Review Of Physics By Inquiry

Most of us have heard regarding the Socratic method of teaching at one time or another- it's the technique Socrates famously used to educate Athenian youth return in ancient Greece. This method entails the teacher asking the student a series of leading questions sequenced in such a method that the student is can discover knowledge for him or her self. The Socratic Method is hardly new, but it can look revolutionary when it is used well due to the fact that it is difficult to do right and that is why not often used fully effectively. I should argue that Physics by Inquiry, a 3 volume textbook series by Lillian McDermott and the Physics Curriculum Team at the University of Washington, creates spectacularly successful use of a modified high school physics Socratic Method. Unlike most textbooks, Physics by Inquiry directly sends the reader very little information.

Instead, students creating use of this text pamphlet are meant to work in groups with guidance from an instructor to answer leading questions through experiment and reasoning. I first used Physics by Inquiry like a graduate student in a teacher curriculum program, and I located it revelatory. It was exciting and challenging. Equations and calculations were not center stage- plans were, and those plans created sense. For first time in my life, I liked physics.

Let me just pause here to speak that my background is in biology and geology and I was studying to be a teacher in those areas, not physics. Physics by Inquiry is in fact written largely for pre-and in-service teachers who are furthering their own educations. It seems fairly clean that one spot regarding the books' is to display these current and future teachers just how effective inquiry-based learning can be. It's a lesson that worked for me- I've enthusiastically taken many regarding the plans in Physics by Inquiry to heart. The other target audience of these books is college students who lack a tough science background and should learn introductory physics for any reason.

Although the physics explored in these books is fairly basic, and includes the similar to topics that you should expect to discover in an above college physics course, within properties of matter, heat and temperature, magnets, electric circuits, light and optics, kinematics, and astronomy, the books are not really for high college students. From a purely intellectual perspective, the fabric should be suitable for an above college class, but it should not be practical in most classrooms due to the fact that regarding the high position of independent work it requires from groups. For many, maybe most, high college teachers creating use of the Physics by Inquiry curriculum in unmodified shape should be a classroom management disaster. Creating use of the plans within the pamphlet in a modified format however, should be enormously successful. Consequently I would not should use an unmodified Physics by Inquiry curriculum in most high schools, I should certainly recommend it to a homeschool group, if they hold a teacher who is knowledgeable enough to use it.

Another practical challenge together with the Physics by Inquiry format is that it is relatively time-consuming. For example, within the 3 one-semester college courses I took with this text, we covered a total of only 3 units. One should make a tough argument that quality of learning matters more that quantity of topics covered, but when students should take standardized exams at the end regarding the year, that argument begins to look weak. As a tutor, I try to be very mindful regarding the lessons I learned from these books: knowledge really is more powerful when it is created by the student and skilful questioning can lead to great results. Physics by Inquiry is a pamphlet that I can wholeheartedly recommend to teachers, homeschooling parents, and those curious about physics or the process of scientific inquiry.