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FW: High-school curriculum changes

I totally agree with that whole living up or down to expectations
comment. If they're allowed to perceive it as hard, they won't even
bother trying.

As a third year physics teacher, I also understand the situation in Bear
Creek. I'm at a school with a similar demographic, and about 50% of our
graduates take a year of physics before leaving here. When I started,
we had a very dry book that put a lot of emphasis on computation.

In the next year we switched it up to a more conceptual based approach
with Hewitt's "Conceptual Physics" 8th ed. We spend a good bit of time
looking at the equations without putting in numbers. I'm trying (but
not always succeeding) at getting them to "know a head of time" what the
answer should be (I take more points off on a quiz if an answer doesn't
"make sense"). A lot of "if this thing on the bottom over here gets
bigger, what happens to that thing on the other side of the equal sign."

As for the order, we do things in a traditional sense, and it seems to
work alright. There's a lot of tooth pulling that goes along with
vectors, but its something they haven't had much experience with, so
it's to be expected. We start off by plotting flight paths on large
maps of the great state of Iowa, and finish up with an activity that
requires them to measure the weight of the world. A globe (with extra
masses stuffed inside) hangs from 13 spring scales at various angles
from the ceiling and the students have to go around and total up the
vertical force components in order to find the weight of the whole
thing. These ideas were stolen long before my time, so I'm not sure of
their origin.

I've stolen other good ideas from PRISMS (www.prisms.uni.edu) (an entire
set of labs and activities), and a presentation by Al Guenther
(www.ber.org).

My biggest problem is with the counselors who tend to forget about my
Alg II pre-req. Its hard teaching vector resolution to a kid who
doesn't know is SOH from his TOA...

Good Luck,
Matt Harding
Iowa City West High School

-----Original Message-----
From: Daryl L. Taylor [mailto:Daryl@DARYLSCIENCE.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 1:17 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: High-school curriculum changes

I tend to agree with your assessments of the problem, but not with this
solution. It does seem the students come to us Fizzix Guys and Gals
poorly
prepared in the Math applications. However, it has always been that way.
It
just seems worse now for some reason.

Students MUST understand that USE of a tool like algebra, trig, or even
Calculus is not only going to "pop-up", but is also expected! 27 or so
years ago, when I was a snotty-nosed rookie physics teacher, I actually
took the time to teach the math necessary. Then, I realized I was
wasting
valuable physics time and, in the long run, cheating my own students. I
now
find the "I expect you to do this" approach works quite well in regular
Physics, Honors Physics, and even in AP Physics. I find consistently
that
the kids who actually want to learn the physics will, indeed, learn the
maths better. If we change our own curriculum to "coddle" to the
unprepared, it knocks us down a level or two.

On the other hand, physics does lend itself to being presented in many
different arrangments, so your "back-to-front" actually has merit.
However,
if you switch the topics totally, how can the student truly learn EM
without vector analysis? Optics without trig? It's like beer without
calories! Can't be done.

One thing done here in South Jersey is not even allowing the student to
drop a course after the 1st two weeks. Once that was instituted, kids
gained a tendency to "guts" it out and give it their best shot. Believe
me,
it works. Expect more.

Daryl L. Taylor, Fizzix Guy
PAEMST '96
Williamstown HS, NJ
Engineering Academy - Rowan University, NJ
www.DarylScience.com
609.330.9571

This email sent using 100% recycled electrons! Don't waste yours!


Daniel S. Price said:
Several factors compel me to address (again) the structure of the
physics curriculum at Bear Creek High School (a suburban high school
comprising students who are, on average, slightly above the
socioeconomic mean):

* Increased enrollment in first-year, algebra-based physics

* Decreased mathematical competence on the part of students
enrolled in
first-year, algebra-based physics

* 10-15% of students (regardless of first-semester performance)
dropping the
class before the beginning of second semester


Given the difficulty that an increasing number of students have with
rearranging equations, solving simultaneous equations, and general
(mathematical) problem-solving instinct, I am seeking opinions
regarding a possible solution:


* Teach the physics course "back-to-front", beginning the year
with
"traditionally second semester topics" such as waves and
sound, light,
electricity, and magnetism, and teaching mechanics in the
second semester.
[Challenging mathematical topics, such as vectors and elastic
collisions, would
then be introduced after students have had at least one
full
semester of
second-year algebra, while topics which are taught with
much
less algebra
would be introduced in the first semester. Also, "second
semester topics"
tend to be more interesting to students (more "flash",
making for better
advertising to the next year's enrollees (we register for
the upcoming year
three weeks into the spring semester.]


Discussion regarding the merits of this proposal is most welcome.