Physical Society Colloquium

Challenging three basic assumptions about learning physics

Nathaniel Lasry

John Abbott College

We focus on challenging three basic assumptions made by instructors as well as some assumptions made by students in college courses. One basic assumption is that the role of instructors is to transmit basic knowledge to students. We call this the “Just Tell Them” assumption. We will argue, involve participants in a hands-on real-time experiments and present empirical evidence showing that this assumption is misguided. The second assumption is that students will get it if you just show them; the “Just Show Them” assumption. For instance, many science instructors will build their courses around classroom observations. This is quite understandable given that, at a fundamental level, science depends on observations. We will argue, involve participants in another hands-on live-experiments and present evidence that this second�assumption�too�is�misguided. Last we focus on the assumption : “you have to want to learn” and show with�real-time experiments and empirical evidence that this assumption is overstated. The objective is to showcase physics education research as a powerful science of learning by challenging a number of assumptions held at one time or another by most of us ‘expert’ professors. As best put by Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, “science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”...