Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics

calmom
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:28:37 +0000

And yet, in non-STEM areas, the teaching isgood? It’s just a coincidence that good teachers are found in every humanities and social science department, and bad teachers in every hard science department, and math?

I don’t know what the standards are at the Univ. or Oregon – but at the university I attended (California), introductory STEM courses were taught in a large lecture format, supplemented by discussion groups and labs led by TA’s. At the time (early 70’s), the TA’s seemed to be generally fluent in Chinese, but not English. (*This might have improved since then, I don’t know).

Introductory courses in other areas tended to have much smaller classes, from seminars of 15 or less-- to a maximum lecture size of about 150 students.

So to start with, I’d say, small classes + English-speaking teachers would have been a good way for my alma mater to have improved my learning experience.



aime Escalante, the Stand and Deliver guy, had to revamp the entire math curriculum at his high school, and had to go into the junior highs and change their programs and offer summer schools before 10th grade, in order to create the pipeline of students ready for his calculus class.

If the goal is to increase the number of students who are successful in pursuing studies in the discipline, then revamping of the curriculum makes sense, especially for a public university, which at least in theory should be able to work cooperatively with the entire state-wide educational system. If the goal is to weed out all but a select few – then they can continue what they are doing.

I guess the question is: do they want to have more math & physics majors, or fewer? They are doing a good job of their goal is to have fewer.