The rest is not directed toward anyone in particular:
Try using some PER. If it works, try more. If it doesn't work, try
something else. If our physics students tried a problem one time, one
way & it didn't' work, we'd probably tell them they should stick to it a
bit.
If lecture is all it takes, why doesn't the book alone work?
Why send a kid to lecture?
Why not just give the kid your notes?
Maybe a little something extra hits a few more kids.
Keep talking about how more and more physics & science grad students are
from other countries.
Fine. Do something about it. Teach differently.
Will more scholarships really spark an interest in people? I would
guess only those that find the stuff interesting in the first place.
There is no scholarship in the world that would make me to get a
graduate degree in a subject that didn't genuinely spark my
curiosity/interest.
Paul Lulai
Physics Instructor & Online Learning Coordinator
Saint Anthony Village Senior High School, ISD 282
3303 33rd Avenue N.E.
Saint Anthony Village, MN 55418
(w) 612-706-1144
(fax) 612-706-1140
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of John
Denker
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 1:28 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Reading PER literature
On 12/05/2006 01:23 PM, Bob LaMontagne wrote:
I have not had the time nor the inclination to wade through PER
material.
It's not humanly possible to wade through it. There is too much of it.
Here is a trick I have used more than once (with respect to PER and to
other unrelated ideas as well): I ask for the *one* paper that *best*
describes the things the guy is advocating. I then review the paper
according to my normal standards.
I then go back to the guy and say:
This is the *best* paper, right? So all the others are worse? Uh
huh, I thought so. Well, this one is a piece of garbage for the
following eleventeen reasons, starting with several instances of
PbBA and several instances of "proving" things that cannot possibly
be true. If this is the best there is, I don't believe any of it,
and the more you tout it the less I trust your judgement.
I have killfiled some people who routinely post to this list "facts"
that cannot possibly be true. I find it unnecessary even to refute
them, on the grounds that AFAICT almost nobody on this list takes
them seriously. Refuting them would be a waste of bandwidth.
What generally passes for "R" in "PER" would not be accepted as research
in any field of science. I am reminded of Feynman's discussion of
cargo-cult science in particular the last part where he talks about
how hard it is to do study behavior and learning in rats. You can
read at http://yunus.hun.edu.tr/~saritan/cargo.htm
I recommend the whole article, but if you are in a super-big hurry
search down to the paragraph that contains "1937". For that matter,
I recommend the whole book.