Guest Speaker: Eric Mazur

Post date: Feb 07, 2016 11:6:1 PM

Hey everyone!

On Tuesday, January 19, students and faculty gathered in Mrs. Kleinfield's room to converse over Skype with Harvard professor of optics and leader in physics education Eric Mazur. Below are some notes on the presentation (compiled by Matt Yuan):

Mazur’s Background

- grew up in the Netherlands, interested in science at an early age, especially astronomy

- wasn’t engaged while learning astro, switched to physics, wasn’t engaged in physics either due to classroom environment

- originally wanted to work in industry

- became professor at Harvard and created Peer Instruction

Question #1: “How should a student approach education”

- “remember when you were 4 and you kept asking ‘why?’

- “the whole system of education we have squashes curiosity”

- passing the test vs. learning

- it’s not the facts, it’s the critical thinking skills

Question #2 (this is where the audio starts): “What is your teaching style/philosophy?”

- traditional classroom: the students watch the teacher, education is based on faculty performance

- Mazur’s classroom: students work with each other on problems and projects

- “You’ll think, ‘Eric Mazur is teaching kindergarten.’ ”

- “You don’t become a physicist by watching me talk.”

Question #3: “How do you give assessments while still emphasizing learning vs. studying for the exam?”

- he eliminates grades as much as possible

- assessments are mainly for feedback, looking at not only problem-solving ability, but ability to work effectively in teams, content knowledge, ability to make ethical decisions, ability to be a self-directed learner, professionalism

- “we deliver graduates into society who’ve never learned the ability to work with people they don’t agree with”

Question #4: “How do you keep up with a fast-paced class if you get stuck on one thing you don’t understand”

- “learning how to learn is more important that what you learn”

- “ultimately you’ll get farther by studying for understanding than by studying to pass the test”

- example: Mazur’s current area of research didn’t exist when he was a student, so he had to learn, through seeking understanding via experimentation, an entirely new field after completing his education

- “life is learning, in a sense”

Question #5: “What do you study?”

- light is very important in society

- he works on figuring out how to control light signals with other light signals, analogous to how a transistor controls electric signals with other electric signals

- replacing current electronic systems with photonic (light) systems would make everything a lot more efficient

- he uses lasers

Question #6: “What advice would you give to aspiring science researchers?”

- stay curious!!

- just a collection of facts, science is not

- science is a way of thinking

- “I recently went to the ALMA observatory, and it was so fascinating, and it’s that fascination that really drives us”

Question #7: “Is your research about light beams canceling, or about a material that changes the path of light?”

- materials

Question #8: “How is light interacting with itself… possible?”

- when you have really intense light, like with really powerful laser pulses, light gets all weird and starts behaving in a way that’s described by nonlinear optics. Mazur is exploiting those effects.

Learn more about Eric Mazur’s research in optics and physics education: http://mazur.harvard.edu/

Follow Eric Mazur: http://ericmazur.com/

Here is the flyer!