I believe every student can learn physics, astronomy, math and computers. (That is, unless they abuse themselves, for example with excessive drinking of bad beer...) I taught gifted students and not so gifted, and the difference between them seem to be that the gifted are not afraid to ask and not afraid to try.
I want to be an effective teacher, so when I am teaching the gifted I give them as much as I can. When I am teaching the fearful I try to alleviate their fears. I want to keep on improving on my own teaching skills, so that I don’t create any additional fears or boredom. At the end of the day I want my students to be learners, but more importantly I want them to become effective and responsible practitioners of their skills.
Ok. Now the details…
I think that in order to be an effective physics teacher,
one that leaves his mark on each student, we have to posses good communication
skills, a formidable teaching strategy, a friendly and effective
"one-on-one" teaching ability, technological prowess, and a large
"arsenal of teaching tricks". Some of these are gifts you are
born (or raised) with. Most of these qualities, though, you
just have to continuously develop and maintain. So let me address my
approach on how to go about it:
Communication Skills and Teaching Strategy :
If a person has a teaching talent it will be possible for him to work on
becoming an effective teacher. One may be able to determine if a teacher is
INEFFECTIVE by finding consensus in evaluation forms and reference letters. To
find out if a teacher is good, one has to attend his/her class or
presentation. After many years of working at it, I am becoming quite
confident in my teaching ability. I know that in the education field one can
never rest. Each generation of students, and each specialized group of students
requires the rethinking of one's teaching methods.
Teaching well is a matter of optimization. Every minute
that the student spends doing physics counts! Good classes maximize the time
that the student is solving problems, while covering enough material to develop
a strong "story." An effective story is like the scientific process
itself. It has a beginning (observation) middle (hypothesis & model) and
end (analysis and proof/refutation). Good "stories" are told in more
than one way, because the description of a phenomenon depends on one's
perspective (or frame of reference).
Every class that the student attends needs to be a complete
unit, or story. Every class should teach the skill and methods associated with
the unit. Different forms of "units" are needed in order to create
pictures in the students' minds. Lectures, discussion sessions, pre-lab
observation sessions, labs, tutorials, writing assignments, and projects should
all be organized into such units. Publications in physics-teaching research
helped me develop those units 1-4.
A good class would maximize the overlap of
the "stories" while building the bigger picture. That way the
"toolbox of skills" is organized effectively. To build a bigger
picture many students in my classes choose to do projects with theoretical and
experimental parts. I believe that in a good college programs classes
overlap a little, so that the students may combine their skills, and build an
effective "toolbox" for life.
Students enjoy using newly learned skills. The step by step
approach lets the students enjoy new skills at every step. This joy is not of
the instant gratification type. Rather, it is more like fixing your own car and
then driving it, or eating a meal that you prepared yourself.
The effectiveness of this approach, which I found by trial and error,
makes sense. In order to learn effective skills' one should have strong
building blocks. Each lesson is such a building block, and in each lesson
methods and skills are learned. In order to figure out which methods to use,
pattern recognition skills have to be developed. Pattern recognition ability is
what some people call experience. Experience is always developed by trial and
error, but a strong background dramatically reduces the number of trials.
"One-on-one" Teaching Ability
The best results are always
obtained through personal interaction. Look at your kids,
brothers or sisters: most of what they learn is through interaction with
parents and siblings. That's why I spent a large portion of my teaching career
trying to perfect techniques for one-on-one situations. What I found out
through many years of trial and error is almost obvious: (or as most of the
students would now say: DAH...) The most effective
methods require the appearance of equality. I try not to
impose myself on my students. I am there for "the kid" in case
he or she badly fall, or doesn't dare to get up. I try to encourage. When they
are lost I try to show them several ways, but always make them choose the right
way under supervision, then with no supervision. Until they learn, I let them
fall and teach them the most effective way to get up. One of my peers told me
that this is not only how kids learn to walk, its the
way the scientific method "walks"!
Technological prowess
I have extensive experience in teaching with the help
of technology. I have been using Audio-Video systems and developing web-based
courses since I started teaching. I advised students in numerical simulation
projects, data-analysis projects using advanced software,
and designing astronomical observations. See CV.
References
1.Arnold Arons, "A guide to Introductory Physics
Teaching" Wiley, 1990; 2. McDermott, "Miliken Lecture 1990, AJP 59, 1991; 3. Halloun & Hestenes, " The initial knowledge state of college physics
students", AJP 53, 1985; 4. Redish, "The
implications of cognitive studies for teaching physics" AJP 62, 1994.