Teaching College Physics - Syllabus

I wanted to share with the online community the syllabus we've come up with for our Physics 495 course ("Teaching College Physics"). It's still somewhat a work in progress, and I will certainly post updates about how each class goes once the academic year begins. But here are the topics we plan to cover in our 10 week course (45 students total, 3 TAs):

For Reference:

• UC Berkeley’s Graduate Teaching Guide
• List of Physics/Astronomy Education References
• How People Learn by the National Academy of Sciences

Practical Matters

• class will meet for 2 hours once a week
• there will be a microteaching session once a week (after the day that the class meets) where small groups of students (5-7 at a time) will meet to microteach, choosing from a variety of teaching techniques presented in class
• each class will be split into two groups which will meet separately but simultaneously
• for some activities, it may be necessary/helpful to split into 3 groups, which will have to be decided later on
• reading will be assigned each week, and discussed each week in the beginning of class
• TACs will visit each TA's entire section once during the quarter.  They will be videotaped, and get a copy.  The TAC will write out constructive comments to give to the student and talk with the TA personally (perhaps going through the videotape together).

2-Day Department-Specific TA Orientation:

• Day 1: First Day in the Classroom - Expectations and Strategies
• Short introduction to lesson planning (worksheet, example syllabi)
• Discussion sections vs. labs
• What is expected of you as a TA?
• Grading/proctoring responsibilities
• How do design your first discussion section
• Hand out microteaching assignment for Day 2
• Day 2: Microteaching
• continuation of Day 1 materials
• split students up into 2 (3?) groups
• record students on DVDs
• ask for constructive comments from the class at large
• explain the importance of “reflective teaching”
• send DVDs home with students (do no playback in class)

Week 1: Motivation for The Course

• present educational studies (provide resources if they’d like to do their own research)
• explain how this class will be run (taught by TAs, supervised by Instructor on Record, grading policy (?))
• outline the course
• outline our expectations (participation, thoughtfulness, etc)
• Introduce next week’s activity (lesson planning)
• Assign reading (lesson planning and backward engineering, 6 Ways to Discourage Learning, the bumpy road to student centered learning)

Week 2: Lesson Planning / Backward Engineering

• discussion of last week’s reading

• Introduce the concept of backward engineering
• Activity: Lesson Planning
• have the students fill out a carefully engineered worksheet, first individually, then in small groups
• the worksheet should outline the questions a teacher could ask themselves before sitting down to plan a lesson (“What do I want my students to be able to do at the end of my class?” “How will I be sure that they are retaining the information?”)
• Ask them to turn in their worksheets at the end of class
• TPS Activity: Phasing Useful Questions
• use two different examples where you are asking different questions to get at the same basic information
• one should be a straightforward question which requires a memorized answer
• the other should be a conceptual question which forces students to synthesize the information they have already learned
• Assign reading (building on prior student knowledge, Pre-Existing Knowledge from How People Learn pg 10-12)

Week 3: The Student Perspective

• discussion of last week’s reading
• show “Private Universe” video
• make sure to pause video and ask for input from the TAs
• discussion of video
• pose a question: which level of student should you teach to and why?
• maybe do a free-write activity before a group discussion so that each student can formulate their own opinion
• outline the different learning techniques students can have (visual, auditory, etc)
• discussion: what do you discuss in class, and what do you save for office hours?
• Assign reading (Bloom’s Taxonomy)

Week 4: Active Learning and Bloom’s Taxonomy (2 weeks’ worth of material)

• Discussion of last week’s reading
• Debate:
• active learning vs. straight lecturing/memorization
• have students take up both sides of the debate (using what they learned from the reading)
• (we did this in central seminar last year, and it worked beautifully)
• Outline some of the active learning techniques available: TPS, Lecture Tutorials, using videos, debate and role-playing
• HOMEWORK: Write out a TPS question and describe (minute-by-minute) how you would run that activity

• Assign reading (Socratic Teaching and Active Learning)

Week 5: Continuation of Active Learning Techniques

• Assign reading (classroom management, setting rules/boundaries)

Week 6: Classroom Management

• discussion of last week’s reading

• role playing activity to demonstrate the types of problems which can come up (not necessarily to advocate for any one way to approach these problems)
• pose a question to the TAs: What sort of teacher do you want to be?
• Activity: Setting the Tone
• have the students fill out a worksheet individually which asks them questions about how they want their classroom to be run, and what strategies they could use to make sure that happens
• have the students discuss their worksheets in groups of 3-4 and come up with 1-2 “rules” for their classroom to share with the group
• discuss the results of the groupwork with the class at large
• Assign reading

Week 7: Student/Faculty Relations

• instead of a reading discussion, start the class with a student and faculty panel (separate)
• 3 undergrads and 3 faculty members discussing their expectations of their TAs
• ask the popular faculty members to share couple of their favorite teaching strategies and techniques
• allow questions from TAs, but keep it short
• afterwards, send students and faculty away and have a discussion about how those expectations can pose challenges to the TAs, and what can be done about it
• “Grey Areas” activity:
• ROBIN’S ACTIVITY?
• Assign reading (teaching with technology)

Week 8: Using Technology in the Classroom

• Discussion of last week’s reading

• outline the resources available from OID
• lead students through useful webpages (linked to from the course webpage)
• pose a question: when can posting solutions to problems be useful?
• discuss in groups of 2-3
• then discuss with entire class as a whole
• TECHNOLOGY ACTIVITY

Week 9: fill i

Week 10: Professional Development

• Why is teaching important in grad school, and in your career?
• What kind of grants are available that require a teaching component?
• What is a Teaching Statement?
• Free Write: what is your personal teaching philosophy?
• after ~20-25 minutes of free write (while TACs move around the classroom and answer questions), ask each student to define their teaching statement in 1-2 sentences
• EVALUATIONS: ask students to fill out evaluations written by the TACs