Re: Teaching physics to biology students


lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi,

I am currently in my first year of teaching an algebra-based
physics class to students who are primarily biology majors.
For whatever reason, most of the biology professors at our school tend
to "spoon-feed" these students, giving them review sheets that tell
them
exactly what they need to know. So they just memorize the information
on
these sheets. Most of these students do not put much effort into their
biology classes.
In the physics class, I am trying to emphasize the main concepts,
and then the students are expected to apply these concepts to novel
problems. My approach has been to assign
lots of practice problems, and to make the exam problems somewhat
different than any of the homework. The students need to put in much
more effort than their biology classes, and if they do not, they tend
to do poorly on the exams. I have had some low averages on class exams.
I am finding out the hard way this year that the students resent
this
approach alot. When they do bad, rather than concluding they need to
put more effort into the class, they think I am being unfair to them.
As a result, my teaching evaluations took a major nosedive this year,
and there was even a petition drive protesting my policies. So I was
hoping to get some advice on how I can improve my approach, or if I
just need to expect this kind of response as a result of making the
students think.

Thanks - Leon

There is a simple solution to your problem, Leon.

Visit my web site.
Download the PDF file.
Study it for a couple of days.
Merge it with your course materials.
And all of your students will end up
in one semester knowing more about physics
than most engineers and physicists.

In other words, they will know and comprehend physics,
and be able to compose their equations
and laws of physics,
and not have to bother with a lot of isolated facts, effects and
equations
that don't tie together.

You will be a great hero,
as your students will be far ahead of the
students in physics, chemistry and engineering,
in comprehending the laws of nature.

--
Tom Potter
http://no-turtles.com
http://photos.yahoo.com/tdp1001
http://spaces.msn.com/tdp1001
http://tom-potter.blogspot.com

.

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