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[Phys-L] Re: student mathematical capabilities



----- Original Message -----
From: "John M Clement" <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>
To: <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: student mathematical capabilities


The standards basically have little effect on the quality of teaching.
However they do have an effect on how much "stuff" is stuffed into
the curricula.

Actually, the way the standards are typically stated there is very little
indication of the specifics of what should be taught. Standards tend to be
very general: "Students will learn how to use technology to collect data",
for example.

In reality the average physics course is about as well
or as poorly taught as the average math course. And we now know using
the FCI/FMCE... that the average physics course achieves less than 25%
normalized gain.

Note here that traditional physics courses, despite our assumptions, tend
not to teach concepts, but instead to focus on problems and problem solving.
Yherefore, poor results on the FCI, for example, should not be surprising.
One of the reasons that this happens is that the fundamental concepts are
actually very easy to state, so we tend not to devote much time or effort to
disabuse students of their misconceptions about them.

So the average math course is in the same boat.

I think math is worse off. A lot of time is devoted to topics that would be
useful to math majors, but hardly applicable to the everyday life of the
average student. Not nearly enough application of ideas to REAL problems is
done, so kids do a poor job of associating math techniques to the real
world.

Both need major restructuring and both math and science teachers at
all levels need retraining.

Modelling should be a fundamental part of every physics teacher's education.

Indeed the college teachers are probably the most in need of retraining if
my son's experiences at college are any indication.

Probably true. College courses are very problem solving oriented, and
concepts tend not to be addressed.
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