Tim Atherton participates in the Physics New Faculty Workshop

I went this week to Washington, DC to participate in the NSF-funded workshop for new Physics Faculty, some of the presentations for which can be found here. These workshops have been instrumental in introducing physics faculty to new, research based pedagogical techniques and helping them enhance the learning that takes place in their classrooms. Certainly, I found a lot of valuable ideas and help for pushing my own teaching to the next level.

My big take-aways:

1) I’ve already been using clickers in my classroom for a couple of years, and from what I saw I’ve mostly been using them effectively. From Eric Mazur’s presentation about Peer Instruction I got new recommendations to further encourage participation. The magic words, apparently, are “turn to your neighbor and convince them you’re right”. I can’t wait to try this! I also learned that it’s better to have the students explain why various options on clicker questions are correct or incorrect—it’s more accessible for other learners and gives the instructor valuable feedback on student thinking.

2) The aha! moment came in a presentation about lecture demos where the 40 or so new faculty were asked to predict the outcome of various experiments. We all have PhDs in physics, but we did pretty badly—and so we learned how students in our classes might feel.

3) I really liked the idea of “discussion” sessions—simple tabletop experiments—as opposed to traditional recitations. This is something I’m going to try to implement in my Physics 13 Modern Physics class this Fall utilizing demos from the PheT project.

4) I was intrigued by the idea of Just-In-Time Teaching. This is a method where pre-lecture readings and open, integrative questions are set online before class. An example, for an intro class, might be “Is it possible to add heat to an ideal gas without changing its temperature? If it is possible, please explain how it is done.” Answers from the pre-class quiz are incorporated anonymously throughout the lecture as a way to reveal student thinking. This seems a much better way of doing assigned readings!