If you have not heard of Carl Wieman, his bio is on http://cwsei.ubc.ca/.  In 2009, he has given various talks on scientific approach in science education.  Many of you who are in tuned with science education would no doubt know of his work.

I found that he had transcribed his talk into five written parts here: http://www.science20.com/carl_wieman/why_not_try_scientific_approach_science_education

While you may not agree with his proposed solutions, I would like to quote two points here that I find particularly good that may pique your interests:

 

1. “puzzle of my graduate students—why their first 17 years of education seemed so ineffective, while a few years of doing research turned graduate students into expert physicists”
2. “… novices see the content of physics instruction as isolated pieces of information— handed down by an authority and disconnected from the world around them — that they can only learn by memorization.  To the novice, scientific problem-solving is just matching the pattern of the problem to certain memorized recipes.
   Experts—i.e., physicists—see physics as a coherent structure of concepts that describe nature and that have been established by experiment. Expert problem-solving involves employing systematic, concept-based, and widely applicable strategies.”

I would love to hear what your thoughts are on Wieman’s insights or if you have ideas of how best to turn novices into experts.

 

 

 

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