From the post
Teaching: Theory or practice? by Marcus Wilson Aug 07
"What’s clear is that many teachers take the view that theory is the opposite of practice. Since, in teaching, it is clearly the practice that matters (since it’s what the students experience) this leads to the conclusion that theory is irrelevant and there is no benefit in engaging with it. ... The fallacy is the implicit assumption that theory and practice are unconnected. (I mean, you don’t have experimental physicists and theoretical physicists working in complete isolation from each other, so why expect that with teaching?) What you believe about student learning will influence the way you teach, whether you formally acknowledge it or not. That’s become clear for me as I think about my teaching practice. I have my own ‘beliefs’, or my own models, call them ‘theories’, of how students learn, and these influence how I teach."
Read the post at
http://sciblogs.co.nz/physics-stop/2011/08/07/teaching-theory-or-practice/
