I recently returned to university to take a masters course in physics after six years of teaching, three of which were spent as head of physics in a large comprehensive school in Essex. In my time as a teacher, the UK education system has increasingly been forced to look at itself and ask the question: "What have the pupils learned, what have they understood?" A major reason for doing this has been the government's inspection of schools by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).
When I began my new course last October, I felt that I started it with many of the skills that I lacked as an undergraduate - including good working practices, a lack of inhibition about asking questions and, most of all, a real enthusiasm for learning. What I soon realized, however, was that lecturing styles have not changed since my undergraduate days, and that many of the conceptual problems that I had faced as an undergraduate stemmed directly from the lectures I had attended.
The standard teaching format on my course is the three-hour lecture, in which concepts are delivered formally, with little or no attempt to supply a living mental framework. I sometimes wonder if I have mistakenly walked into a scene from the TV comedy The Fast Show, as an academic rehearses at breakneck speed the mantra, "it follows from k and hence, thus and forsooth the answer is 47".
The old phrase "physics is fun" has even been doing the rounds again recently; I cringe whenever I hear it. I would never claim to have been a groundbreaking teacher whose pupils hung on my every word, but I do know that physics does not need to be fun. Pupils and students do not find physics a turn-off because of its content; but if the subject is badly taught, they rapidly become frustrated, and this frustration is rarely sorted out - and is often compounded in the lecture that follows.
I feel that there is an unspoken elitism within the physics community, which explains why everyone was so amused when Feynman said that "no-one understands quantum mechanics". It's almost as though physicists are trying to impress the rest of the world that they are, in fact, a very clever bunch of people and only the brightest will be allowed to join.
Here are a few of my own suggestions for how to improve lectures:
- keep them short;
- don't try to fit too much in;
- deliver the imagery first, and maths second;
- ask questions during the lecture;
- don't expect students to learn derivations - it's pointless and boring, even if it does disguise the fact that they haven't learnt much from your course;
- occasionally, don't lecture at all, but give students the lecture notes as they arrive, ask them to read what's in front of them and then grill them to see how much they have understood;
- don't talk to the blackboard;
- video yourself in action, and then ask yourself whether you would you want to sit through your own lecture;
- accept that you are a teacher whether or not you wanted to be, so at least put some flair into it.
Paul Agnew suggested that undergraduates should not be taught how to "talk eloquently at cocktail parties about the latest superstring theories" (Physics World November 1998 p17). However, it would be nice if students could convey some of the imagery of physics when asked about their subject - and not be reduced to the same misunderstood elitism that they have been taught by observing their academic staff.
Finally, I would advise university lecturers to liaise with their local schools, observe examples of good practice in the classroom and then try out their new-found teaching skills on a typical group of 13-year-olds. If you survive that experience, then try the same skills on your students, however old they might be. Your simple wisdoms and abilities to listen, as well as preach, will guarantee success. My message is that you don't need to dumb down physics, you just have to teach it well.
Matthew Willis
Malden,
Essex,
UK
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