Why? Why oh why do students have so much trouble in physics

[kote]

It is not the Instructor's fault if a student decides to go home and fire up the gaming console instead of working on whatever it is he / she is struggling with.

If the situation is treated as if it is actually the instructor's fault when this happens (as it is in the business world) then the instructor will take action to make sure that, to the best of his ability, no student will ever want to go home and play games instead of doing the work. Part of my job as a manager is to make sure that everyone is coming to work and not getting "sick" each Friday. Part of my job is also to remind people to be safe and healthy at home so they don't injure themselves and miss work as a result. When someone slips on ice at home we write up an audit finding and figure out a way to reduce the regularity and intensity of the issue. Maybe we offer training or require certain footwear be used when walking into work, which people will presumably put on at home before driving out.

This is how you get results - there needs to be ownership. The fact that the instructor is 100% responsible for the education of his students does not exclude the students from responsibility. Each student is also 100% responsible for his own education. Similarly, the department head is responsible for the education of all students in his department.

Accountability and ownership drive results. I'm not talking about who we should assign blame to - I'm talking about how we fix the problem and educate students. Who is morally responsible for each failure is irrelevant.

 

[Dembadon]

If the situation is treated as if it is actually the instructor's fault when this happens (as it is in the business world) then the instructor will take action to make sure that, to the best of his ability, no student will ever want to go home and play games instead of doing the work. Part of my job as a manager is to make sure that everyone is coming to work and not getting "sick" each Friday. Part of my job is also to remind people to be safe and healthy at home so they don't injure themselves and miss work as a result. When someone slips on ice at home we write up an audit finding and figure out a way to reduce the regularity and intensity of the issue. Maybe we offer training or require certain footwear be used when walking into work, which people will presumably put on at home before driving out.

This is how you get results - there needs to be ownership. The fact that the instructor is 100% responsible for the education of his students does not exclude the students from responsibility. Each student is also 100% responsible for his own education. Similarly, the department head is responsible for the education of all students in his department.

Accountability and ownership drive results. I'm not talking about who we should assign blame to - I'm talking about how we fix the problem and educate students. Who is morally responsible for each failure is irrelevant.

Point taken; well said, by the way. :)

 

[Sankaku]

It's my job to motivate. It's my job to make sure they understand and are able to do the work.

While I totally agree with many of your points, it is also my job as a business owner to FIRE employees who are unable to do their work. Schools are in a position that they are very negatively impacted if they 'fire' non-performing students.

Can schools and profs do a better job motivating students? Absolutely! I think there are enough good teachers out there that show the way.

Your point about hard sciences giving a poor cost-reward tradeoff compared to other subjects is well taken. The question then becomes, why do it?

I am heartened by the increase in 'science for non-scientists' courses out there, so I guess I would split students this way:

- Motivate kids to like science.

- If they want to do science, work them hard but don't kill them (and keep them motivated).

- If they don't want to do science, make sure they have a good general understanding of scientific thinking and knowledge of what science is, so they can be informed citizens.

- But if they SAY they want to do science and are given good instruction, but don't perform, fail them.

I know this is an over-simplified scenario, but I think you might understand my point?

 

[kote]

While I totally agree with many of your points, it is also my job as a business owner to FIRE employees who are unable to do their work. Schools are in a position that they are very negatively impacted if they 'fire' non-performing students.

Clearly you've never worked in a union shop . But I agree. Students are not quite employees. They are some cross between employees and customers. I am also not saying that everyone should be getting As. The goal should be for every student to earn a legitimate A, but the threat of lower grades has to be real just as the threat of discipline or a low rating / raise at work must be real (and fair).

Calling people out and pointing out poor performance can be an effective way to get closer to the idealized goal. We've seen some dramatic results when "metrics" have been implemented and the performance of each (salaried, not union) employee has been quantitatively and publicly analyzed and ranked. People pay more attention to keeping up on their duties when each week they show up on an email with their name in red at the bottom of a list of their peers. Point of the story: fair and meaningful grades are needed, and realistically, if everyone is getting an A you're doing it wrong. At the same time the goal should be for everyone to get an A. I don't think this is news to anyone though - just another parallel.

 

[Klockan3]

The easiest way would be to give fair credits, aka the harder a course is the more credits it gets. Then you can't take "easy" courses etc. Of course it would be impossible to give completely fair credit weights, but no one can really argue with the fact that as it is now it isn't equal at all.

 

[Bourbaki1123]

If the situation is treated as if it is actually the instructor's fault when this happens (as it is in the business world) then the instructor will take action to make sure that, to the best of his ability, no student will ever want to go home and play games instead of doing the work. Part of my job as a manager is to make sure that everyone is coming to work and not getting "sick" each Friday. Part of my job is also to remind people to be safe and healthy at home so they don't injure themselves and miss work as a result. When someone slips on ice at home we write up an audit finding and figure out a way to reduce the regularity and intensity of the issue. Maybe we offer training or require certain footwear be used when walking into work, which people will presumably put on at home before driving out.

This is how you get results - there needs to be ownership. The fact that the instructor is 100% responsible for the education of his students does not exclude the students from responsibility. Each student is also 100% responsible for his own education. Similarly, the department head is responsible for the education of all students in his department.

Accountability and ownership drive results. I'm not talking about who we should assign blame to - I'm talking about how we fix the problem and educate students. Who is morally responsible for each failure is irrelevant.

Yeah but the profit base isn't really centered around quality of instruction as much as maintaining a good reputation via the best students and top researchers at the school. The guys who linger around for 6 years who have to retake courses and still don't get a degree are probably major cash cows for the university.

Personally I think there needs to be a split in the system. Some people should be going to technical schools or schools with basic bachelors and associate programs so they can get out into the work force quickly. They should cut gen eds and focus on skill building. Then those who want to pursue a more 'enlightened' path can go on to a full university. The German school system achieves this split fairly well from what I have read, and I think it is the way to go.

I think that the standard university style program simply is not for everyone and we need a respected alternative. Technical schools are becoming more popular, and that is probably good, but I think a split at the high school level would also be appropriate.

 

[symbolipoint]

I think that the standard university style program simply is not for everyone and we need a respected alternative. Technical schools are becoming more popular, and that is probably good, but I think a split at the high school level would also be appropriate.

Splitting the goals at the high school level has been called "tracking" and many educators and associated people believe it to be unfair; the fairness depends on how the splitting is managed for the students. Skill building and education for how to think are both wonderful. A student should be encouraged to INCREASE his/her options - not limit them.

 

[Bourbaki1123]

Perhaps high school is too early. I still think that many people are negatively impacted by going to a university rather than a technical/vocational school.

 

[L'Arrogant]

what kind of ¨skill¨ is problem solving? problem solving is inherently a spontaneous occurrence! if you mean by problem solving using the algorithms physics students are taught then those are just as formulaic as anything else.

every statics problem ever:
¨draw the force diagram -> resolve the forces into components -> sum the forces in x,y and z to 0 -> solve for unknowns. ¨

every e&m problem ever:
¨draw the charge distribution -> find the field or potential (mirror charges or w/e) -> solve for unknowns¨

every qm problem ever:
¨draw the potential -> solve schrodinger´s eqn (it´s probably an infinite square well so just ¨guess¨ cosines and sines or complex exponentials) -> solve for k¨

i think the problem is the lie. don´t preach ¨problem solving skills¨ - preach what it really is algorithmic solutions. at least then students won´t be deceived.

I completely agree. The concept of "problem-solving" is counterproductive. People NEED patterns--that's what Math is, right? A way to describe patterns? Physics in itself (the invention of) took some highly non-linear thinking, but an intro physics course does not. This is not because the students are incapable, but because they lack the time necessary for trial and error. My inkling is that the students are not sleeping when you describe the concepts--they are freezing like deer in headlights when they're expected to "problem-solve". It's the difference between understanding material and being expected to manipulate it so that one may be evaluated. The former is a creative process, unique to each student; the latter is algorithmic--it must, at least initially, be taught as such.

 

[kaos86]

My freshman year, we had to live on-campus, and my roommate was pre-med. He took some of the same courses that I took, but his courses were stretched out over 2 semesters for every semester that I took. It was frustrating, because he expected me to carry him through the material, and he did not have the fundamentals to understand the basics of the materials. He was clueless, and did not study properly (he didn't have the foundation to do that anyway) and crammed relentlessly for exams, trying to memorize stuff. It was sad.

Reminds me of some idiot(Classmate from intro. to physics 1) that kept bothering me about my answers to my homework. I made great notes and drawn diagrams to make the problem come to life in my mind. Yet, this imbecile requested my notes a lot. I told him to do it yourself and few weeks later he finally dropped the class. People who cannot make notes or put work into things are going to have a harsh reality check. BTW, he was majoring in computer engineering and he can't even do simple algebraic based physics problems.

 

[JJBladester]

My 2 cents:

I want so badly to know physics and to truly understand it. I spend one full day (24 hours) of my 168-hour week trying my butt off to learn physics. It doesn't come to me like it does others. I have found that I learn better after doing a ton of problems... Rather than the teacher teaching the theory and me applying it, the rote examples bring the theory out after doing so many of them. However, there is hardly a physics book in existence that actually gives the answers to homework problems in step-by-step breakdown.

Some people have physics intuition, others don't. I get differential equations, I get linear algebra and calculus... But ask me to find the speed of a pulley system and I go numb and get scared. It's perhaps the same as an introvert feels talking in front of a massive audience.

 

[pongo38]

Stop worrying! I am in my sixty's now, and am really interested in physics, even though I was a failure at it when I was 17. Although I found it hard to scrape a pass, eventually, it engaged my interest for the rest of my life, and I am grateful for the instructor's comments that my trouble was that I 'didn't know the basics'.

 

[Phyisab****]

ZOMBIE THREAD! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE1

Seriously though, physics is harder for most people. In a lot of non-technical classes, the entire grade for a semester is based on 3 multiple choice exams. I can pass multiple choice exams like that without doing a wink of work. Physics takes significantly more time, discipline, and mental toughness. Isn't that obvious?

 

[JJBladester]

Seriously though, physics is harder for most people... Physics takes significantly more time, discipline, and mental toughness. Isn't that obvious?

Amen! And... people with physics intuition often scoff at those without it. They find it hard to see through the eyes of the struggling students because they feel that physics should be "common sense" to all. Frankly, it is a minority who have the eye to see a physics problem and solve it with ease and in a short period of time.