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



On 10/05/2006 08:26 AM, Monce, Michael N. wrote:

The worst of it is for the "6" their
problem sets are near perfect and closely resemble Griffiths' solution manual, yet when I ask
them basic question in class, none can come up with the answers.

You didn't cause this problem. Solving it partially will be difficult,
and solving it completely will be impossible.

I don't know enough about these specific students to say for sure, but I
suspect that they have been exposed to 12+ years of school in which rote
regurgitation served them just fine.

They've been exposed to you for a small number of weeks.
-- First of all, they may not even _understand_ what you're saying when
you ask them to do their own work and exhibit some critical thinking.
They surely have some experience doing such things, but the idea of
doing such things /in school/ is waaay outside their experience.
-- Secondly, even if they understand you, why should they believe you?
As far as they know, you might be bluffing. If they hear a rumor that
your course is different, they might well adopt a wait-and-see attitude,
rather than reacting to a mere rumor.

Suggestion #1: Do something that reeeeally shakes them out of their
complacency, something that clearly requires imagination and critical
thinking; something that obviously can't be looked up in a book. As
a specific example, maybe you could assign some Bongard problems as
an in-class exercise. Most students seem to enjoy doing them.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~hfoundal/research.html

Semi-impractical suggestion: It would be nice to lead them through the
Mississippi river problem ... but I don't know how to make that work
in a classroom setting. It works magnificently one-on-one; with only
8 customers you might be able to pull it off.
http://www.av8n.com/physics/thinking.htm

There are tools that allow you to make up N versions of each homework
problem, to discourage them from copying answers from one another.
If that's too much bother, at least assign rejiggered versions of
the textbook problems, rather than the verbatim versions. The point
is to discourage looking up the answers in the manual.

Suggestion #2: Take them aside one by one and threaten to flunk them
and/or wash them out of the major program. Explain that thinking is
(a) an entrace requirement, not to mention (b) a graduation requirement
for physics majors. If they enjoy looking up answers in books, they
should transfer to the English department and plan on careers as
librarians.

Do *not* say in front of the class you're going to give bad grades to
everyone (or to 6 of the 8). They'll assume you're bluffing about that,
even if you're not.

The carrots that go with this stick is that stick include: thinking is
fun; it goes hand-in-hand with "interesting". Nonthinking is boring.
Jobs that require thinking pay a lot more than jobs that don't.

===================

Bottom line: Go after this problem immediately, directly, vigorously,
and persistently. They are stuck in a rut, and you will (I suspect)
need to shake pretty hard to shake them out of it.