A Physics Teaching Dilemma: Attempts to Get Students to Understand Proportion at a Deeper Level..... Don't Work......WHY?
Abstract
For six years I have worked very hard to help my students understand that over 80% of the equations of Introductory Physics: 1) are variations of one equation y = mx, where y & x are the proportional variables, 2) follow a consistent pattern wherein the constant m is nearly always an "invented" new concept defined by the ratio m = y/x, 3) reveal the new definition to be a physical property which we experience, 4) and thus is a quantity we experimentally want to measure. Although some students clearly are receptive to the above ideas, most students fail to appreciate (or even see) this higher order generalization, and thus are deprived of an overall understanding of one of the major intellectual advances of the last two thousand years and correspondent inability to see how the fundamental concepts (& constants) of our sciences are "boot strapped" out of the "muck of confusion". Moreover, students show no interest in how A/B=C/D proportion is related to the above. In this talk the speaker will discribe these dilemmas and invite the audience to discuss solutions.
- Publication:
-
APS Southeastern Section Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- November 1999
- Bibcode:
- 1999APS..SES..JE08G