I should really be working right now. I have an entire curriculum to re-develop, but it's hard to know exactly where to start. One of my ideas for this school year (and, alas, all so far) has been to set up a class website, which never exactly goes anywhere.
Other than that, I can't exactly say that there is much to report on today. I'm halfway through the summer and have accomplished virtually nothing which I had hoped for (some weak gardening success, but that's about it). Moreover, the weather has been far from cooperative-- I ask for only five days without rain.
So.... any thoughts on toning physics down to fourteen-year-olds?
I'd say don't tone it down any more than necessary. If you can ask physical questions they find interesting, and then help them find the answers, they'll learn plenty. It's probably a good idea to not worry about nomenclature, vocabulary, and notation too much; they're excess baggage that can get in the way of understanding at first. Treat it as a problem-solving class, for physical problems.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I may be talking out of my ass, since I've never designed a curriculum before. You be the judge.
Another idea, since we're brainstorming, would be to introduce the subject in an historical framework, talking about what problems people were trying to solve when they came up with each advance. That would give a good sense of how science works and progresses, along with the physics itself.
Really, if you can do anything more interesting than lecturing about equations you'll be ahead of the game.