Article: Mastering the Difficult Art of Teaching Physics

[Arcadia]

From Rutgers University https://sas.rutgers.edu/news-a-events/news/newsroom/alumni/1953-mastering-the-art-of-teaching

“Spero, a member of the first graduating class of the School of Arts and Sciences in 2011, always knew he wanted to teach. But over the span of five years in which he completed his bachelor’s degree in physics and received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Education (GSE) his ideas about teaching underwent a transformation. 

“I really thought my career was going to be me telling students to take notes while I explain everything to them,” he says. “And that just got flipped on its head.” 

Indeed, Spero’s students at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North had no time to sit idle during a recent honors physics class. He had them swinging their backpacks in the air to experience circular motion, or spinning a marble to calculate its probable direction. When he wasn’t engaging these student teams with questions and comments, Spero captivated them by donning a raincoat and threatening to drench himself by whirling a bucket of water over his head—but centripetal force prevailed. 

“He relates everything to real life,” says Yash Parakh, a junior at the school. “That’s very helpful because now when I see something I know what’s happening in terms of the physics.” 

Another student, Shruthi Santhanakrishnan, says the backpack exercise was particularly instructive—and fun. 

“When you are just drawing the forces, you’re expecting a specific outcome,” she says. “But when you actually feel the forces, you come up with a very different result.” 

Growing up in Fanwood, Spero never saw himself as “a science type” until he took a physics course in high school. 

“It was the first thing that really challenged me and made me think,” Spero says. “I fell in love with it.” 

In fact, he literally couldn’t get away from the subject. 

“I’d look at a car and see the wheels turning,” he says. “And suddenly I’m thinking about circular motion, and all these equations and hypotheticals pop into my head.” 

...

Etkina has long been a proponent for change in science education, arguing that the acquisition of knowledge alone isn’t enough to develop scientifically literate students. 

“Acquiring a body of knowledge is important, but that knowledge is the final outcome of what’s really essential: the science process,” she says. “Science process is thinking like a scientist, and acting like a scientist. And that should be as much a goal of science education as knowing the final outcome.” 

...

With that mindset he brought bowling balls to one of his first classes on motion. Students responded with enthusiasm, putting the balls on ramps, pushing them by hand, and recording the motion with cell phone cameras and stopwatches. 

“I can’t even describe how wonderful it was,” Spero says. “They were being real scientists.” ”

 

[Rachel]

That’s the physics class I needed.