Having asked a quiz question that went: "What is the yearly, per-capita
cost of.....? " which required that they would have looked at the hallway
display that we've been working on, half of the class answered with the
total cost over 100 years--only a factor of 45 billion too high! 25% knew
and 25% were clueless. But what about that first 50%? If I give them
credit for understanding the work 'yearly' (not certain I should), then they
clearly don't understand the term 'per-capita' or else their reading skills
don't include worrying about adjectives.
Jim Green is always on us to use the most precise, formal Physics language,
but how can we succeed at that when we can't even communicate in the
vernacular (whoops--in ENGLISH). All the students are English speaking by
the way! To twist a Beatles lyric--I've got to admit it's harder, getting
harder all the time.....
;-(
Rick
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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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