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I agree, and have had a similar experience in physics. Which is why I said what I said. I think that demonstrating logical connections in lecture where the students are passively learning ends up with in one ear and out the other.which
The students have to work out the logic themselves, just being told it in
the form of derivations is not that instructive. What I found
was much more useful was to have the students complete detailed readingthat, individually the students can't figure it out themselves) they have to bracket (like they do for basketball) the concepts and equations where the winner(s) are the overarching concepts/formulae that connect the pieces together (and they also have to figure out how the different parts or connected or not and then build a flow chart after the bracket stage is done right). This involves alot of class discussion, and in the process the students end up with a better grasp on the logical structure. It usually takes two or three times before they figure it out, but the results that I've seen after that exercise were far better than what I had when I simply showed the math and assumptions that take one equation to another. And yes the math is still there, but they've encountered it in the textbook. If they didn't understand it then, they simply write it in the questions section of their reading guide which I read and then answer first thing in class.
guides as homework, and then as the final step as a class (it has to be
I think Hugh read into what I was saying to infer that I advocate teaching physics as a set of isolated facts, when really I'm simply in favor of placing active learning above passive learning, especially in the context of derivations.
David Whitbeck
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Jack Uretsky
Sent: Sat 8/2/2008 8:58 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: 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