|
|
|
|
|
Teaching
Approach Effective teaching is very important to me. My goal
in the classroom is to create an environment in which knowledge is constructed
by students more than it is presented by me. Said differently, I have found
that an effective way “to teach science” is simply to do science in the
classroom, with my role being mostly a coach. As an example of what I mean,
think of how coffee in an insulated mug without a lid cools to the overlying
air. To explain this problem in a class it is easy to envisage a series of
lectures that would break the issue of how hot coffee cools down into the
main components of the science of thermal convection. However, no matter how
brilliant my explanations might be, it is infinitely more engaging and
inspiring to simply place a drop of cream in the coffee and study how the
motions driven by the surface cooling disperse the cream, and hence
distribute the cooling over the full depth of the coffee. To illustrate my
approach more formally, in the classroom we (the students and me) begin an
analysis of the cup of coffee as a team. The first step is to describe in
detail everything we can observe about the cup, the coffee, and the drop of
cream. Next, we formulate questions aimed at deciphering the driving dynamics
of the cooling problem. These questions lead, in turn, to further inquiries
about the physics of the problem that could take us first to textbooks and
then to research articles. Following a careful study of the physics of the
problem we would formulate hypotheses designed to unravel in a clear way
precisely how the coffee cools. To test these hypotheses we would develop a
list of good experiments to do and then we would do them. At the end of this
study the students would have learned the significance of the scientific
method, how to formulate and solve problems and, ultimately, how to construct
knowledge in small and careful increments—i.e. learn. Courses
I teach (U.Toronto) PHYS 225 Second Year Lab (U.Toronto) PHYS 2601 Special Topics in Planetary Physics EOSC 212
Hot Topics in Earth and Planetary Science (with Michael Bostock) (2007) EOSC 252 Introduction to Experimental
Geophysics (Assignments, 2009) EOSC 450
Potential Fields in the Earth and Planetary Sciences (2005) EOSC 453 Advanced Physics of
the Earth and Planets (2011) EOSC
514 Introduction to Geological Fluid Mechanics (2012) EOSC 212 Topics in Earth and Planetary
Sciences (2011—to see this course you unfortunately have to be at UBC) Some other educational efforts ... The Earth: Kinda like a Mai Tai? Lessons
about natural convection learned See also comments about this poster and a neat one involving lava flows and food by Alison Rust by Kenneth Chang from the New York Times. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|