, function theory, theory of limits - anything
but calculus.  By the time you get to derivatives the student has lost
interest, and by the end of the course does not realize that all he is
doing is (1) finding slopes of curves and (2) calculating areas under
curves.
        That's why one of Aarons' principles was: Don't introduce an
idea until you need it.  Students don't need a "dose of logic", like
a typhoid shot, they need constant reminders and examples, like daily
vitamin pills.  The suggestion of making logic a segment of a course does
just that, it breaks the course up into "logic" then "physics" as though
they are two separate entities.  They're not.
        When I have tutored young (high school age) students and bring
up a topic from earlier course work, I'm often told things like: "Oh, we
did that many weeks ago; I passed the test and then scrubbed my mind of
the subject."
        That's the payoff we get for segmented courses.  It starts in the
elementary grades.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack



On Sun, 30 Dec 2001, Joe Heafner wrote:

> Good Evening.
>
> In our introductory physics and astronomy courses, we very often speak of teaching our students how to think critically and how to employ valid scientific reasoning. However, despite this lofty and often stated goal, we seldom if ever actually provide instruction in critical thinking and logic. Would it not be a good idea to actually include this material at the very beginning of the course? An introductory chapter could provide instruction on how to recognize logical fallacies and how to construct valid lines of reasoning as they apply in the sciences.
>
> This idea came to me last week while reading the first chapters of Jeff Bennett and and William Briggs' text "Using and Understanding Mathematics: A Quantitative Reasoning Approach, Second Edition" published by Addison-Wesley. It suddenly occurred to me that we can never expect our students to learn this stuff unless authors actually include it in their texts and we, the instructors, actually include it in our classes.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Joe
>
> CVAC Home Page <http://users.vnet.net/heafnerj/cvac.html>
> My Book <http://www.willbell.com/new/fundephcomp.htm>
> My Home Page <http://users.vnet.net/heafnerj/>
> Please -- no Microsoft attachments. They're a security risk.

--
"But as much as I love and respect you, I will beat you and I will kill
you, because that is what I must do.  Tonight it is only you and me, fish.
It is your strength against my intelligence.  It is a veritable potpourri
of metaphor, every nuance of which is fraught with meaning."
                     Greg Nagan from "The Old Man and the Sea" in
                     <The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>