My driving motivation to teach is my love of learning about the world around me. The elegance and complexity of the universe is astonishingly beautiful, and I want to share that with students. The most rewarding moments in teaching are when a student understands something for the first time and is amazed by it. Sometimes a student question even probes deep into the heart of a matter and uncovers knowledge that is new to me. Learning and discovering together is a joy. I also teach because education is a crucial part of human advancement. Students of any discipline can benefit from the knowledge and problem-solving strategies physics provides, and that will directly benefit society through their careers as physicists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, programmers and more.
During my graduate career I served as a laboratory instructor for six sections of about 20-25 students in General Physics I and II for non-physics majors. I was also a recitation instructor for three sections of those courses and for two Intermediate Mechanics courses of 20-25 physics majors. With such a broad range of students, I frequently heard the question “Why do we need to learn this?” When students are not interested in a course, they learn the material by rote and regurgitate it when necessary to pass the course. My challenge is to design courses that engage students and serve them well. I try to do this in two ways: I tailor course material to be relevant for students, and I encourage students to think critically when solving problems.
Students are more engaged and understand concepts better when they see physics applications in everyday life and their field of study. For example, students struggle with the difference between critically damped and overdamped oscillators when presented with only a mathematical description, but they understand and see the usefulness of the distinction when they consider the shock absorbers on a car or the closing mechanism on the classroom door. In addition to everyday applications, students want to know how physics relates to their field of study. Biology and pre-medical students care more about fluid dynamics when they use it to calculate how high they need to hang an IV bag. I keep a running list of everyday and field- specific examples to work that I add to when I discover a new application. I also ask people in other fields what physics knowledge has been most useful to them.
Regardless of their field of study, physics provides students with a robust framework for problem-solving. At the core of physics is the application of fundamental concepts to a wide variety of problems. Students who blindly plug numbers into equations might find an answer without understanding. But if they learn to reason through problems and recognize how they reached an answer, they will develop skills that will serve them for life. Students must practice applying concepts to problems to develop these skills and understanding, so I limit lectures to maximize time in class for guided problem solving. Group work is extremely valuable because students must convince their peers that their method is correct, and they are often able to reach solutions they could not find individually. I encourage group work in every area of coursework except exams. To encourage students to think critically, my grading always emphasizes correct reasoning rather than correct answers.
In addition to problem-solving skills, physics provides students with tools such as mathematics and computer programming. My research requires significant computer programming for data analysis and experiment simulation, so students who conduct research with me will learn to use these tools. To benefit a larger number of students, I also incorporate some programming into coursework. I designed “software labs” for use in Intermediate Mechanics recitation sections. Students used Mathematica to explore concepts such as projectile motion with drag and nonlinear dynamics. Most students had little experience with this software, but they developed a working knowledge that could be applied to other classes or research. These labs also allow for rich exploration of complex problems and forces students to translate mathematical results into the physical dynamics of a system. Students tend to ask more in-depth questions about the labs and retain the concepts better than with normal homework. In the future I want to incorporate a more general programming language (e.g. Python) and foundational numerical problem-solving methods.
Another important part of any introductory physics course is the laboratory. Laboratory exercises can help reinforce course material and are especially effective for teaching valuable research skills. Students wrote lab reports that clearly communicated the theory, methods, results, and uncertainties from their experiment in my laboratory classes. They learned to connect the conceptual knowledge from the course to a physical system, to carefully evaluate their data collection methods, and to practice presenting their results in a research journal format. Most students struggled to do all of this well at the beginning of the semester but improved over time. I also received student feedback at the end of my laboratory teaching indicating that part of the students’ difficulty was because I waited until after grading to communicate expectations for laboratory reports. In the future, I will provide grading rubrics and examples of laboratory reports to help students understand how they will be assessed.
Since mastery of physics concepts requires extended practice applying concepts to problems, I would like to move toward a “flipped classroom” approach in which class time is used exclusively for students to solve problems with guidance from instructors. The three laboratory sections I taught for General Physics II were part of a class for 150 students taught in this format. I was a member of a team of faculty and graduate teaching assistants that worked to support students with in-class help, office hours, homework help nights, and responding to student questions on an online forum. Students engaged with more exercises and asked more questions than in a traditional classroom setting. Ultimately, they developed a better understanding of the material because they had more practice applying their knowledge. I would need to invest significant time to provide enough instructional materials and problems for students to solve to make such a class successful.
Although various techniques and strategies will help my students to learn, the most vital part of my teaching is my attitude. Each student needs to know that I care about their well- being in addition to their learning. I want to communicate to them that their dignity is not determined by the quality of their work. I want students to have the freedom to be wrong so they can learn from failures. Students should not be hindered by fears of condemnation from me. I am absolutely fascinated by physics, and I want to share my passion for the subject with my students. They need to see that I am excited about their learning and understanding. Hopefully, my excitement is contagious.