The Mestre article got me thinking about the Millikan Award acceptance speech by David Griffiths in 1997. Both authors spent some time discussing textbooks. Griffiths worries that spending more time developing concepts in the classroom necessitates students learning more "information" outside of class from the textbook. He points out that, not only do many students find it difficult to learn from a text, but that most texts are not designed to present material without the guidance of a gifted instructor. Mestre has similar things to say, I think. He argues that the textbooks merely present a list of facts and problems for students to memorize and complete. I agree that textbooks in physics are poorly written for high school classes, but it does get me thinking about how I picked up the conceptual understanding I currently have.
I seem to have arrived at a conceptual understanding through solving problems in textbooks without much direct guidance. Then I would ask questions that came up through my solution, or more likely, I would be graded on a problem and realize my error. Over time, and through repetition of this process, I gained the understanding I now have. Through many failures and successes I have learned something that I do not think I could have learned without both the failures and the successes. Science is hard, but it feels good to overcome a conceptual road block. I think it is important to realize in all of this, that my expectation of my students cannot be mastery in the first run through. Perhaps I need to reevaluate my goals/assessments looking forward. I need to make sure my expectations of my students are in line with my reaction to my own experiences as a student.
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