Re: [Phys-l] Reading PER literature

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

There was a talk (copied on the web) by Goodstein (Cal Tech) pointing out 
that the US is doing graduate science education for the world, while U.S. 
students can't make it into our grad schools.  He was deploring the state 
of US undergard education.  He was certainly knowledgeable about the 
admissions policies respecting physics grad students at Cal Tech.
				Regards,
					Jack

On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, John Clement wrote:

> One interpretation is that there is a problem with education in their
> countries.  It could be that the prestigious schools there are full, or the
> social climate here is alluring.
>
> As to superiority of American schools, this is often a self fulfilling
> prophesy.  When a school is considered superior people send their budding
> geniuses there and viola, it has better test scores and superior graduates.
> My kids school is precisely one of those.  Schools ratings are actually
> completely independent of the education.  They don't do good pre and
> posttesting to see if the graduates have "learned" more.  It is the old
> computer adage GIGO "garbage in garbage out" or in this case genius in,
> genious out.
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX
> > | > Keep talking about how more and more physics & science grad students
> > | are
> > | > from other countries.
> > | > Fine.  Do something about it.  Teach differently.
> > |
> > | Hmmm.  But many of them study here, so what does THAT say?
> > | --- That says that our schools are good.  It doesn't say that there is
> > | no room for improvement in teaching methods.
> > |
> >
> > There are, of course, other interpretations of that data that are likely
> > to be of equal value.
> > _______________________________________________
>
>
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