Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Unfortunately, the research shows that student interest and liking of
science goes DOWN with each conventional science course they take.
Mandating more and more stuff has not improved the thinking of students as
shown by the recent Science article.  4 years of science is good news for
the employment of science teachers, but is unlikely to improve students
unless the courses are taught using inquiry.  Again there is abundant
evidence that inquiry or properly the learning cycle improves student
thinking, which in turn makes them more capable of learning science.  Just
adding another memorization course to the list will not help any students.

If the US has suffered the same decline in thinking skills of students that
has been documented by Michael Shayer in England, a lot of the problems that
have been noted by college professors might be due to this.  The solution is
to use cognitive enhancement techniques, and not just assume that more stuff
will raise the students.  The simplest is a new technique that uses computer
training to improve working memory.  Thinking Science in middle school has
been shown to help.  The Learning Cycle has been shown to help.  Thinking
Maths has been shown to help.  Feuerstein's IE has been around since the 80s
and it helps.  His study showed that his program dramatically improved
conventional IQ scores while an equivalent time teacher designed enrichment
program had little effect.  All of these techniques use a variety of
inquiry, except for the computer enhancement.  All of them push students to
greater involvement.

If the new courses were all taught using inquiry, I can see supporting them.
But they won't be.  And at the same time physics is likely to go to freshman
year and be taught by the former physical science teachers who have many of
the same misconceptions as their students.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> But what ARE they interested in, in High School?  In math?  In English?
> In
> History?
>
> If we only teach what interests students (maybe pop culture?) in our
> schools, where does that leave us?
>
> Lack of interest is NOT a viable argument against science in school, at
> any
> level!  It is defeatist at best.
>
> Rick
>
>
>
>
> > > In most cases, the traditional high school physics course is an
> > > elective.  It is therefore self-selective.  Student enrolling in the
> > > course generally have some interest in the subject or else they
> wouldn't
> > > take it.  I know this is not 100% true because some take it because
> they
> > > know they want to be engineers; some take it because they know they
> want
> > > to major in science in college; and so forth.
> >
> > Actually, it is not just self-selective.  A lot of students take it
> > because
> > they think it will help them get into a "good" school.  The vast
> majority
> > of
> > these students either will not, or can not pursue a career in math or
> > science.  TX is requiring 4 years of HS science next year in the belief
> > that
> > this will improve student learning.  This will probably just put more
> > unwilling students into science classes, and swell lower level science
> > classes.  Only a very few are actually interested in it or seriously
> plan
> > to
> > pursue science or engineering.  Some private schools require physics for
> > all.  So actually most students are really not interested in it in HS.
> >
> > John M. Clement
> > Houston, TX
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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