Re: Homework (Was Measure of student understanding)

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Haskell" <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>
>

> What we are doing now is probably as good as we were doing forty
> years ago, and is probably as good at producing scientists and
> engineers now as it was then. I think the issue now is not that
> group, which would probably get where they are despite what the
> education system is doing to them (in most cases), but the group that
> will not become scientists but considering the impact that science is
> having on their lives, needs to understand something about science.
> Just a few of the current public issues that profoundly affect
> science and which are profoundly affected by science are: nuclear
> power, energy conservation, global warming, the ozone layer, rain
> forest destruction, fishery destruction, flood control,loss of
> privacy and degradation of civil rights due to technological
> development, stem cell research, food irradiation, genetic
> engineering, smokestack pollution, toxic wastes--the list goes on.
> Important decisions are being made about all of these topics and
> others almost daily, by people whose understanding of science is
> essentially nil, and who represent people who understand even less.
>
> It seems to me that the necessity of getting a populace who can
> understand the basic nature of these issues and can develop some
> intelligent opinions on them is absolutely critical to our survival
> as a species. We need scientifically literate citizens even more than
> we need scientists. In order to get there, the quality of science
> education we offer these potential non-scientist-citizens has to
> improve by at least a few orders of magnitude.

This is exactly the goal at which I aim my Gen Ed course.  It is also a goal
that I have trouble seeing how many of the newer pedagogies really attack.
Yes, I can understand that if critical thinking skills are improved, that
might help, along with some better understanding of how science approaches
such issues, but given that we only get one shot at this clientele--one
course--might not a focused study of one or more of these topics (I've
chosen Energy) be just as appropriate and maybe more so.  Actually, I try to
do both, spending one semester on a study of motion as an example of the way
physics has developed its ideas, with lab work to show how it goes about
doing this--and I even get decent 'gains' in the process.  The second
semester IS an in depth study of the energy picture culminating in a full
class project of designing an energy distribution system for the U.S. for
the year 2100.  I feel this experience is probably more valuable (in terms
of Hugh's goals) than a full year of conceptual type physics--regardless of
the pedagogy.  The student evals and the enrollment in the course (turning
away students) encourages me to continue this approach.

Rick

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

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