Re: Math and Physics Teacher partnership?

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

> > Why not subdivide the curriculum and hand over the topics in
> > physics most suitable for teaching algebra thus
> > providing more time for physics teachers to cover the topics we
> > never get to cover - in the depth we only dream of.
> >
> > Examples of Topics I would like to see covered in math:
> > kinematics and graphing, scaling, projectiles, vectors (math curr.
> > is supposed to do this , but either skips it or massacres it),
> > dimensional analysis, unit analysis, momentum (linear), resistor
> networks,
> > geometric optics, springs and basic SHM...
> >
> > This would also allow math teachers to take over some labs so that
> > they can have the hands on activities they have been told they need.
> >
> > A true and useful version of 'physics first'  packaged as
> > 'experiential ?algebra' or 'physical algebra' could result.

Yes, but they are supposedly already doing many of these things, but they
fail to give the students the necessary hands on experience.  I think if
this were attempted the math teachers would just end up piling more stuff
onto the students with even less hands on.  PER has investigated the
teaching of vectors and finds that it is fairly bad.  It is unlikely to be
better in the hands of math teachers unless there is a good research based
curriculum available for them to use, and which they have trained in.  The
math teachers are unlikely to pay attention to the physics teachers, and
will only change if the changes come from the math community.

The basic problem is that math fails to get across the concept of variable
to most students and now has so much stuff in it that students just memorize
their way through with little understanding.  All of this is fine, but when
you have students who divide m/s by s and get m, there is a basic problem
with the math teaching.  Remember that traditional physics is actually
taught in a similar fashion to math, and it is not working well.  Pushing
physics first onto math teachers will be unlikely to result in better math
or physics.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX