ZapperZ (at Physics and Physicists) recently had a post about Chad (from Uncertain Principles). It was sort of a review of Chad's book How to Teach Physics to Your Dog.
In this post, ZapperZ makes a very Feynman-like distinction between "teaching physics" and "teaching about physics". This is a really good point - that to learn physics you have to do physics. I completely agree. It is just like riding a bike - you have to ride a bike to learn to ride a bike.
So here is the question. What do I do here on this blog? I don't know. Do I talk about physics? Yes? I do not teach physics - because I don't believe that I ever teach. In class, I like to consider myself a learning facilitator rather than a teacher. Still, what about this blog. First, I write stuff because I enjoy analyzing situations that I see in everyday life and on the interwebs. Could this help people learn? I am sure for some people it can (at least for some people). Could my posts inspire others to learn physics? Again, I hope so.
I guess this is related to why I get so riled up about shows like Sport Science. Are they trying to teach science? (I hope not since they are totally incorrect). Are they trying to inspire? Again - not a good idea to inspire with bad physics. I guess this would be like me trying to inspire kids to be healthy by showing them how to eat junk food.
- Log in to post comments
You almost got it totally correct. To learn science you have to do science, otherwise you are teaching and learning about science. And this is the problem of science education most school teachers of science don't know how to do science, and what a difference this makes.
I think he is putting to fine a point between learning it and learning about it. You have to learn about it to learn it.
It is sorta of like teaching a kid their abc's, you are just imparting information about letters that are used in reading but not teaching them to read. But you need to learn it to read. You spend countless hours getting your kids to recognize letters and numbers. It is an important step in the process of reading. Learning about F=ma is important to later learning of physics even if they don't have a deeper understanding of it.
As a high school science teacher, I would love for the students to have a connection to what they learn in class to what is in the world around them, but I recognize they have to learn some basic concepts first to get to the deeper meaning and that is teaching no matter what anyone says.
I'm way behind in reading and commenting on my blogs, but... The question of "what is this blog used for" is an interesting one. You certainly can't have an ongoing relationship with your readers in such a way that you can support their learning like you do in your classroom, where you can help them actually "do" physics. But these external structures, like blogs, do have their place. It reminds me of a post by my co-author on our ed tech blog (http://theactiveclass.com/2010/04/15/eventness-partitioning-the-lecture/), where she was writing about course-casting, and instructors were worried that students wouldn't go to lecture anymore. "Itâs kind of like the entrée is the lecture and the side dish is using the technology to do a podcast" said a professor. So, maybe if someone's "entree" is a lecture or, if they're a teacher, their "entree" is their own course, then your blog is a side-dish? It offers nutritional value, but it's not the whole meal....