Re: [Phys-l] definitions ... purely operational, or not

[Hugh Haskell <haskellh@verizon.net>]

At 22:00 -0700 11/08/2010, William Robertson wrote:
> I believe that your students understood the concept as you presented 
> it in your course. I'm seeing this from a different perspective, which 
> is working with teachers who have taken physics in HS and college, and 
> are now trying to teach their students. The teachers I work with 
> exhibit a great deal of confusion on the issue, and are therefore 
> transmitting their confusion to their students. They are faced with a 
> curriculum that gives the moon-earth difference to explain mass and 
> weight, yet many have learned something conflicting in their physics 
> courses. I am not at all worried about students who will continue to 
> study physics or whose goal is to "get it" in the one physics course 
> they take. The ones who study more physics can adjust to different 
> reference frames and different definitions by different authors, and 
> it doesn't matter for students who will never deal with the issue 
> beyond the course they are taking.
Another reason why pre-service teachers need to have a logical system 
that they can get their heads around. If my students can learn it, so 
can they. Same goes for in-service teachers coming in for a re-tread.

But as JD pointed out, definitions are a personal matter, so it is 
also important that the teachers know that there are often several 
logical ways to present these ideas, and that they make it clear to 
students that they may see alternative ways to look that the 
concepts, and they won't necessarily be wrong (alas, sometimes hey 
will), so they need to work with the one that works for them.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
mailto:hugh@ieer.org
mailto:haskellh@verizon.net

It isn't easy being green.

		--Kermit Lagrenouille