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Re: Pedagogy of misconceptions.



Au contraire, I think Kowalski makes a valid point, one which is well worth
attending to as we design curricula. I love Chabay and Sherwood's text, and
it will have a place in my toolbox. They have tried to design a text which
stimulates student discourse; but I fear it is student discourse with the
textbook not with each other that they are trying to engage. As a pedagogue
I appreciated the invitation to imagine how my students will look at things.
I found it liberating actually to let go of the things I "knew" (such as
that the electric field establishes itself along the direction of the wire
and sets up a potential gradient along it) and remember how strange this
once seemed to me long long ago. Thus (like most textbooks) this one serves
a useful purpose for the teacher.

But is it good for the students to be presented in print with misconceptions
and mental wrong turns to struggle with unless they are clearly identified
as such? I can imagine this might be a very
disorienting and frustrating book for a student to work with, for the very
reason that Kowalski points to. But the proof of the pudding is in the
eating. Does it work? It has only been used in a few courses for a few
years. What did
the students do with it? What gains did they make and what was the dropout
rate like?

Chabay and Sherwood are up front about saying this book is not for everyone.
It is for the students who have mastered high school physics and are ready
for a challenge. Is this sort of student better able to cope with this kind
of a textbook, with what one might call "embedded Socratic dialogue", the
textbook playing Devil's Advocate?

Finally would this development of the physics material be best taught with a
less structured exploration and classroom dialogue format with the Socratic
questioning coming from the teacher? Again experience will be the best
arbiter of this questions. Given an AP physics class or a college honors
physics class next year I intend to find out, and would welcome
collaborators. Any takers?

Chris

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

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

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"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.

* * * * * * * * * * *


----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Bellina <jbellina@SAINTMARYS.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: Pedagogy of misconceptions.


This has been going on too long...this quote really has little or
nothing to do with the content of the section being discussed and as
such constitutes a straw man. I suggest we not continue to copy it, and
I do so only so we all know what I am referring to.

cheers,

joe

On Fri, 15 Feb 2002,
Tim Folkerts wrote:

I believe the book may be written to take into account
the probable viewpoint(s) of a student new to the
topic and to recognize the likely preconceptions he or
she is likely to have. For example, twists and turns
on a path force you to move more slowly than if it
were straight. I think it's very understandable that
many students would expect steady-state current in
wires to be similarly affected.

After all, how do we draw a resistor? A zig-zag line! So at some level
we
are all comfortable with this misconception.


Tim


Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. 219-284-4662
Associate Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556