Re: [Phys-l] corrupting the youth

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

Oh come on, the word "discovery" is a red herring.  NOBODY uses pure
discovery methods because that is equated with free play.  PER does use
inquiry methods, but the students have concrete preparation before they
figure out a system.  The systems are set up carefully so the students can
analyze them.  So if you will we use "guided discovery".

So certainly contrasting free play discovery with didactic teaching favors
lecture.  But when you contrast inquiry results with standard didactic
methods inquiry wins hands down.  Please read The Physics Teacher article on
a pair of identical twins educated by conventional vs PER methods.  And then
of course there are many other comparison articles which show that inquiry
wins.  I have not seen any where standard didactic methods win.  Anyone is
free to find them and point them out.  If I can, I will read them.  By can,
I mean have access to the article.

Modeling uses guided inquiry and does not give the student already cooked
equations.  It achieves high gain, and I have some evidence that it also
improves student thinking ability.  Actually it achieves near transfer, and
I contend there is some far transfer.

Professional physicists use inquiry.  But many of the greatest ideas were
actually discovered by accident.  Indeed most revolutionary ideas are
discovered by accident.  Radiation is one of the these ideas.  But unlike
the average student physicists understand that when one comes across
something that is surprising, it has to either be fitted into their current
paradigm, or that paradigm might have to change.  Actually that is what
babies do.  But students have been trained to accept authority blindly and
have unlearned this idea in the context of education.  To learn more about
this read some of Piaget's works.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> On 12/15/2010 08:29 AM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
> >  "Discovery"
> > methods unfortunately presuppose so much knowledge about a system
> > that I'm not sure what is being discovered.
>
> Now you've done it.  You should never have mentioned that huge
> stinky dead moose on the table.