Week 1 - How did it go?

Today was our first meeting for the Physics 495 class; Teaching College Physics. We went over some housekeeping items, discussed the reading, and ran a debate about active learning and lecturing in a Physics classroom.

Weeks 3 and 4 - Active Learning

Weeks 3 and 4 will cover active learning techniques such as lecture tutorials and think-pair-share questions. We want to make sure that we are giving our TAs "healthy alternatives" to straight lecturing. By supplying a variety of teaching methods, we can ensure that all TAs will find a technique suited to their personal teaching style. I describe below the lesson plan, which is loosely based on the CAE workshop: Center for Astronomy Education: Improving the College Introductory Astronomy and Space Science General Education Course Through Active Engagement: A Tier I (Introductory) Workshop

Weeks 1 and 2

We are starting now to put together a more detailed syllabus for our Teaching College Physics course in the fall. It will be a 10-week course (not enough, I know) which will meet once a week for 2 hours. In addition, we will host once a week "micro teaching sessions" which each student will be required to attend at least twice (once to watch, once to teach).

There will be a reading assignment every week, and we will discuss that reading assignment during the first ~30 minutes of every class.

Week 1 will be a motivation for the course as a whole, and Week 2 will cover the student perspective and different learning techniques.

To see how Week 1 went, click here!