Dear Anonymous (sorry you didn't bother dropping a name),
Technically this isn't standardized education. Physics professors all over are designing their own courses and writing their own test problems. What I'm referring to is that in advanced E&M, a large number of people have all selected the same textbook. With the introductory courses, the large number of students and classes means that new editions pop out every couple of years, so that the problems can be changed, renewed, refreshed. But Griffiths 3rd edition has been out since 1999. And a source like Wikipedia is going to use Griffiths as a reference for certain Physics topics.
My normal procedure is to make my own path and use the textbook as a "second voice" for the students. Alas, this is the first time through this course for me, and I'm having to follow the text closer than I'd like. But "Teaching to the test and teaching to the text, the same test and text everywhere. Almost an anti-Darwinian push toward extinction of innovation by removing variance of ideas." ? That sure isn't what I'm talking about.
Perhaps I should've screened this comment as trolling spam after all...
no subject
Technically this isn't standardized education. Physics professors all over are designing their own courses and writing their own test problems. What I'm referring to is that in advanced E&M, a large number of people have all selected the same textbook. With the introductory courses, the large number of students and classes means that new editions pop out every couple of years, so that the problems can be changed, renewed, refreshed. But Griffiths 3rd edition has been out since 1999. And a source like Wikipedia is going to use Griffiths as a reference for certain Physics topics.
My normal procedure is to make my own path and use the textbook as a "second voice" for the students. Alas, this is the first time through this course for me, and I'm having to follow the text closer than I'd like. But "Teaching to the test and teaching to the text, the same test and text everywhere. Almost an anti-Darwinian push toward extinction of innovation by removing variance of ideas." ? That sure isn't what I'm talking about.
Perhaps I should've screened this comment as trolling spam after all...
Dr. Phil