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Re: [Phys-l] God as an explanation (WAS: Darwinism underattack?andthephysicsclassroom)



Hi Hugh-
Thanks for the thoughtful answer.
I remain sceptical.
It's all about communication. A communication is never complete until the recipient has repeated the communication ("Roger, bogey 10 O'clock high").
My own frustration is with the student who is unable to repeat any part of yesterday's lecture. Once, in a calculus class I spent a week trying to teach induction - the proposition is true for n=1, assume true for n and show that truth for n+1 is thereby implied. The attempt was a total failure, as I learned from asking the students to apply the process to some simple cases.
I liken teaching to experimental physics. The experimenter tests a theory by trying to prove it wrong. We need to test our students by letting them show that they did not learn what we were trying to teach.
I no longer try to teach induction to first year students in local colleges. Maybe the reequisite prefrontal cortex ain't there yet.
Regards,
Jack



On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Hugh Haskell wrote:

At 22:03 -0500 8/1/08, Jack Uretsky wrote:

But, to what extent were the students able to reproduce what you "taught",
and to what extent did you challenge their ability to do so?

Good point, poor choice of words on my part. What I was trying to do
was to get them to realize that, even though they might not be able
to derive the formulas they were using, that they weren't just
something someone thought up that was useful, or that someone said
was useful. What they did was to work problems, both numerical and
descriptive that illustrated the principles that they had seen me
"derive," and in this way at least understand that they weren't
working in a vacuum.

How well did it work? I can't say for sure, but a pretty good
fraction of my students went on to major in science or
science-related (medicine, engineering) subjects. I can't say that
this was all due to my stellar teaching methods, but I've heard
positive feedback from several of them, that what they "learned" in
my class useful later on. Since I never expected them to have
memorized any equation (the basic equations that I had derived in
class were always available to them), I assume that what they were
talking about was the idea that applying the principles they found
out in my class left them on a firm footing in future classes, where
they might have been expected to be able to derive that stuff.

All of this was mostly based on my frustration as a student that we
were expected to memorize derivations of various formulas (as well as
other stuff--I'll never forget my frustration in a course in organic
chemistry at having to memorize the Solvay process, which, although I
could reproduce the picture, I never understood). Since I never
believed in memorization of any sort (as a result, I hated poetry
classes) I vowed when I became a teacher that memorization would
never be a part of my course. Naturally, that seriously disappointed
a good number of my students who had learned from all their teachers
before me that the key to successful learning was memorization, and
they had gotten good at it. I never thought much of that as an
educational method.

Hugh


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley