Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["Folkerts, Timothy J" <FolkertsT@bartonccc.edu>]

> Isn't this another facet of the point made long ago by Arons, that when
we 
> lecture students (or they read their assigned texts), much of the time 
> they have no idea what we'r e talking about?
> 				Regards,
> 					Jack

Perhaps.  And I agree with his conclusion.  But that means we need to
improve so that that we are not wasting their time in lecture and
wasting their time reading the text.  So we add interactive elements to
the lecture time.  Perhaps we need more interactive elements for the
reading time.

My main point is that we have to actively TEACH and SHOW the students
not only the physics, but also techniques for reading the text.  We show
how to work problems.  We show how to do algebra.  But we rarely show
how to read the book.  Too often all we say is "read chapter 3 and we
will start discussing it Wednesday".  Why not add "Think carefully about
what conservation of momentum means" or "fill in the missing steps to
the derivation on page 123" or "I think figure 8.4 is poor. What could
be done to improve it" or "paraphrase each of Newton's laws without
using the words "force" or "uniform" or "reaction""? 

I tried doing this a bit already, but somehow too often I was getting
"parrot answers" or "I couldn't figure it out".  Perhaps I was just not
holding them accountable enough.  Perhaps I hadn't helped them use the
text properly. 

In some sense, what I attempted was "interactive engagement of textbook
reading", where the students were forced to actively think about the
text.  In this case they were "constructing knowledge" from the text
rather than from experiments.

There is some of the same sense of facing an experience that doesn't
mesh with their world.  In this case, they all know that they know how
to read, and they "know" that they can read about a page per minute.
When faced with the textbook, they suddenly are faced with reading a
sentence (and perhaps even recognizing all the words), but then
realizing that they just don't get it.  Hopefully we can use that as a
teachable moment to let them know that 1) they CAN get it if they
actually work at it and 2) it will take much longer than 1 minute per
page.

Tim Folkerts