[Catalist] Gravity and Syllabi

[Michael McGarry]

RE: Teaching SCSA/WACE Physics from Years 7 to 12

Greetings Secondary Science Teachers,


Alan Gent invites discussion with his 19082016 e-Post to CATALIST.


We know that teaching for (conceptual) understanding as explained at:


URL 1: http://www.nap.edu/read/10129/chapter/8 <http://www.nap.edu/read/10129/chapter/8> requires that we teach to a spiral curriculum URL 2: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED538282 <http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED538282>. We can learn more about: “How People Learn” at this:

URL 3: http://www.colorado.edu/MCDB/LearningBiology/readings/How-people-learn.pdf <http://www.colorado.edu/MCDB/LearningBiology/readings/How-people-learn.pdf>.

We can learn more about UWA’s Einstein First Project at URL’s 4 through 6.


URL 4: http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201407016797/awards-and-prizes/green-light-revolutionary-new-science-curriculum <http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201407016797/awards-and-prizes/green-light-revolutionary-new-science-curriculum>
URL 5: http://www.phdseek.com/phds/956/einstein-first-researching-the-benefits-and-feasibility.html <http://www.phdseek.com/phds/956/einstein-first-researching-the-benefits-and-feasibility.html>
Tools and Models for Teaching Einsteinium Physics


URL 6: www.seeproject.org.au/includes/DOCS/einstein1.docx <http://www.seeproject.org.au/includes/DOCS/einstein1.docx>
An “International Workshop on Teaching and Learning Einsteinium Physics in the Era of Gravitational Astronomy”, which is scheduled from November 28 to December 2, 2016, with teacher workshops to be conducted on December 1 and 2 as advertised on STAWA’s CATALIST and ASTA’s ASTARIX 2.0 Forum.


Has the Einstein First Project formally made a submission to the WA SCSA Physics Syllabus Committee for inclusion of Einstein’s Gravity in the ATAR Year 12 Physics syllabus? It is my current understanding that major WACE syllabus change requires a teacher lead-in time of two years. Perhaps such submission could be conceived during the forthcoming International T/L workshop on EP?


I am reminded that teaching for understanding requires a “spiral curriculum” so we would need to introduce “Einstein’s Idea of Gravity” starting in Year Level 7.


Here are two useful YouTube Videos on Einstein’s notion of Gravity.


URL 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKN5oaP52s <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKN5oaP52s>
URL 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWTfLJQS1Ww <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWTfLJQS1Ww>
Best Wishes,


Michael John McGarry


> On 19 Aug 2016, at 7:13 AM, Alan Gent <alandgent at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Further to my enquiry concerning gravity, thank you to all those including Professor Blair who have found the time to put in comments. I found a lot of them, especially the way teachers put new ideas across, very informative. 
> While teaching mathematics and physics it was very obvious to me that the contemporary syllabi were at odds with actual requirements for this century, and in my small way, I made efforts to make them more relevant. I found that the Curriculum Council were in fact quite flexible regarding physics, for instance, and my course for pre-apprentices in the electrical and carpentry/cabinet making fields side-stepped much of the conventional syllabus, yet was satisfactorily audited.
> The replies to my enquiries on Catalist concerning gravity made it quite obvious that some teachers consider younger students incapable of grasping concepts of space-time warping and 3D modelling. In mathematics, we also teach quite archaic principles such as division of fractions and prime numbers, where we should be putting more emphasis on computer program design or anti-virus investigation. When I taught business concepts, it was disappointing to see very little emphasis was placed on income tax reduction or the nitty-gritty of company structures to reduce the 'bottom line' - practical consideration when forming a business.
> Although I can't see it happening in the short term, it would be really nice to see an informed debate on how our syllabus stands up to modern scrutiny. Professor Blair has made a start with driving in a wedge to allow lower-level teaching of modern physics introduced by Einstein, and it has apparently been very successful. 
> By the way, I am also a firm believer in rote learning in mathematics and elsewhere. We have lost a lot from students simply being unable to multiply without a calculator - there are some excellent examples of 6 year old Chinese students being able to multiply very large numbers mentally by visualising an abacus! They are way ahead of us in this field.
> I believe the teaching process has to be flexible. In the Australian Trades College, we were called 'facilitators', and I would always emphasise to the students that it was only up to me to make it 'easier' for them to learn (straight from the Latin derivative!)
> We simply cannot be stuck in eighteenth or nineteenth century thinking in mathematics and physics - and by the way, it's really about time that physics was included as part of the mathematics curriculum, rather than being estranged into the science curriculum. After all, as I tried to tell the Education Department, Einstein was a mathematician before he was a physicist, and I believe these two fields go hand in hand.
> 
> Alan Gent.
> _______________________________________________

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