Dr. Juan Manuel Lozano
Instituto de Física
UNAM
México, DF
teorica@fenix.ifisicacu.unam.mx
In an introductory physics course, two great dangers have to be
avoided. On one side there is the ambition to cover a content of
enormous extension and on the other there is the habit to dedicate an
excessive proportion of the course's time to mechanics.
The purpose of an introductory course must be that of giving a unified view of an interacting, multiform, multifarious, world in which many different situations and complex physical processes exist. The problem of teaching the first course of college physics is then to choose adequately a few subjects which should be, at the same time, fundamental for the understanding of the physics and capable to spark the students' interest, curiosity, surprise and desire of learning more.
Also, it has to be kept in mind that students generally have distorted information about physics and contemporary technology. In consequence, the introductory course must include real-life subjects.
Without trying to solve the problem of teaching an introductory course, my opinion is that we must talk about the great synthesis as that of the sky and Earth physics, or that of the optics electricity and magnetism. We must learn about the structure of the matter and therefore we should shun neither quantum physics nor relativity. The importance of the invariance and conservation principles must be learned, as well as the necessity of statistical physics, the relation of physics with other sciences, with mathematics and other disciplines.
Teaching must be done in such a way that students understand and love physics.