Re: Less is less

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 9:02 -0400 6/29/02, Michael N. Monce wrote:
> >  1.  Sadler's famous study among others shows clearly that less is more
> >  - as measured by student success in college physics.
> >
> >  Chris Horton
>
>
>      While this data cannot be refuted, I'd like some advice from the
> advocates of "less is more" of how to implement this into a standard 4-year
> college physics major.  As we do less in the Intro. course, the students
> come less prepared into say, Modern, then less prepared into Mechanics,
> etc.  As we actually do less in our courses, the refrain of "didn't you see
> a bit of this topic in course xxx?" is heard more and more in our classes,
> especially at the upper level.  In order for better learning do we need to
> expand the college degree to 5 years (and another $35,000 for the
> parents :)  )?

I don't think anyone will deny that the "drinking from a firehose"
approach to physics teaching is not a productive way to teach. An
encyclopedic curriculum that devotes one class or fraction of a class
to each topic and then moves on without giving the students time to
digest the ideas will not result in any educational benefit.

But it seems to me that we need to do two things before the "less is
more" approach will be any more effective than the "mile wide and
inch deep" one that we have been faced with in the past. The first is
that we need to come to a consensus as to what in the introductory
curriculum is important and what can be omitted or shortened without
great penalty. Right now, the way we seem to do it is "whatever is at
the end of the syllabus doesn't get taught." That is hardly a
rational way to edit the curriculum.

The other is to start earlier. I and others have decried our
willingness to delay the start of serious physics education to the
11th or 12 grade, or even into college. It is unconscionable that we
are willing to waste those vital five or six years when the students
could be learning and getting used to those ideas that keep tripping
up students when they don't see them until their world picture is
pretty much locked into the Aristotelian mold. I have long advocated
the idea that, for at least those students operating at below the
genius level, time is at least as important as pedagogy in deepening
the understanding of basic principles. Most of us, if we are being
honest with ourselves, will admit that we didn't understand the basic
ideas of physics until after we started teaching them, and realized,
when we tried to explain them to our students, that our own
understanding was not at the level we needed to be successful. I
contend that the issue here is now how well or badly that we were
taught the ideas originally, but that only with time can the
significance and depth of the ideas become clear. We are fooling
ourselves if we think that we can impart that same depth to our
students in only one year merely with better pedagogy. I don't deny
that improved pedagogy is important, and PER is showing us new and
important things we can do, but, without additional time, which we
can gain by starting earlier in the school program, we are fiddling
around on the margins.

Physics educators need to start learning how to deal with children
starting at the 4th or 5th grade--what activities students can
successfully do at those levels, what concepts will be consistent
with what they are learning in their other courses and that they can
hope to understand at that level, how to manage the classroom at that
age group. Then we need to prepared materials that are not only
appropriate for the age, but will lead to real understanding of the
concepts later, when the basic ideas can be folded into the higher
level skills as they progress through the grades.

It also involves getting into teacher preparation. It is high time we
abandoned the idea that elementary and middle school teachers be
generalists. Let the sciences and math be taught by specialists, just
like they have been doing in music and the arts for decades. The
specialist can come to the classroom, and the regular classroom
teacher can act as the "assistant" to the specialist, thus
maintaining the contact with the children who don't need to move from
classroom to classroom at that age. It also means that there will be
at least two adults in the room, which is essential if the students
are going to be able to succeed in a small-group learning environment.

This doesn't solve Tim's problem, but, IMO, we are never going to
settle the "less is more" vs. "less is less" debate until we take the
actions I have outlined above. And yes, they will cost money.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
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