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Yo - Memorize This!In a disturbing coincidence, the stomach-turning "Plug and Chug" phrase cropped up in 2 situations this week. In physics class on Wednesday, a student made a comment about "plugging and chugging" to get a solution. I stopped him at that point and did my typical rant against that type of approach to doing physics. (Note - he was NOT advocating it!)
In short, there's nothing more revolting to me as a physics teacher, and a physicist than the thought that somehow physics can be taught, and learned, by memorizing formulas and simply plugging in numbers and calculating.
How then to explain a quote by Erika Gebel in the Aug, 3, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer? In an article titled "Masters of 'spring' theory: Physics Teachers embrace a new method", Gebel is describing exciting new changes to the way that physics is taught in high school. Citing the approach known as modeling physics , which had just been taught to local physics instructors in a faculty-development workshop in the Philadelphia area, Gebel reports that
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