Re: [Phys-l] not our majors now!

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

The new pedagogy has improved understanding over the old.  The important
thing here that is lost sight of is that there is NO evidence that the
majority of students achieved excellent understanding under the traditional
methods.  The T methods basically only worked by exposing students to things
over a long period of time, and filtered out those who for whatever reason
failed to understand.  A very few would deeply think about things outside of
class.

> Rick  (maybe the solution IS what I tend to dislike about much of the 'new
> pedagogy'--that is, get them to do everything you feel is essential IN THE
> CLASSROOM--with the obvious loss of coverage.)

As to getting students to do everything inside class, that is not true.
Homework is still assigned.  But studies have shown that traditional
homework is as likely to reinforce wrong concepts as right ones.  In
Modeling, homework is not just graded, but is rather discussed by the
students.  In Mazur, he gives daily quizzes on the readings.  Real Time
Physics, Workshop Physics ... all have homework.

The new pedagogy just puts the action into the classroom where it can be
guided by the instructor.  One of the ideas which comes out of T pedagogy is
that immediate reinforcement helps students.  Well that is exactly what
happens in the reformed pedagogy.  Notice that in the reformed methods
students must interact with the material inside the classroom, so they now
have a model for what they need to do outside the classroom.

At this point, you are seeing the results of the high stakes testing.
Students have been noodled with facts, and they have been required to do
gobs of test review.  They have been so managed in class that they have not
much initiative left.  They want you to do what every teacher has done up to
this point.  They want you to just tell them the answers so they can just
spit them back on the tests.  There is one teacher in my school who never
gives homework.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX