Introduction and Motivation

Introduction and Motivation The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done [his students] say, “Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves.” Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching [Mitchell 1988] INTRODUCTION Teaching physics can be both inspirational and frustrating. Those of us who enjoy learn- ing physics get to rethink and pull together what we know in new and coherent ways. We enjoy the opportunity to create new demonstrations, invent new derivations, and solve interesting problems. For those of

us who love doing physics, teaching can be a delightful learning experience. Occasionally we find a student who has the interest and abil- ity to understand what we are trying to do and who is inspired and transformed by our teaching. That makes all the frustrations worthwhile. On the other hand, there are frustrations. We may have students who seem unable to make sense of what we do—sometimes a lot of them. They are confused and even hostile.We may make intense efforts to reach these students, either by making our classes more entertaining or by simplifying what we ask them to do. While these efforts may lead to better student evaluations, they rarely result in our students understanding more physics. They can lead to a “dumbing down” of the physics that we find frustrating and disappointing. Can we reduce this frustration and find ways to reach those students who don’t seem to “get it”? In the past two decades, there has been a growing understanding of why so many students respond badly to traditional physics instruction and of how to modify our instructional methods to help them learn more. A number of researchers and curriculum developers have begun to...

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