Time

Hi Anneke,
Somewhere I have a draft that I started and never posted, I'll try to find it tomorrow.
Very sorry about the car...  lots of damage?
TIME is what every first-year teacher lacks. In the short run, the only solution is to settle for doing less and getting more sleep and time for yourself. There is NO evidence that students suffer at the hand of a first-year teacher, and you can often do a better job when you are rested than when you are prepared but exhausted.
I guess I'm saying "ask yourself which corners you can cut with the least damage to what you are trying to do."
I know what high standards you have for yourself, especially after your Masters. It's WAY too early to decide what you think about the profession.
Please don't burn yourself out before you give yourself a real chance!!
Tom

Time

Today feels less like a mending day. It feels more like a large-vehicle-just-drove-into-our-passenger-door-while-we-were-driving kind of day. Perhaps because one did this afternoon. Fortunately, Janet is an amazing defensive driver and responded fast, avoiding any injuries.

Opening a friendly email from a parent asking about her daughter really shouldn't have opened up my frustration this afternoon. But it did - because her daughter is awesome, and I want so much to help her more with her math... and I just don't know where to find the time to do that. Today, I'm feeling frustrated with teaching. Working an 80 - 100 hour week gets me almost enough time to plan and teach okay lessons, while still falling behind on marking and letting the list of parents to phone grow longer than it should. To actually do my job, I ought to be working 120 - 140 hour weeks, but to be honest, I'm kinda tired.

Our wonderful custodian always pops his head in my classroom as he leaves at 11pm to encourage me to go home. I really appreciate his caring concern, and the encouragements of parents and others. But I'm frustrated because, while everyone encourages me to work less, there actually isn't a lot that I can cut while still doing my job. Many people offer all kinds of advice in genuine caring attempts to help, but I think the magic solution - the one that makes it possible to both be a good teacher and still get 7 hours of sleep each night - is more evasive than those on the outside looking in often believe.

And so, I'm really not sure what to think about teaching as a profession so far. I love it when I have the time to do a good job. It's so exciting to help students grow and develop into leaders who will make a positive difference in their world. But it's not terribly rewarding to see myself constantly fall short of where I want to be as a teacher - and falling short not because I'm not doing my best, and not because I'm not receiving enough support, advice, and encouragement - I have all of those things. But simply because I need more time.

Mending

Teaching, it seems, is a medical profession. Today is a day for writing/reflecting because we're currently out of emerge and into the recovery and rehabilitation wing of the hospital. But the ambulance is parking and running; who knows what Monday will bring.

I was really excited about our first lab report in Grade 12 Biology. The lab was fun - we tested various foods for the presence of lipids, proteins, starches, and sugars, and figured out the identity of a mystery food. We went through a checklist for what a formal lab report should look like, did a short activity to go over what a lab report should include, and since they are a strong class, I assumed they would be fine to write the labs on their own.

So when the reports were in on Monday, I discovered I'd really missed the mark in giving them adequate direction. While there were a few labs that met most of the requirements on the checklist, many labs were incomplete. Two were partially plagiarized. One contained three points for a procedure, handwritten on a sheet of paper, and nothing else. I couldn't in good conscience mark the labs and return them. We needed to rewind, take some time to learn how to write a lab report, and re-submit.  So I asked them to meet with me individually, do peer editing in class, and then re-submit the labs on Tuesday. We would take this tough situation and turn it into a great learning opportunity! The route from the recovery room to hospital discharge was sparkling on the horizon.

The next day, our principal (who is very supportive) was at my door right before the start of class, letting me know that two students came to his office to tell him that my teaching was unfair and too hard. In my sleepy mind-set, after staying up until midnight getting that day's lessons ready, it was a devastating thing to hear for me. Back we went to emerge.

After a few conversations after school, I learned a bit more about the situation: revision has been synonymous with punishment for many of my students. It sounds like they understood our peer editing/resubmission plan to mean that I was punishing them, and were naturally upset.  Today, we're on the mend (for now). The students did a great job peer editing and marking each other's work using my rubric, and from our individual meetings, I think they are ready to create very good lab reports (version 2) now.

The bumps and falls are far from over though. We started our next project today - we're doing a joint project with the Grade 2 class that I'm pretty excited about. We're communicating our understanding of cellular processes to a non-scientific audience using storybook analogies, and we'll be reading buddies with the Grade 2 class to share our stories. The project has already been really helpful for me to see their learning process so far. Today, I talked with one student, who was originally planning to use a lego wall as an analogy to the cell membrane. It was such a surprise and helpful feedback for me to realize that a student successfully memorized the term "fluid semi-permeable membrane", but really didn't understand what that means yet.

But... (and there is always a but), the student who told the principal that our lab was unfairly hard also confronted me today because he felt a test would be a better assessment of his learning than the project. We talked about how I can assess knowledge and understanding on tests, but if I only used tests for assessment, it would be hard for me to accurately assess communication, thinking, and application. And it wouldn't be fair to students who struggle with tests, but can demonstrate their ability through other means.  It seemed a good answer to me, but to be honest, I don't think he bought it.  And I get that - his world is getting good grades for university applications, not balanced assessment practices.

Always mending.

Your thesis

Hi Anneke,

I had lunch with James and he gave me a sketch of your thesis. It sounds wonderful. Please let me know when Queen's has posted it on Qshare so I can enjoy it and see what you have been up to this year.

James certainly raves about you and I'm sure your departure will leave a big hole. Intriguing to hear his plans for teaching 200 next year, with 8 TAs! I feel so lucky to have found one person on "main" campus who shows such strong interest in teaching and learning issues.

And of course I'm hoping this blog will give me the occasional window into your teaching next fall. Meanwhile, I wish you well with that all important task of writing up!

Yours,
Tom

Solving the Problem of Problem Sets

I love great conferences. The plenary speaker, Simon Bates (UBC) talked about a brilliant replacement for our traditional weekly problem sets, and as I ride home on this lovely train, I have to share his ideas with you!

We have a problem with problem sets.  We need our students to practice challenging quantitative problem-solving if we hope to support the development of critical thinking scientists and mathematicians.  Yet every week, we spend precious department dollars marking and giving feedback for... nicely copied internet solutions.  We return this great feedback to our students, who glance at the red number at the top of the first page and promptly stuff the papers in their bag.  Rich and real problem-solving? Critical thinking? Revised understanding from feedback? Learning? Not really.

I loved Simon's solution. He introduced us to PeerWise (http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/), an exciting (and free!) tool that has the potential to provide much richer learning opportunities than weekly problem sets. PeerWise is a online social platform where students generate their own "problem set questions" (with accompanying solutions) on the week's material.

The prof begins by taking care to train the students in how to generate really good problems that exist sweetly in the students' zone of proximal development. Then the students are required to write 1 problem, answer 5, and comment on 3. Simon suggested keeping the number of problems that the students are required to write low, so that the quality remains high - which makes sense given that time is usually our biggest obstacle.

Then the magic happens. Students write questions. They're goofy, they're fun, but most importantly - they're really good problems. When your friends, not just your teacher, will be evaluating the quality of your work, there's considerable motivation not to take the easy way out of an assignment.  The web interface allows students to both answer and comment on the problem - similar to how you might comment on a facebook post. Sometimes, the author gets it wrong. But the instructor doesn't step in.  Instead, students debate their solutions through this forum, collaborate, and write a better problem together! Finally, the prof puts the marks where his/her mouth is. Some of these best problems appear on the final exam to add extra motivation for students to learn with their peers.

I'm so excited about this. Students have a natural investment in figuring out the answer because they created the question. I can't wait to try this with my class!

A short historical look at supernovae

Though observed supernovae occur many light years away from our home on Earth, they have found their way into our history and hearts. The term ``nova'' meaning ``new'' might seem like an ironic descriptor of a dying star, merely named this way because the increase in luminosity from an old star to a supernova is so great that the supernova appears to be a new star.  Perhaps the term is an apt one, however. Though supernovae occur at the end of a star's existence, they can also symbolize potential for new star forming regions. Supernovae seem to have a sense of hope in destruction about them.

Not surprisingly, we have been fascinated by these dramatic events in the sky throughout history. The first recorded supernova, observed in A. D. 1006 and recorded in Europe, China, Japan, Egypt, and Iraq, was "a little more than a quarter of the brightness of the moon" according to Egyptian student Ali Ridwan. Just 48 years later, another "guest star", which was also bright enough to be seen in the day, appeared in Taurus, and left behind the elegant crab supernova remnant for us to observe today.

Historic writings suggest that these explosions were both beautiful and terrifying to the cultures who witnessed them. An Arabic medical textbook from A. D. 1242 connected the A. D. 1054 supernova to an outbreak of the plague, stating that the "spectacular star... caused an epidemic to break out in Old Cairo when the Nile was low.''  Upon hearing that the public believed the A. D. 1006 supernova to be an omen of famine, the Chinese Director of the Bureau of Astronomy, Chou K'o-ming, countered general alarm by announcing the new star to be an omen of prosperity occurring during the reign of a very wise leader - a smart career move which soon got him a promotion.

Pictographs found in New Mexico (pictured below) are thought to depict the 1054 supernova.

Five hundred years later, in 1572, Tycho Brahe observed very bright "nova stella'' in the constellation of Cassiopeia. He gave a confident account of the experience in his book De Nova Stella, in which he wrote:

``I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head; and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly (there is no great difficulty in attaining that knowledge), it was quite evident to me that there had never before been any star in that place in the sky.'' -Tycho Brahe

Though images such as the Hubble Deep Field suggest that it is quite a bit harder to know all of the stars than Brahe claimed, Brahe's supernova observation signified a cultural turning point, challenging the early Renaissance belief that the stars did not change. The philosophies of that culture would be thoroughly turned upside down by yet another supernova in 1604 observed by Brahe's student, Kepler.

Since Brahe and Kepler's discoveries, we have not observed another supernova in our own galaxy. Fortunately, many spectacular supernovae have been found in surrounding galaxies.  The funny looking character pictured below, Zwicky, found over a hundred supernovae. His classifications pioneered our modern understanding of how supernovae occur.

Recently, in 1994, a particularly beautiful Type Ia supernova was found near the spiral galaxy NGC 4526 (pictured below). SN 1994D was found just outside the galaxy disk, and appeared almost as bright as the galaxy core.

The mechanisms that drive supernovae explosions are quite amazing. Even more incredible to me is the amount of understanding astronomers have gathered about these processes with such seemingly limited information - simply electromagnetic waves telling the story of an explosion from the distant past.

Better Looking

When I considered writing a New Year's post for my blog today, the possessive adjective there stood out to me.  Blogging, in my case, is an inherently selfward-looking activity. So perhaps for the fun of irony, I'm writing a self-examining blog post about looking less at myself. Or rather, about balancing selfward and otherward looking.

It’s a New Year's resolution of sorts. Except not a New Year's resolution, because it stretches back in time before this January. And not a New Year's resolution because my resolutions tend to be quite focused on just myself: Go to the gym three times a week. Read a new book each month. Eat healthier. Sleep more regularly. Learn a new hobby. Etc. These resolutions are good, and I'd like to achieve them, but they all involve a fair bit of navel gazing. I’d like to work on improving that balance: looking selfward enough to make sure I’m eating vegetables everyday, but looking otherward enough to enjoy the beauty of those around me and hopefully to notice their needs.
 
There’s a good quote (I believe by Ethel Barrett), “We would worry less about what others think of us if we knew how seldom they do.”  Occasionally it occurs to me when I'm choosing pretty earrings in the morning that I don't often notice the pretty earrings others wear. I would like to notice more. Not just more pretty earrings, but pretty hearts. Or scared hearts. Or stretching hearts. Or hearts in need of hugs. I have been blessed with beautiful friends - inside and out. And I want to notice the details of their beautifulness more. 

At first, it seemed reasonable to assume that I must at least be otherward-looking in the arena of encouraging others. But thinking about it today, I'm not so sure I have the balance right even in that arena! When a friend or student says something discouraging towards themselves (such as "I'm terrible at physics"), my response – rather than addressing their actual discouragement – often attempts to reassure by sharing something of myself (such as "Oh don't worry - I'm terrible at languages").  I think we all do this at times. The idea is that the person will feel better if they know that they're not the only one who is not having success with ___. But I’m not convinced that this is the most helpful response. Instead I’d like to work on otherward-looking responses (such as “You have a good handle on physics concepts – it might just be the algebra that’s slowing you down” or “look how you improved in chemistry this year – I bet you could do the same in physics”). There is definitely a place for both types of encouragement, but I think I'd like to increase the frequency of my otherward-looking responses - statements that remind the friend or student of their own strengths and hopefully empower them, rather than simply sharing in the discouragement.

I was also thinking about how to apply that balance of selfward and otherward-looking to areas conflict. How do I genuinely look at another person in a conflict - looking at the person and their needs, but not necessarily dwelling on their words if the words aren't beneficial? How do I genuinely look at myself in a conflict - using self-reflection as a means to grow, but not to bully myself - reminding myself of the confidence I have in who I am as a child of God, but choosing to follow the instruction in Philippians 2 to value the other person above myself? These are tough questions for me. I'm currently still sorting out how to answer these questions in a practical application sense, and I have a long ways to go. On Christmas day, I received an email from someone with a rather limited window into my life, who had developed a surprisingly detailed and unfortunate picture of my character and even my thought processes. My initial reaction was a desire to defend myself - to explain why this didn't match my experiences of my thought processes and character. When Jeremy suggested that I refrain from sending that reply, my first thought was, "that's probably wise relationally, but it will be hard on my self-esteem." Surprisingly, the opposite was true. In actively choosing not to defend myself, I realized that I didn't have to. That was quite empowering for me. Certainly, there are times when it is absolutely crucial that people stand up for themselves, but there are also times when the most beneficial and empowering response is to choose not to. So I'm working on learning how to look selfward long enough to discern which criticisms are helpful and which are just false, and how to look otherward long enough to see another child of God, who is given every bit as much as grace as I'm so often in need of. 

The third direction to look will sound like this post is a not-so-secret plug for our church mission statement (reach up, reach in, reach out). While looking selfward and otherward, I want to be continuously looking Christward. Everywhere I go, I'm looking at God's beautiful creation - whether I'm talking about life with a friend or reading a difficult email - when I look at the people around me, I want to be mindful of the fact that I'm looking at masterpieces created by God. And equally challenging, when I look at myself - my mistakes and repeated mistakes - to remember that even then, I'm still looking at a child of God. So this year, I'd like to do better looking. But not in the fashion sense, because I don't have a chance there without Jeremy's shoes ;)

Beautiful Physics: A Summer Mini-Course

ESU, the Enrichment Studies Unit, is a really neat program here at Queen's. Instructors (usually grad students) can submit a proposal to teach a mini enrichment course on pretty much any topic they are passionate about. A diverse range of proposals are chosen, and the instructors set out to design engaging curriculum on their favourite topics. I think it's an ideal way to run these courses - giving autonomy to instructors to teach what they love.

So naturally, I wrote a course on... the history of penguins. I'm kidding, of 'course'.  My course was called "Beautiful Physics: Light and Sound".  I took a very different approach to the teaching style I used this past year in tutorials.  My whiteboards only came out twice - first for a boggle-style competition brainstorming all the different types of waves we knew, and later for a pictionary review game - we didn't do any problem solving because the students' math skills were too much of a barrier.

Instead, I went for a purely conceptual course with the goal of inspiring questions and finding a couple answers. One thing that I found interesting and encouraging: even without math, the course remained challenging for the students - this was important to me since it was an enrichment course for keen students. (Though a custodian saw the play-doh we used for stop motion, and refused to believe that I wasn't teaching kindergarten students - I was mildly taken aback. I still like play-doh... )

So we did a waves a hundred ways. The human longitudinal wave was a fun one, since it involved knocking over your friends. Similarly, the refracted human wave - lines of students walking quickly on pavement (representing light in air) and slowing down when their feet touched grass (representing glass) worked well for creating an experience of refraction.

We applied refraction to water waves, asking non-intuitive questions like:

As you can probably tell, the "lectures" were mostly done using Peer Instruction. It's easy to do and is the most popularly adopted strategy coming out of physics education research. So at this point - as a 'reader' in my class, you get to pull out your A B C D flashcard and vote for the most likely explanation you can think of for why water waves always move towards the shore. Then, find a friend, discuss the question with them, and then return to reading.

Wait - did you really discuss with a friend? Hmm, I think you should share the best explanation you can come up with - and see if you can tie it to refraction - in the comments. Next week, I'll tell you the rest of the story ;)

We went on to learn about refraction of different frequencies, chromatic aberration, and of course the question:

We looked at dispersion of both light and sound. We did sound dispersion with one of my favourite simple demos - try hitting the end of a metal slinky while holding the other end up to your ear. It's Star Wars! Not kidding! Buy a metal slinky right now and try it. Yes, right now. What happens is this: a clap or tap is made of a thousand different frequencies (or pitches) - high ones, medium ones, low ones, etc. But high frequencies travel faster in metal than low frequencies, so the high ones make it down the slinky and to your ear first... then the medium ones... then the low ones. So you hear Star Wars!

The other place we looked at dispersion was in optical fibers. We learned that in multimode fibers, light that bounces around (by total internal reflection) a lot in the fiber has to travel further to get from Kingston to Columbus than light that goes basically down the middle of the fiber without too much bouncing. The light that travels further takes longer to arrive; therefore the pulse smears out in time:

That's a real problem because then the skype conversation can't be interpretted by the computer in Columbus, and the conversation would fail! So what would you do to fix the dispersion problem in optical fibers?

Once again, discuss, drop me a question or two, and let me know what you think would work to reduce pulse dispersion in the comments! I'll explain the solution next week :)

So as you can tell, we did a lot of waves. Here's a sense of the topics we covered and questions we asked. If you're teaching anything related to these areas, feel free to drop me a note and we can share lesson plans!

• Moire patterns  - why should you not to wear a striped shirt on TV?
• Thin film interference - why do you see rainbows on puddles of gasoline?
• Doppler effect - how do we know that the universe is expanding, and why does the pitch of a motorcycle engine changes as it drives past you?
• Reflection - why do you look upsidedown in a spoon?
• Virtual images - how to make pigs fly (or look like they are)
• Total internal reflection - how does data travel to talk to a fabulous Jeremy via skype, or how do you trap a laser beam in a bending stream of water?
• Polarization - how do 3D movies work?
• Resonance - what do the Tacoma bridge (see this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs), a flute,  a swing,  a guitar, a singing bowl,  and a washing machine have in common?
• Overtones - how do you force nodes on a guitar string?
• Quantum, Relativity and other fun topics that students requested we learn about

Whew! That explains why I slept for 12 hours on Thursday night! So as you can guess, I was worried they would forget everything as soon as they'd learned it. I decided that I wanted the students to at least remember one thing, and gain a general sense that physics is the coolest subject ever. So the students made stop motion movies in groups to teach one concept to their friends. 

This group made a video about how a rainbow is formed. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the physics they explained in their video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR0SOlJ_9d0. Other groups had more trouble explaining the physics, but did have a lot of fun making their video - which was half of the goal. This group went for a Harry Potter style Schrodinger's cat video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1VBMc_8kkI&feature=youtu.be. And this group did a creative mix of a Schrodinger's cat and the Doppler Effect to tell a story of resuscitating the poor cat after he was observed to be in the 'dead' state. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H-Qa5cbLXM&feature=youtu.be. It was a bit of a tricky call for me to decide if their choice of music for the credits fit the requirements of PG only. I decided this was a battle I wouldn't pick.

There were other battles I did pick. We had some sad issues with emotional and verbal bullying in the class. But I decided to take a different approach than the traditional scary "stop the bullying" approach because I know they've all heard that talk before.... and the bullying obviously hasn't stopped. So I chatted with the class about my experiences with bullying. The fact that empathy and interpersonal skills end up being way more important than putting people down to get ahead. That it's actually a good thing to be a bit quirky and have a personality that stands out when you're looking for a job. That it means a lot to have learned that you can persevere even when life is tough.  I think it helped that by the time we had the chat on bullying, they (including the bullies) liked me enough as a teacher, and were quite surprised to hear I was just like the kids who they were excluding and calling names.  

One of my goals in teaching the course was to show my students that physics goes way beyond our stereotypes as a subject that's simply about trains, airplanes and blowing things up.  It's a creative and beautiful subject that needs all kinds of people - men and women, introverts and extraverts, silly and serious, etc.  I hope the students took that message home. But I hope they took more than physics home. I hope they learned a bit about treating each other well too.

10 Strategies for Physics Teaching Assistants

My supervisor recently asked me to put together a "top ten" list of practical strategies for physics teaching assistants. Of course with only my first year of TAing under my belt, I am clearly not the most experienced person for the job, so I based this content in loads of physics education literature written by people far smarter than me.  I would also love feedback from you - friends who have taught physics, learned physics, or have simply experienced teaching or learning of any subject before. What resonates with your experiences? What sounds flowery and unrealistic? 


Teaching physics is not a trivial task. Even Richard Feynman, famous for his lectures, had a student remark,

"In advanced lecture courses, [Feynman] was inspiring, but... an hour later, you'd wonder what you learned.'' 

Every physicist, who wants to successfully inspire and communicate physics to the next generation, encounters challenges in teaching. Our elegant explanations are useless if our students can't construct their own understanding of the concept. But facilitating this kind of lasting learning is no easy task.

Fortunately, just as we've learned physics by practicing and studying physics, we can also learn to be great physics teachers by practicing and studying teaching. The following are ten strategies you can use as a successful physics teaching assistant. Some may seem obvious to you. That's great! Other things may surprise you - do question them! I encourage you to learn about the areas that surprise you, try strategies out in your teaching, measure the results, and discuss your experiences with your colleagues and with me.

1. Address prior knowledge

Students need to build knowledge into a hierarchical structure and organized mental framework. Your students have a whole host of ideas about the physical world, constructed through their experiences so far. If you simply tell the students new information without addressing their prior knowledge, they will fit your lesson into a perhaps incorrect framework, rather than adopting the framework you want them to learn.

• Don't merely ask a student, ``Did that make sense?'' Ask the student a conceptual question to make sure they understand. Borrow ConcepTests from Dr. Eric Mazur's Peer Instruction to get a few ideas of good conceptual questions.
• A misconception was likely developed through an experience in the physical world. So create a new experience to directly addresses the misconception. Set up the thought experiment or demo. Ask the student to predict what they expect will happen (and listen for how the student is thinking about the situation). Perform the experiment and observe what happens. Have the student explain ``why'', listening for understanding, not just right answers.
• Ask the professor of your course if you can administer a test of conceptual understanding such as the Force Concept Inventory. This will allow both you and the professor to obtain a sense of what your students know at the beginning of the semester.

2. Inspire intrinsic motivations

Your students do want to learn. Yes, even the life science majors who "have" to take physics. We all have intrinsic motivations to learn about our world - your challenge as a teacher is to inspire those motivations. Raise questions in your students. Don't just give them answers. Bring students onside so that they are not merely tolerant participants in your active classroom, but are actively engaged with physics.

• Have fun! Use problems on topics which make your students smile. (Perhaps an Angry Birds conservation of momentum problem)
• Tell students why you're asking them to do an activity. Appeal to their desire to learn. (eg. We're going to act out a circuit using ourselves as electrons and gummy bears as voltage because having a concrete image of current and voltage will help us remember and understand these ideas... and because we like gummy bears.)
• Use challenging problems which encourage students say, "Hmm, I wonder if..."
• Don't frequently remind the students, "This will be on the exam". This statement takes attention away from the students' internal desire to learn. Of course it will be on the exam - you don't need to remind them.

3. Care about marks

We've all made the frustrated complaint, "My students don't care about learning physics. All they want is a good mark". Of course our goal is to help all our students learn physics - and hopefully we've successfully inspired our students' intrinsic motivations to learn physics too. But they also care about marks for their medical school applications, for keeping scholarships, etc. And if something matters to a student, it matters to you - because your students matter to you.

• Make sure there exists a course outline ready for the students for the first day. You don't need to read this to your students during the precious tutorial time you have. But you do need to make sure that all students have access to it online or in hardcopy.
• Give students a rubric which details your expectations of the assignments or exam questions you will be marking. Stick to the rubric when you mark.
• You should rarely see surprised looks on students' faces when you return an assignment or test. This can be a check for you to determine the clarity of your rubric.
• If you get to decide how some marks are allocated, use marks to communicate what you want the students to value: Do you value conceptual understanding? Then be sure to have more than just quantitative problems on your assessments. Do you value innovative design? Then incorporate elements of design into the lab rather than doing purely cookbook labs.
• Don't speak dismissively when your students tell you their concerns with grades. Listen, empathize, and set clear expectations - marks are not given by you, but earned by the student.

4. Hold high expectations for your students

Lecturing sets the lowest expectations for students; it assumes that they can do no more than passively copy down the set of symbols you write on the board. We have top students here\textemdash expect these students to engage, think, and learn in your class\textemdash and structure your class accordingly. Your role is not merely to provide information; you empower your students to see that they have something worthwhile which they can contribute to the classroom. When you set high achievable expectations for your students' learning and help your students meet these expectations, your students' physics self-efficacy (students' confidence in their ability to do physics) will improve. Self-efficacy is associated with both increased academic success and retention in a physics major.

• Tell your students that you want everyone to achieve an A. Or better yet, show them with the effort you put into teaching them. 
• Use engaging strategies such as Peer Instruction in your tutorial - create a classroom culture where students know they are expected to wrestle with new concepts in class.
• When a group gets stuck while working on a problem, don't jump in and simply provide the solution. Ask leading questions which give the students an 'in' to start working on the problem themselves.
• As TAs, we are rarely the best teachers in the room. Encourage students who have just made a breakthrough in understanding to teach their classmates.

5. Pay attention to how you talk about your students

Value and respect your students in your discussions with colleagues. As you speak optimistically about your students, you may find your own perspective changing - you'll notice more of the potential in your students. Also, you are an essential aspect of building a great teaching culture in our department. When you value your students in your conversations, your colleagues may see more value in their students as well.

• Talk about your students' learning more than you talk about yourself teaching. This will take the focus of your discussion with colleagues away from elegant derivations, and put the focus on how you can better help your students learn.
• Focus on the success stories. Share the excitement of a struggling student making a breakthough in understanding.
• When a student is driving you crazy, find at least one good thing to say about them rather than complaining about them to a colleague.

6. Prepare for class

It's no surprise: to teach well, you need to prepare both your content and creative strategies for communicating this content. Don't waste the students' time (and yours!) by floundering, providing vague explanations that serve no purpose except to cover up a lack of preparation, or directing the students along unhelpful paths.

• Solve all the tutorial problems yourself before teaching them - don't just read the solutions before class.
• Talk about the material you plan to teach with friends or family who aren't in physics. What kinds of questions come up? Practice answering these questions.
• Don't underestimate the ability of your own brain to forget. Sure, you may be teaching "easy first year physics material" but that doesn't mean that every concept (and especially methods for teaching every concept) is at the forefront of your mind right now. A good teacher continues to put effort into preparing for class and improving their teaching no matter how many years they've taught the course.
• When students ask a question that you don't know the answer to, don't give them a vague answer to hide the fact that you aren't sure. Be honest, and if possible, look up the answer after class or ask the student to do so and share what you learn with the students the following week.

7. Teach your students how to learn physics

The only people in your classroom who can do the learning are your students themselves. When we try to simply make our students download information from the blackboard, we miss the crucial question of how learning happens. Get students thinking about how they are learning and how they could learn more.

• When a student gets stuck on a problem, ask him or her "How are you approaching this problem so far?"
• Recognize the diversity of learning styles in your class. What works for one student might not work for the next student - this is the fun and challenge of teaching! Just as you use multiple teaching strategies to communicate information, encourage your students to try different ways of learning and studying until they find a technique that works for them.
• Model how you think about a problem, not just how you would set up or solve the problem. Remember that you're not trying to teach your students how to solve the "sliding block on ramp" problem - you're teaching your students how to think about physics so that they can solve new problems, eventually solving problems that we don't know the answer to.
• Encourage students to write a brief summary of what they learned at the end of each week - both concepts and skills.
• Ask your students to tell you what they're doing well (e.g., I'm starting to pause and lay out the concepts before diving into formulae at the start of a problem now) and what they need to work on (e.g., I give up too soon when I don't see a clear path to a solution). For efficiency, this could be coupled with obtaining feedback for your teaching - at the end of tutorial ask your students to write advice for your teaching on one side of the page and advice for their own learning on the other side.
• Have your students teach each other, but tell them that they can teach only the overall concepts they used in their solutions - they can't get stuck in the mathematical steps they followed.

8. Build positive relationships with your students

Good communication in teaching is not just about delivering good content. Building a positive rapport and relationship with your students genuinely improves their motivation to learn in your class, and results in greater academic success for your students. It also just makes teaching so much more fun.

• Make sure you are finished setting things up for your tutorial or lab 10 minutes early. Then spend the 10 minutes before class just chatting one-on-one with the students who are early.
• Smile to your students.
• Use your sense of humour in class (of course being mindful to respect the diversity of the students in your class).
• Learn and use your students' names. To make this easier, ask for a copy of the students' names and faces. The professor of the course probably has a page of names and faces that you can photocopy and post at your desk.
• Use your personal hobbies. For example, if you like baking, consider bringing a snack for your students on occasion. Or if you have a keen class, ask the students to sign up to bring food to tutorial. 
• Find out what hobbies your students participate in. Then slightly change the tutorial problems so that your students are the star of a problem. (e.g., Instead of "a car accelerates..." change the problem to say "Jason accelerates on his skateboard...")

9. Create an environment that makes learning happen

You may not have access to expensive teaching technologies in your classroom, but fortunately, engaging teaching is a much more important factor in improving student learning than having a fancy classroom. You can make the environment you're given a successful teaching space. Also, classroom environment is not only created through physical items in the classroom. The way you communicate with the students is the most significant aspect of creating a positive environment.

• If you have a poor classroom and if it's a warm sunny day, bring your class down to the lake and teach in the friendlier environment of the outdoors, if this fits with the activities you have planned.
• Buy white boards (approximately 20$ for a sheet which can be cut into eight 2ft x 2ft white boards) for the students to work on problems in groups. This is particularly helpful if you hope to take some classes outside or if you lack desks in your classroom.
• Create an environment where students feel safe making mistakes. When a student gets confused while solving a problem, say "Let's go back to what you know". Don't pretend that they're doing fine, but don't emphasize their mistake either. Bring them back to a point in the problem where they feel comfortable, and ask leading questions (that they do know the answers to) to send them down the right track.

10. Obtain and use feedback continually

You may have heard the quote, "You haven't taught until they have learnt", which is attributed to John Wooden. Your students are a highly valuable resource to you. Continually check if your students have learned the material you thought you were teaching. Change your teaching accordingly.

• Give all your students a piece of paper at the start or end of your class. Ask them to tell you one concept that recently became clear (and how it became clear) as well as one concept that they would like you to cover again. Or ask them to tell you what helps them learn and what is hindering their learning in your tutorial.
• This takes courage, but it can be very helpful: Ask a professor or fellow TA to observe one of your classes and give you feedback. Often an observer at the back of the room can identify whether or not students are engaging with the material better than you can.
• Class discussion can be useful for checking students' understanding only in tiny classes (ten students or fewer). In medium to large classes, use another strategy such as Peer Instruction to check for understanding. Class discussion in medium sized classes causes many students to disengage and listen passively.
• Attendance can be one mode of feedback from students. If the students feel that the time they spend in tutorial is useful for their learning, they will likely come to the tutorial. If they aren't learning in your tutorial, they will likely not attend (unless marks are attached to attendance).
• It is helpful to measure the effectiveness of your teaching with a standard instrument such as the Force Concept Inventory, which you can administer in your tutorial at the start and end of the term. Gains of 40% - 70% on the FCI will indicate that you're on par with interactive physics courses in North America.

Great TAs are always learning to become better TAs. Keep learning new strategies for teaching, trying them out, reflecting on the feedback you obtain, and improving your teaching. And of course teach me when you come across something that works well for your class. All the best!

Faith vs Physics?

It's a question that I've asked myself many times, and a question that's been asked of me:

How can you be a christian and a physicist at the same time?

This is an important question to me. I'd rather not hold conflicting identities - if these are indeed conflicting identities. And in fact, the most common answer I've heard from both parties - non-christian physicists and non-physicist christians - is: 

You can't.  

Some Physicists have told me that since faith requires looking at the world in a different way than science looks at the world, faith must therefore be 'wrong' by a scientific definition. But it seems downright silly to start with the assumption that the scientific method must by definition be the only ruler by which to measure faith. We're a post-modern society; we've moved beyond these sorts of limited circular definitions.


Others have said that physics somehow replaces God. Now the Higgs boson may hold the common name of 'God particle', but it really doesn't follow that we've somehow replaced God simply by learning more about the incredible universe we find ourselves in. I certainly can't see any reason for Christians to be afraid of physics - it's done nothing to disprove or replace God (though the media and some physicists have been known to put a controversial spin on physics research to boost readership). I don't believe learning about creation nullifies a creator. 


Some Christians have told me that physics is like Babylon, and goes against faith. Physicists are trying to play God, interfering where we shouldn't interfere. Hiroshima is sometimes used as evidence for the 'dark side' of physics. But while physics has led to the creation of some harmful technologies - I certainly don't want to downplay complex tragedies like Hiroshima, it has also given us an amazing array of technologies which improve our quality of life, save people from otherwise impossible circumstances, let us experience the phenomenal beauty of our world (and beyond!), and connect us with each other. Also, physics describes sunshine and rainbows - and who doesn't love that? If God made us as creative curious people, it seems only natural and good that we would want to invent and learn about the universe we live in. 


But 'You can't' isn't the only unsatisfying answer I've heard. Other's have told me:

You can... because physics explains faith.

But does it really? I'm sure we've all seen the books and websites that stretch and misinterpret dear Mr. Schrodinger's and Mr. Heisenberg's equations until they barely resemble the beautiful physics they were supposed to describe. And after this sad process, these stretched concepts are used to say that we can scientifically 'prove' God's existence. It hurts my physics heart to see the concepts I've studied and fallen in love with not only distorted beyond recognition, but also taught poorly to innocent people who are just starting to learn about our field.

So I'm still in the process of answering this question - can faith and physics be friends? And perhaps I will be for some time. But for now, my current answer is:

You absolutely can be both a christian and a physicist - because neither of these identities requires the other to be wrong. 

I believe that the bible was written so that we can know God, learn how to love each other and love God, learn how to lead lives that honour God, and other such good things. I don't believe it was written as a science textbook. So I don't need to warp physics to awkwardly force it to fit with my faith.  Similarly, my physics textbooks were not written for the purpose of teaching me about God's character. So I don't need to change my faith to fit with my quantum class.  

The passage that most people cite as the main source of tension between physics and christianity is Genesis. I think it is very helpful to think about the role and purpose of the creation story in our faith. If we believe that the bible was written for the purpose of being the first science textbook, we might assume that the creation story was written to provide a scientific record for us to go back and analyze the age of the earth. If this really is the purpose of the bible, then it would be pretty much impossible to be a christian and physicist. But this seems to be a very unlikely theory: that God would send his Son to live with us on earth, build relationships with us, and write the story of the bible - all for the purpose of giving us a science textbook? And if the bible was written for the purpose of teaching us science, I'd have to say, it doesn't do a very good job at accomplishing this - where are the pretty colour coded diagrams?

Instead, if we believe that the bible was written to reveal God's character and give us the opportunity to know God, we will read the creation story very differently. We'll read the incredible truth that we were made in the image of God, called to be stewards responsible for caring for His world, called to love and care for each other. As people made in the image of God and stewards of our world, we can absolutely be creative and innovative physicists, finding solutions to climate change and environmentally safe sources of energy.

The bible does a great job of telling us the story of God's love and faithfulness to His creation, and explaining how we can live in relationship with God and each other. Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics does a great (well, at least okay) job of explaining Maxwell's equations. So I believe we can respect and embrace both faith and physics without denying either.  Probably the best way to do this is to learn about both :)