Pedagogy

Some Thoughts On Pedagogy

Here is a start on some thoughts born out a physicist teaching arts students a weather and climate course and then subsequent decade of experience teaching in a physics and physical oceanography department.

I submit that the most important learning especially for first year classes is not the content but the development of problem solving, communication, analytical, and critical thinking skills. Yet many intro courses are structured around memory work and truckloads of concepts that will likely be forgotten a month after the final exam.
A guiding question for course content should therefore be "what do I want my students to retain a year after the final exam".
Given the above, I have structured my "Environmental physics" course as a course in "thinking like a scientist" using weather, climate, and energy systems as a case studies.
As an example, I section my Environmental physics course around the following key questions: a) what determines temperature? b) what determines precipitation? c) what determines weather? d) is the climate changing? if so why, in what ways, and what should be done about it? In the first class, the students collectively develop a plan to address question a).
I have found that in-class pair exercises greatly increases student involvement and attention and provides opportunities for peer learning. It also gives the instructor a chance to wander around and make individual contact with students.
Get students out of their seats and animated. Eg, instead of describing 3 modes of heat transport, have a group of students actively figure it out with a box of tennis balls. After such displays, key concepts are much more strongly anchored in student minds.
Have students identify what they don't know and rank it in order of importance.
Make extensive use of classroom assessement techniques. Eg, at the end of lectures on difficult topics, have the students summarize what they thought were the key points and write one question on a 3 x 5 card to be returned to the instructor.
For classes where the back row is visible from the front, use colour coded flash cards instead of clickers or electronic apps as an ACTIVE response system. This helps keeps electronic distractions out of students' sight and the bit of extra physical motion involved contributes to student attention. I think it also puts some subtle peer pressure on students to participate and forces them to make a choice of going with the crowd or making their own decision.
Peer discussion is to me a key learning component (and from my own student surveys, a component that about half the respondents freely identify as improving their learning). When a significant number of students provide the wrong answer to an active response query, give them a couple of minutes to discuss with one or two partners to consider revision of their response.
Facilitate and support learner self-responsibility. Eg, during the first class have your students identify what they want to get out of this course and what would make the course a fulfilling learning experience. Try to adjust your course plan to best address these learner goals within the curiculum constraints.
Teaching Tips is a good first stop for ideas on everything from "Dealing with stress" to course design and "101 Things the First Three Weeks".
Another Teaching Tips site offers a large single page list on the topic.
Tomorrow's Professor eNewlsetter with postings twice weekly offers excellent advice (often citing relevant litterature) on topics ranging from "Scientific Writing: training like an athlete" to "Barriers to inclusivity", "Three Keys for Graduate School Success", and " Teaching as a Learning Experience".
The most important learning tools for my own children are: wonder, curiousity, and play. How can we promote these in education?

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