Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Re: What students will do. (was: Physics Solutions Manual)



I've run into the same problems everyone else has and, FWIW, I require
my students to submit two questions before each class: one about the
readings and one about the homework. I find several advantages to this
method (which I've used, in one form or another, several years now).

1. I find that many students won't read, even if they are assigned HW
(they go straight to the homework and then read "backwards" to find the
"answer" to the question or something close to it). This activity
forces them to read something.

2. I find that many students don't reflect upon the readings. This
forces them to reflect upon what they are reading and compare that to
what they understand.

3. I find that many students aren't able to reflect and/or ask
questions. This gives me an opportunity to guide them on how to ask
questions and reflect upon the readings.

4. This also gives me a good handle on the extent of their understanding
and the misconceptions they still harbor. I then design the lesson to
address their questions.

This is somewhat time-consuming, as I respond to each question
personally (but only have about 30 students in my class). I'm not sure
if it is really necessary to respond personally - I haven't tried it any
other way. Due to the time required to respond, I decided that this
semester I am *not* collecting and grading homework (other than the
questioning activity described above), although I've told them that at
least one homework question will be on the exam. We'll see if this
affects things...I'm not so sure...

P.S. I use my own book (year-long algebra-based) and incorporated a lot
of the ideas discussed in this forum. I've found that when my book is
used by another teacher, performance is not negatively affected (and may
be a positive influence) despite the lack of any pictures other than
line drawings.

____________________________________________________
Robert Cohen, Chair, Department of Physics
East Stroudsburg University; E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301
570-422-3428; www.esu.edu/~bbq

-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators
[mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On Behalf Of David T. Marx
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 3:20 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: What students will do. (was: Physics Solutions Manual)

I do reading quizzes using clickers at the beginning of each
class. I find that students now read the book, where they
barely looked at it before reading quizzes. When surveyed,
87% indicated that the reading quizzes made them read the
book much more than they would have otherwise.

The problem I ran into last semester was that students could
not comprehend what they were reading - even after, in some
cases, reading it five or six times and taking pages of
notes. When I looked at the pages of notes, I found a series
of statements with no connection begin made between them or
any attempt to summarize what had been read.

Regards,
David Marx
Illinois State University
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l