Tuesday, April 28, 2015

History of Physics Education in the US

I've only managed to read about 1/3 of the paper so far, but I thought I should highlight it on here for discussion for those so inclined.

There is a 12-page paper on the history of physics education in the US published in this month's issue of AJP[1]. Even though it is a "brief" overview of the history, it has to be one of the most comprehensive survey of physics education in the US that I've ever come across. It begins all the way back from 1860s to the present day, and looked at what has changed and what has remained the same.

I think that it is interesting to see some of the same efforts and arguments being made way back then, and to see how some things just are implemented or aren't effective. There's a lot of history to be learned from this paper because people tend to have short memory and do not remember what works and what doesn't.

Zz.

[1] D.E. Meltzer and V.K. Otero, Am. J. Phys. v.83, p.447 (2015).

No comments: