Re: Order of E&M topics (was B and electric charge)

[Chris Horton <ChrisAHorton2@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Rick wrote:

<<You do have to keep the students interested,
> and you can have them to learn a 3rd Law 'mantra' which can do wonders on
> the FCI.>>

I've used mantras and nemonics (sp?) and other tricks in the past, but
wouldn't dream of doing that now.  I doubt that learning by mantra will
stick or generalize.  It will remain in a compartment for dealing with  a
very limited set of stimuli.

Nor would I dream of teaching to the FCI.  Nor do I think that the FCI is
the be-all and end-all of conceptual exams.  It is the most widely
distributed and understood, and I must confess I don't have or know the more
recent mechanics conceptual tests.  The Introductory Thermal Concept
Evaluation by Yeo and Zadnik which I referred to is a reminder that the art
of developing effective concept tests is in its infancy and evolving
rapidly.

<< .  I can fairly state that my General Ed physics class regularly
> ends up the first semester above 70% on the FCI and my new
Calculus-Physics
> class (with whom I spent much less time working on Newton's Laws) ended up
> this year at 66% and a normalized gain of .47.  >>

For a non-research-based course those are outstanding results.  How do you
do it - aside from mantras?

<< .  It is
 just possible that an in-depth understanding of Newton's Laws may not be
 particularly important or useful for the majority of students taking
 introductory physics (yes it is important for some), and instructors who do
 focus their attention on getting good gains on the FCI may do so at the
 expense of other legitimate educational goals for their students. >>

My conviction that the understanding of Newton's laws formed and grew slowly
over many years, seeded I'll grant by the one PER article which made it into
"Scientific American" back around 1983, McClosky's "Intuitive Physics", but
otherwise in isolation from the PER community.  What is at stake is the
students breaking from a mindset that reality is something they can find
inside themselves, and what they get from books and classes is just to prove
they are right or to keep the teacher happy.  What is at stake is the
students being willing to take on a theoretical construct based on
reproducible experiments and use it to reinterpret their world.

This represents a profound shift in thinking, which can spread to other
aspects of their life.  It is also the key to understanding science and the
scientific method.  Newton's laws may not be the only port of entry into
this profound paradigm shift, but it is historically the place at which our
species made the shift and unless one radically rearranges the order of the
physics sequence it is the gateway to genuine understanding of the rest of
the course.

Does this make me a fanatic?  Perhaps.  A physics fanatic.  Please don't
tell anyone outside of this list.  I try so hard to appear normal.

Chris Horton


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Christopher A. Horton, Ph.D.
4158 RR#3 (Hwy. 204)
Amherst, NS B4H 3Y1
CANADA
ChrisAHorton2@hotmail.com
(902) 447-2109

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"Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us
will have been effaced.  Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has
in it something for every age to investigate ... Nature does not reveal her
mysteries once and for all."
- Seneca, "Natural Questions", first century, quoted by Carl Sagan in
"Cosmos", p.xi.

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