Physix Curriculum Map a la Mr. Le Nadj!

Students love Modern Physics topics. Unfortunately, most introductory Physics courses eschew Special Theory of Relativity (STR), General Theory of Relativity (GTR), and Quantum Mechanics (QM) because of their perceived difficulty.

For the past four years, I have been introducing more and more of STR early on in the year/semester. But, this year I used STR as a means of introducing classical Physics concepts such as kinetic energy. The mind map below summarizes the gist of this approach. It is important to mention that the Modeling Approach serves as the backbone and the glue that holds this teaching method together. Thus, the use of many abbreviations that only modelers would know.

Physix a la Mr. Le Nadj! Curriculum Map

In future posts, I shall address each of the branches. I shall also give samples of presentations material, examples of students reactions/reflections, and typical artifacts that assist in making the case for such a pedagogical approach.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area so that readers like you would benefit from them personally or their students indirectly. Thank you

Dedicated to the memory of my beloved father (RA).

End of School Year Reflections

Well, school is over and following are a few reflections.

1) Results of pre/post diagnostic tests were not earth chattering but they were very encouraging and satisfying in that they confirmed that my students on average have grasped core concepts of Kinematics and Dynamics. What remains to see is how the two genders faired and how the various majors faired as well for I like to keep track of both of these statistical results to fine tune the pedagogy. 

2) Informal surveys of students seem to show they were satisfied with their year of Physics overall but they seem to all find the Clickerisms (multiple choice conceptual questions that are answered using clickers and employing think-pair-share or peer instruction as advanced by Eric Mazur and other PER instructors) useful from an educational point of view. This is very encouraging for it implies that the majority of the students are sharing one of my views regarding the efficacy of the approaches advanced by the PER community. 

3) Two unexpected heartwarming occurrences in the last days of the year confirmed that I must have had a positive impact on at least two students. Interestingly, both students dropped Physics at the conclusion of first semester yet were kind enough to show their appreciation at the end of the school year. One of them brought me a bag of cookies with a thank you note and the other sent me an email with kind words of praise and topped it off by stating "That was the uncoolest thing I have ever done." in reference to the dropping of my Physix class. Thank you to both for their kindness, their classy acts, and the time they took to make not just my day but my whole year.   

4) This year's batch of Physix projects were of high quality and hopefully I will feature some of them in future posts (ISA!)

After reading the above, please share on the comments heartwarming things you experienced in your last days of classes and what reflections you may have drawn from your eventful year of Physix. Thank you