Physics First

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Physics First is an educational program that teaches a basic physics course in the ninth grade (usually 15-year-olds), rather than the biology course which is more standard in public schools. This course relies on the limited math skills that the students have from from pre-algebra and algebra I. With these skills students study simple kinematics, free fall, Newton's laws of motion, Newton's law of gravity, momentum, experimental analysis and qualitative descriptions of parabolic motion, simple machines (e.g. the lever, gears, pulley), kinetic energy and potential energy, power and work, an introduction to direct current electricity and simple electrical circuits, magnetism, wave motion (mostly hands-on and experimental and qualitative, very little math), the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum.

It began as an organized movement among educators around 1990, and has been slowly catching on throughout the United States. The most prominent movement championing Physics First is Leon Lederman's ARISE (American Renaissance in Science Education).

Many proponents of Physics First argue that turning this order around lays the foundations for better understanding of chemistry, which in turn will lead to more comprehension of biology. Due to the tangible nature of most introductory physics experiments, Physics First also lends itself well to an introduction to inquiry-based science education, where students are encouraged to probe the workings of the world in which they live.

There is a large overlap between the Physics First movement, and the movement towards teaching conceptual physics - teaching physics in a way that emphasizes a strong understanding of physical principles over problem-solving ability. Many Physics First programs use the popular textbook "Conceptual Physics" by Paul G. Hewitt or CPO Physics textbooks, such as "Foundations of Physical Science."

Another prominent advocate of Physics First is Robert Goodman. Goodman teaches Physics at Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro, New Jersey. His doctoral dissertation at Rutgers University was based on the success of teaching Physics First to freshmen. Goodman was also named New Jersey's Teacher of the Year for 2005 for his success with teaching Physics First and is currently advising other New Jersey school districts which are considering switching to the program.

1 Criticism
- 1.1 Analysis by Sadler and Tai
2 Footnotes
3 External links

[edit] Criticism

American public schools traditionally teach biology in the second year of high school, chemistry in the third, and physics in the fourth. The belief is that this order is more accessible, largely because biology can be taught with less mathematics, and will do the most toward providing some scientific literacy for the largest number of students.

In addition, many scientists and educators argue that freshmen do not have an adequate background in mathematics to be able to fully comprehend a complete physics curriculum, and that therefore quality of a physics education is lost. While physics requires knowledge of vectors and some basic trigonometry, many students in the Physics First program take the course in conjunction with Geometry. They suggest that instead students first take biology and chemistry which are less mathematics-intensive so that by the time they are in their junior year, students will be advanced enough in mathematics with either an Algebra 2 or pre-calculus education to be able to fully grasp the concepts presented in physics. Some argue this even further, saying that at least calculus should be a prerequisite for physics.

These criticisms are considered uninformed by teachers who actually teach 9th grade Physics or Physical Science. The "physics first" approach does not, as claimed above, move physics to the 9th grade. That would be untenable. Rather, the vast majority of high schools which have implemented "physics first" do so by way of offering two separate classes, at two separate levels: simple physics concepts in 9th grade, followed by more advanced physics courses in 11th or 12th grade. In schools with this curriculum, nearly all 9th grade students take a "Physical Science", or "Introduction to Physics Concepts" course. These courses focus on concepts that can be studied with skills from pre-algebra and algebra I, including: simple kinematics, free fall, Newton's laws of motion, Newton's law of gravity, simple momentum concepts & problems, experimental analysis and qualitative descriptions of parabolic motion, simple machines (e.g. the lever, gears, pulley), kinetic energy and potential energy, power and work, an introduction to direct current electricity and simple electrical circuits, magnetism, wave motion (mostly hands-on and experimental and qualitative, very little math), the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum. With all these ideas in place, students then can be exposed to ideas with more physics related content in chemistry, and other science electives. After this, students are then encouraged to take an 11th or 12th grade course in Physics, which does use more advanced math, including vectors, geometry, and more involved algebra.

Others point out that, for example, secondary school students will never study the advanced physics that underlies chemistry in the first place. “[I]nclined planes (frictionless or not) didn't come up in ... high school chemistry class ... and the same can be said for some of the chemistry that really makes sense of biological phenomena” [1]

[edit] Analysis by Sadler and Tai

Sadler and Tai^[1] performed a survey of the high school courses taken by ~8000 college students enrolled in introductory science courses. Their analysis of the data suggested that the number of high school science courses taken had a positive effect on intradisciplinary science course grades in college, but it had no positive effect on grades in interdisciplinary science grades. The authors suggested that the order in which high school science classes were taken did not improve science understanding, at least in the context of how current introductory college science classes are taught. The authors concede that the design of their study was correlative and not experimental and thus can not definitively answer whether science course order is important.

This analysis prompted a number of criticisms questioning their methodology and conclusions. Gaubatz and Gaubatz recently had a letter published in Science which holds that Sadler and Tai made two basic errors in interpreting their data.

Sadler and Tai’s assertion that there was a "lack of relationship between…the previous study of chemistry and later biology performance" (p. 458) betrays a widespread error in the social sciences of mistaking the failure to attain 95% confidence that a pattern is non-random for confidence that it is in fact random. Based on Sadler and Tai’s data, one actually can be 89% confident that taking secondary chemistry improved students’ college biology performance and 81% confident that taking secondary physics did so—not reportable information, but neither tantamount to the absence of a relationship.

[In addition]...because most secondary science courses currently are not designed to anticipate synergies with students’ subsequent coursework, Sadler and Tai’s use of students’ enrollment in these courses as a proxy for their performance in Physics First (PF) sequences assessed only a hobbled version of that model....The default arrangement that Sadler and Tai implicitly assessed does not do so, and their study, read carefully, is two caveats removed from a legitimate critique of the PF model.

A Closer Look at Cross-Disciplinary Educational Sequences Michael Gaubatz, Julie Gaubatz (29 November 2007)