Science is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope. It is then necessary to define what science and what is the operating principle that defines science as science.
Scientific methodology defines what science is: It only treats physical phenomena that are measurable and comprehensible (GOD and consciousness are not included in this category). All physical phenomena are governed by physical laws, which are formulated in terms of physics theory or theorems. Physical laws (a Nature’s attribute) are expressed in terms of physical theories (our conceptual construct). They are formulated based on experimental observations and theoretical construction with the aid of mathematics. The theories formulated must be in principle testable so that one can be sure that they indeed correspond to the physical laws of the real world they try to describe. They must be predictive of some unknown phenomena that is then used as a check of the theory’s validity. To pass the QA procedure, a physical theory must be checked by experiment and observation before their validity is recognised. In other words, a so-called “physical theory” that fail to pass the experimental test, or that can’t even be tested in principle, can’t be qualified as a theory corresponds to our real world.
Physical laws are supposed to be UNIVERSAL: they are invariant in time and space, valid not only here and now but also elsewhere in the Universe and also in any moment in time, be it the past or the future. The laws would remain valid to whoever does the experiments, be it a Nobel prize winning physicist or a primary school teacher from Penang.
Any physical phenomenon governed by the same set of physical laws is repeatable when the same conditions pertaining to that phenomenon are satisfied. For example, when the temperature within the core of a star is larger than a specific temperature, say, 1 million degree, the hydrogen fuel within the stars will initiate nuclear fusion releasing tremendous amount of nuclear energy according to the physical laws that govern the nuclear physics of these reactions. So, any star in the Universe must do so no matter where it is located and when it existed.
For another example, if the physical laws say that ALL pure water boils at 100 degree at 1 atmospheric pressure, then every time you boil the pure water at the standard pressure it must always boil at 100 degree always, no matter when and where you boil it. Such an observation manifests that the laws governing the boiling of pure water (statistical physics and thermodynamics) is indeed universal.
A counter example: if someone claims to have produced cold nuclear fusion on a table top device using palladium, the same result should be reproducible by other people in the other end of the Universe using the necessary described condition. If it is not reproducible by many people with all the right condition it might means the break down of the universality of physical laws. However, most often this means those who made such claim gets screwed up in their experiment. They must be logically self-consistent and preserve causality. They don’t predict things in sharp contradiction, such as the time traveling. Theory that allows time traveling is necessarily a forbidden theory from logical point of view and cannot be correct because it opens up the possibility to violate causality. Hence it can’t be right to do time travel.
The physical laws are usually formulated using mathematics as a tool to penetrate into the logical structure of the theory. The employment of mathematics allows us to probe into the physical system as precise as possible and left little space for subjective interpretation. For example Newton’s law of gravity that governs the behaviour of the Earth-Moon system can very precisely tell us where the angular position of the moon, in the form of theta = (GM/r^3)t, where t is the time correspond to the angular position theta, G a constant, M the mass of the Earth (a constant) and r the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
As a related counter example, there are some kind of ‘theory’ (such as Ying-Yang, Universal Life Force Energy or reiki) doesn’t fulfill the precision and consistent criteria of such, leaving many space of subjective manipulation, resulting in non-unique and sometimes contradicting predictions. Such an unsatisfying feature in these theories is due the reason that they are not built upon any rigorous logical structure (in the mathematical sense), hence we can’t perform rigorous mathematical manipulation in them to obtain result that are logically persuasive.
Science must be falsifiable (at least in principle). This is one of the important criteria of science. One must also propose a way how his theory can be proven otherwise (example: God’s existence is an example of a theories that cannot be falsified) in order to call it a scientific theory. For example in Newton’s theory of gravity, the inertial of any mass is supposed to be independent of the type of material. Hence one can check to see if the inertia of many different objects of the same mass (say 1.00 kg) made of different material do differs. If it does that means the theory is falsified. If not then say that the theory is consistent with experimental observation. A theory that can’t be falsified even in principle can’t qualify to be a scientific theory, such as the existence of GOD).
Science has range of validity. It is valid only in the domain where it’s empirically proven to be valid. Such as classical mechanics that describe our ordinary scale world such as car collision, rocket launching and the dynamical properties of our solar system, is not valid in the quantum domain. Quantum mechanics is verified to be valid up to the scale as small as 10^(-19) m, whereas GR is valid up to the scale of as large of the size of the Universe.
Science is approximate truth; it approaches truth asymptotically. It is always ready to be supplanted by improved versions when better insight or technique or experimental data become available. Such as Newton’s theory of gravity being supplanted by GR as a generalization when dealing with cosmological structures.
Due to the very restrictive criteria imposed on scientific by its methodology, physics can only access the physical aspect of the Universe but not the non-physical things (example: soul, ‘qi’, consciousness).
Due to the employment of scientific methodology physics is very good at telling us how but not why (example). In comparison, philosophy attempts to address the question of why (but not how). Philosopher' methods are purely logical, sometimes intuitive but not empirical (Aristotle didn’t’ perform experiment in finding out if their understanding of nature fits the observation.). At times ancient natural philosophers failed to understand the natural law because not performing experiment to confirm their supposition. In this sense philosophy is not 'scientific', hence can not be directly be compared to science. These is simply an orange and apple comparison. Both addresses different aspects of our universe employing fundamentally distinct approaches.
21.5.11
The Universe
We live in a fascinating Universe. There are things we can see with our naked eye. There are also things we can’t see with our naked eye. Scientific equipments, such as telescope, infrared detector, microscope and particle accelerator are employed as an effective means to assist us to probe the worlds lying beyond our naked eyes.
To appreciate the scale of the Universe we are living in, let’s take a look at some pictures that illustrate the sizes of things in the hierarchy of their associated scales.
Scale of things from human size ascending by a factor of 1000 times can be pictured as followed:
A human’s size -> A city’s size -> continent’s size -> Earth size -> Moon’s orbit around the Earth -> Earth-Sun orbit -> Solar system -> Milky way -> cluster of galaxy.
In the descending order, shrinking by a factor of 1000 times:
A human size -> hair -> cell -> cell organel -> DNA molecule -> atoms -> nucleus -> nucleon -> quarks -> ???.
It is amazing that human being could understand the principles and laws that govern the worlds with sizes spanning such a huge range, or order 10^(-19) m – 10^(36) m.
This is mainly due to the ability to probe these structures using equipped that goes beyond our naked eye. Due to the lack of such equipments the Greeks and olden day scientists are hampered in their endeavour to understand the nature of things larger or smaller accessible by their naked eyes are very much hindered.
Since we are talking about the Universe, then what is the definition of the Universe? One of the simplest definitions is: Everything is inside the Universe. Alternatively: nothing can exist outside the Universe.
Roughly, Universe has two aspects: The physical aspect, i.e. matter, energy and interactions, and the non physical aspect, e.g. consciousness and spirituality. Since science can only access things or phenomena that has physical attributes, it can only provide answer to questions pertaining to the physical aspect of the Universe, such as how stars evolve, what are matter made of and how things behave under certain interactions. On the other hand, science can’t answer questions to things or phenomena that can’t be physically accessible, such as the existence of ‘qi’, the existence of GOD or ‘biological field’ that do not manifest themselves physically. If heaven is not accessible to us by any physical means (such as it exist in another dimension that has not any physical interactions with us) then there is no way we can understand them with our scientific methodology. Another example: consciousness can’t be quantified or be measured with any empirical means, hence it doesn’t belong to the convention domain of science.
So, science’s is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope.
To appreciate the scale of the Universe we are living in, let’s take a look at some pictures that illustrate the sizes of things in the hierarchy of their associated scales.
Scale of things from human size ascending by a factor of 1000 times can be pictured as followed:
A human’s size -> A city’s size -> continent’s size -> Earth size -> Moon’s orbit around the Earth -> Earth-Sun orbit -> Solar system -> Milky way -> cluster of galaxy.
In the descending order, shrinking by a factor of 1000 times:
A human size -> hair -> cell -> cell organel -> DNA molecule -> atoms -> nucleus -> nucleon -> quarks -> ???.
It is amazing that human being could understand the principles and laws that govern the worlds with sizes spanning such a huge range, or order 10^(-19) m – 10^(36) m.
This is mainly due to the ability to probe these structures using equipped that goes beyond our naked eye. Due to the lack of such equipments the Greeks and olden day scientists are hampered in their endeavour to understand the nature of things larger or smaller accessible by their naked eyes are very much hindered.
Since we are talking about the Universe, then what is the definition of the Universe? One of the simplest definitions is: Everything is inside the Universe. Alternatively: nothing can exist outside the Universe.
Roughly, Universe has two aspects: The physical aspect, i.e. matter, energy and interactions, and the non physical aspect, e.g. consciousness and spirituality. Since science can only access things or phenomena that has physical attributes, it can only provide answer to questions pertaining to the physical aspect of the Universe, such as how stars evolve, what are matter made of and how things behave under certain interactions. On the other hand, science can’t answer questions to things or phenomena that can’t be physically accessible, such as the existence of ‘qi’, the existence of GOD or ‘biological field’ that do not manifest themselves physically. If heaven is not accessible to us by any physical means (such as it exist in another dimension that has not any physical interactions with us) then there is no way we can understand them with our scientific methodology. Another example: consciousness can’t be quantified or be measured with any empirical means, hence it doesn’t belong to the convention domain of science.
So, science’s is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope.
Richard Feynmen as a role model for physics teachers
Overall, the study atmosphere among students in the physics courses in USM is not that satisfying. Specifically, the students follow a chronic pattern of rote learning. Lecturer also seldom, if not never, initiate innovative method in their teaching. Many things I attempted in my teaching initiative are a result of personal motivation. I simply enjoy the mere act of making others to apprehend knowledge that is otherwise incomprehensible.
I admire Richard Feynman, and am particularly impressed by his character as a physics teacher [Feynman’s enthusiastic adherence to physics teaching can be felt very strongly in the compilation of his letters by his son, in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, published by Basic Books in 2005.]. His enthusiasm and ability to make his audience comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible physical laws has inspired me to be one of his “followers”. He was able to make abstract ideas tangible, complicated matters become crystal clear. He certainly was a master of making explanation and story telling, skilfully using many “tools” to assist his explanation, such as analogy, simile, humour, contrasting cases, contradictions and, most importantly, daily language understood by ordinary people. Throughout my teaching years, I have gradually acquired some personal “insight” in the art of explanation, thanks partly to the inspiration Feynman has imparted in me. I made effort to make my lectures a pleasant learning process to the students. I will devise interesting and comprehensible ways to illustrate a concept, for example, by creating funny analogy, reminding them of certain previous knowledge they had learned before but was forgotten, or even performing clown-like act. Very often I play computer simulation to visualise the actual scenario of how a physical laws is in action. Of course not every student would agree with me that I am a successful physics teacher (many still say they don’t understand what I say in the class). However, I am quite confident that at least my physics class is among the less boring ones.
Finally, let me quote the following:
I admire Richard Feynman, and am particularly impressed by his character as a physics teacher [Feynman’s enthusiastic adherence to physics teaching can be felt very strongly in the compilation of his letters by his son, in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, published by Basic Books in 2005.]. His enthusiasm and ability to make his audience comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible physical laws has inspired me to be one of his “followers”. He was able to make abstract ideas tangible, complicated matters become crystal clear. He certainly was a master of making explanation and story telling, skilfully using many “tools” to assist his explanation, such as analogy, simile, humour, contrasting cases, contradictions and, most importantly, daily language understood by ordinary people. Throughout my teaching years, I have gradually acquired some personal “insight” in the art of explanation, thanks partly to the inspiration Feynman has imparted in me. I made effort to make my lectures a pleasant learning process to the students. I will devise interesting and comprehensible ways to illustrate a concept, for example, by creating funny analogy, reminding them of certain previous knowledge they had learned before but was forgotten, or even performing clown-like act. Very often I play computer simulation to visualise the actual scenario of how a physical laws is in action. Of course not every student would agree with me that I am a successful physics teacher (many still say they don’t understand what I say in the class). However, I am quite confident that at least my physics class is among the less boring ones.
Finally, let me quote the following:
It may seem incomprehensible to many that physics and mathematics are comprehensible. Therefore, I find that it is indeed a refined pleasure to be able to make people comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible. Such an acquired pleasure makes the teaching of physics and mathematics a source creativity, liveliness and enjoyable endeavour.
My weakness in teaching
I still rely quite heavily on exam to evaluate student’s level of understanding, despite frequently condemning the students for being over exam-orientated. In practice it is also the single most important way to motivate a student to “learn” albeit forcefully. I am like kind of forced to deploy exam in my teaching process. Exam serves as a bait to, and a price of penalty to be paid by, the students. Exam could be the most controversial aspect in teaching. How to evaluate objectively and efficiently (e.g., within a 3-hour time slot) a student’s level of understanding if not via paper based examination? There may be other better method, but at this point of time assessing our students via non-exam method is not an option due to pragmatic considerations. Currently in our undergraduate level evaluation system, no such alternative exist. Exam (with a 70% weight) is mandatory for theory based courses. Frankly, I know no alternative to examination. I am likely to stick to it for many years to come.
I still stick to instructor-cantered teaching style, for I don’t know how to teach in student-cantered or problem-based approaches. Everyone knows that it is extremely hard if not impossible to squeeze words or reaction out of students for responses. Having student-cantered learning or problem based learning methods necessarily requires more reactive participants, whom our students are not. Until I know of a better option, I will continue to stick to instructor-centered teaching style.
I often made mistake, including conceptual error in the lecture notes, even in the final exam questions. However, I learned from my mistake and have improved over time. I try to be a humble person, apologise and make joke of myself for the wrong physics concepts taught in the lectures. Intentionally, I wish to show to the students a role model who is sincere to admit his weakness yet able to learn and to proceed beyond the mistake made.
I still stick to instructor-cantered teaching style, for I don’t know how to teach in student-cantered or problem-based approaches. Everyone knows that it is extremely hard if not impossible to squeeze words or reaction out of students for responses. Having student-cantered learning or problem based learning methods necessarily requires more reactive participants, whom our students are not. Until I know of a better option, I will continue to stick to instructor-centered teaching style.
I often made mistake, including conceptual error in the lecture notes, even in the final exam questions. However, I learned from my mistake and have improved over time. I try to be a humble person, apologise and make joke of myself for the wrong physics concepts taught in the lectures. Intentionally, I wish to show to the students a role model who is sincere to admit his weakness yet able to learn and to proceed beyond the mistake made.
My strength in teaching
Richard Feynman is my role model as a physicist and a physics teacher. He enjoys teaching physics and has commented that his Nobel Prize in QED is of less significance as his contribution to teaching physics. He is a true physics teacher who finds great pleasure to make his audience understand the abstract concepts of physics to convey. He commented that if one really understands something well, he must be able to explain them well. Otherwise, he/she does not understand them.
As a subject personal judgement, I would like to make a list of what I think are the strength as far as teaching physics are concerned. First and foremost, I know my undergraduate physics very well. To me, a good physics teacher is logically impossible for anyone who does not know the subject matter well. A person who knows his physics well may not be a good physics teacher. But to be a good physics teacher he / she must know his /her physics well. By the way, in my personal opinion (which could be possibly not objective), many physics teaching in secondary and undergraduate level physics were of poor quality because the instructors simply don’t know their stuff well.
I took extra effort to well prepare my lectures to effectively deliver the knowledge and the thinking process leading to this knowledge. I bother to take initiative, sometimes innovative ones, to improve my teaching. Many different experimentation on teaching and evaluate methods were attempted. All these initiatives in reality cost me much extra work which in principle could be simply avoided with no negative pragmatic career consequences.
As a subject personal judgement, I would like to make a list of what I think are the strength as far as teaching physics are concerned. First and foremost, I know my undergraduate physics very well. To me, a good physics teacher is logically impossible for anyone who does not know the subject matter well. A person who knows his physics well may not be a good physics teacher. But to be a good physics teacher he / she must know his /her physics well. By the way, in my personal opinion (which could be possibly not objective), many physics teaching in secondary and undergraduate level physics were of poor quality because the instructors simply don’t know their stuff well.
I took extra effort to well prepare my lectures to effectively deliver the knowledge and the thinking process leading to this knowledge. I bother to take initiative, sometimes innovative ones, to improve my teaching. Many different experimentation on teaching and evaluate methods were attempted. All these initiatives in reality cost me much extra work which in principle could be simply avoided with no negative pragmatic career consequences.
Liberalisme in teaching
As a matter of principle I do not agree forced attendance on students. Such stand is consistent with my core belief in liberalism. The undergraduates must be treated adult who shall shoulder the consequence of their own action. Whenever an opportunity present itself, I always grasp it to inseminate the realisation that they must always keep bearing in mind that their action always bear consequence, and they have to learn to take into consideration the possible consequences when the act. They are constantly reminded to internalise such understanding in their learning attitude.
When they are treated as respectable individuals, and when their basic rights are respected, realisation shall grow in them that it is non other than they themselves who must bear the sole responsibility for their own actions. Treating them like primary school children, as many university academics are doing right now, deprive the undergraduates from growing into maturity. Our learning culture tends to overstuffed with threatening instruction such as “you must attend the lecture!”, “you must not be late to class or I will disallow you to enter”, etc. The motivation to learn may be novel, such as learning only for the sake of knowledge. It could also be less novel, such as out of fear of failing the exams. In reality, our culture tends to over impose force, regulation and constraints on student to “motivate” learning. Such authoritarian measures, in my personal opinion, are often counter productive. Students may obediently “learn” to pass the exams. As soon as they leave the university, the learning habit simply ceases, because learning has been successfully turned into a strongly abhorring ordeal by their university system. Learning is a very personal process. It should ideally be an initiative that is spawn from within a learner’s willingness. I always tell the classes that I will treat them as adult and trust them for their preparation to bear whatever consequence resulted from their attitude. Then I let them choose whether they want to learn or leave. Liberalism here does not mean ignore them and set them to loom free without any moral constraint. It means allow them a chance to explore in their own way with minimal interference from the “authorities” who almost always tend to exercise over enforcement. Students shall be allowed to err or even fail as part of the growing pain, for the sake of their intellectual maturity in the future. If their actions lead them to deprived states, let them learn the lesson the hard way so that they can appreciate from within what is ultimately the right thing to do in the future. In relation to this, designing effective and quality exam question is essential mechanism to discriminate those who have taken the initiative to learn from those who haven’t. I constantly “brain wash” them they are always free to do anything, but they will surely sreceive the deserving consequence in the exam hall. I don’t penalise students for not attending my classes or handing up assignments. In short I don’t use authoritarian measures to force student to learn. Whether they choose to cut corners (which is allowed under my “liberalism policy”) or the down-to-earth learning attitude, the final exam grades shall judge them objectively. Penalty for not attending classes, handling assignments and paying no serious effort to study during the semesters will take place in the form of blank answer scripts in the exam hall. Reward will present itself in the form of confidently filled answer scripts, plus a brain loaded with intellectual bliss. Verdict would be delivered at the end of the day. It is up to the student themselves to determine the outcome.
When they are treated as respectable individuals, and when their basic rights are respected, realisation shall grow in them that it is non other than they themselves who must bear the sole responsibility for their own actions. Treating them like primary school children, as many university academics are doing right now, deprive the undergraduates from growing into maturity. Our learning culture tends to overstuffed with threatening instruction such as “you must attend the lecture!”, “you must not be late to class or I will disallow you to enter”, etc. The motivation to learn may be novel, such as learning only for the sake of knowledge. It could also be less novel, such as out of fear of failing the exams. In reality, our culture tends to over impose force, regulation and constraints on student to “motivate” learning. Such authoritarian measures, in my personal opinion, are often counter productive. Students may obediently “learn” to pass the exams. As soon as they leave the university, the learning habit simply ceases, because learning has been successfully turned into a strongly abhorring ordeal by their university system. Learning is a very personal process. It should ideally be an initiative that is spawn from within a learner’s willingness. I always tell the classes that I will treat them as adult and trust them for their preparation to bear whatever consequence resulted from their attitude. Then I let them choose whether they want to learn or leave. Liberalism here does not mean ignore them and set them to loom free without any moral constraint. It means allow them a chance to explore in their own way with minimal interference from the “authorities” who almost always tend to exercise over enforcement. Students shall be allowed to err or even fail as part of the growing pain, for the sake of their intellectual maturity in the future. If their actions lead them to deprived states, let them learn the lesson the hard way so that they can appreciate from within what is ultimately the right thing to do in the future. In relation to this, designing effective and quality exam question is essential mechanism to discriminate those who have taken the initiative to learn from those who haven’t. I constantly “brain wash” them they are always free to do anything, but they will surely sreceive the deserving consequence in the exam hall. I don’t penalise students for not attending my classes or handing up assignments. In short I don’t use authoritarian measures to force student to learn. Whether they choose to cut corners (which is allowed under my “liberalism policy”) or the down-to-earth learning attitude, the final exam grades shall judge them objectively. Penalty for not attending classes, handling assignments and paying no serious effort to study during the semesters will take place in the form of blank answer scripts in the exam hall. Reward will present itself in the form of confidently filled answer scripts, plus a brain loaded with intellectual bliss. Verdict would be delivered at the end of the day. It is up to the student themselves to determine the outcome.
Conscientious Teaching
I stand by the principal to not compromise in academic integrity. In other words, I don’t pass a student who could not demonstrate the minimum knowledge required (which is ultimately measured by his examination score). As a result, failure rate in my classes were consistently high throughout the years, at the level 30% ~ 50%. (In the USM standard, 39 marks or below out of 100 is considered partial failure, whereas a complete failure if under 24 marks). However, mostly the distribution curves were healthy (in bell shapes), despite the average is peaked at the low side (C or C-). (The only exception is a second year statistical mechanics course where the distribution displays a M shape. I reckon that was because the course was a rather difficult subject, and a large population of the class simply could not follow the highly demanding mathematics and the abstract language used in statistical mechanics.) In a way the high failure rate in my class reflects my reluctance to compromise in the evaluation standard. This is to be contrasted in the light of the fact that many courses never fail a single student, a situation which is rather contrived. Students should be evaluated based on how much they understand, not how much they can memorise. Exam questions should be designed in such a way to really sort out those who know and those who know nothing. Hence I make effort to ensure that the exams I set are objective measuring tool that manage to discriminate the students based on their levels of the knowledge gained in the courses. Often I reiterate in the class that I never fail any one. The person who fails them is the students themselves.
According to my observation, many students practice only rote learning, at least in the physics school. On the other hand many professors and lecturers, mainly for their own interest, routinely recycle past year questions in the final exams. Some design poor quality exam questions. As a result, students who know next to nothing pass and even score in the exams by blindly memorising past year solutions or the lecture notes. It’s the lectures who “allow” such the rote learning practice to permeate as norm among the students, and I don’t call this “conscientious”. Should every lecturer practise conscientious teaching, students would start to change their learning attitude and avoid cutting corners. Conscientious teaching leads to real quality learning, which is what learning and teaching knowledge is all about.
According to my observation, many students practice only rote learning, at least in the physics school. On the other hand many professors and lecturers, mainly for their own interest, routinely recycle past year questions in the final exams. Some design poor quality exam questions. As a result, students who know next to nothing pass and even score in the exams by blindly memorising past year solutions or the lecture notes. It’s the lectures who “allow” such the rote learning practice to permeate as norm among the students, and I don’t call this “conscientious”. Should every lecturer practise conscientious teaching, students would start to change their learning attitude and avoid cutting corners. Conscientious teaching leads to real quality learning, which is what learning and teaching knowledge is all about.
“Self-reading initiative”
In one of the linear algebra classes, I attempted an unconventional approach which lasted for a period of three week. In this initiative, a text book on linear algebra (Matrices by Frank Ayres, Schaum’s Outline series) was selected and students are directed to prepare and study the few selected chapters before coming to the class. Assuming that the students have done their preparation when they entered the class, I would only conduct a very brief introduction to these topics (say for 10-15 minutes). After the brief introduction, I would make the students to attempt problems (which are made known to the students on or before the class) DURING the rest of the lecture hours. Of course I will be guiding them and give hints of how to answer the problems. In the following session (i.e. the next class to come), I would discuss the problem sets attempted by students in the previous session in a more detailed manner. Randomly selected students will be asked to pass up the solutions for grading. Ideally, all students must make preparation for the pre-scheduled topics before coming to the classes, in which they will be forced to attempt questions without going through any formal lecture on these topics. Hence, students will have to understand the contents of these topics by doing the reading and studying for themselves before going to classes, failing which will result in their failure to submit the solutions when asked to do so. This initiative is a bold attempt to provoke self-study pro-activeness in our fellow first year students who are used to the chronic habit of spoon-feeding. Such initiative hopes to promote an active form of learning, (although somewhat forcefully) in which student themselves shoulder a major portion of responsibility in the process of acquiring knowledge. In comparison, learning through lectures (which is the most conventional way teaching is done) is a relatively passive mode of learning. In this initiative, I have to spend quite a bit of effort to specially design a set of original “designed questions” based on Ayer’s book. Ayers’s text book is, like many great mathematicians, highly condensed, precise, no-nonsense yet “unfriendly”. Its “explanations” were mostly in the form of concise mathematical statements beyond the levels for most first year students. My job was to interpreter the theorems using my own approach, basically to illustrate the essential ideas of the theorems via working examples. To this end, a coherent set of problems specially were designed, which were then attempted by the students under my guidance during the lectures. In this learning process, instead of me spending all the time on lecturing, students were asked to go directly to attack the designed questions, after which they will acquire the essential ideas of theorems Ayers tried to tell in his otherwise incomprehensible text book.
I find this approach effective and deliver real understanding, as students were actually playing an active part in the learning process. And it was not as boring as in other mathematics classes as the students were occupied: They were forced to attempt these questions during the lectures as names would be called randomly asking the “lucky ones” to present their answers. I would call this initiative a successful one. However I reckon that not every subject is suitable to adopt such teaching approach. The relatively simple structure of the linear algebra concepts make it easy for students to study by self-reading. In Ayers, the topics were presented in the form of a sequence of theorems, hence was also quite easy to design questions to illustrate them one-by-one. The successful case on linear algebra could be just an incidental result. If this “self-learning” method were to be adopted for other subject, a lot of extra preparation could be required. Anyway, I derived a good sense of personal satisfaction for initiating the experimental approach of teaching. I think many, if not all, of the students in the class had enjoyed a unique learning experience in those three weeks of linear algebra course.
I find this approach effective and deliver real understanding, as students were actually playing an active part in the learning process. And it was not as boring as in other mathematics classes as the students were occupied: They were forced to attempt these questions during the lectures as names would be called randomly asking the “lucky ones” to present their answers. I would call this initiative a successful one. However I reckon that not every subject is suitable to adopt such teaching approach. The relatively simple structure of the linear algebra concepts make it easy for students to study by self-reading. In Ayers, the topics were presented in the form of a sequence of theorems, hence was also quite easy to design questions to illustrate them one-by-one. The successful case on linear algebra could be just an incidental result. If this “self-learning” method were to be adopted for other subject, a lot of extra preparation could be required. Anyway, I derived a good sense of personal satisfaction for initiating the experimental approach of teaching. I think many, if not all, of the students in the class had enjoyed a unique learning experience in those three weeks of linear algebra course.
Invaluable reward gained as a dutiful teacher
Preparation of lecture note is a learning process for the instructor even if he / she have already knew the subject matter for many years. Personally I took the preparation of lecture process a re-learning opportunity to gain new insight on the physics and mathematics already known or unknown to me. Say for example, I know nothing except by name the term “vector space”, “basis set” in linear algebra, or “grand canonical ensemble”, “chemical potential” in statistical mechanics. Now, after lectured to an audience of ~ 100 students in the linear algebra and statistical mechanics classes, I claimed to have understood these things quite well, despite my knowledge on these topics were effectively zero before undergoing the painstaking lecture preparation process. I used to tell my statistical mechanics class that in terms of knowledge gained, I was the person who has benefited the most from my own lectures. Incidentally the knowledge I taught to the statistical mechanics and calculus and linear algebra classes turned out to be very useful later when I embarked on my research topics in computational condensed matter physics. Hence it aroused in me the realisation: the eventual usefulness derived from the teaching process is indeed an invaluable reward to those who bothers to take teaching seriously and dutifully.
My lecture notes
For the undergraduate physics theory courses I taught, the most complete reference source should be the text books. However, the sad “tradition” in USM is, many students rely only on lecture notes and never read the text books. Lecture notes are a tool I used to assist my lectures. Their content usually was narrated based on existing textbook materials with additional modification and improvisation by me. Well aware of the habitual trend of students to rely heavily on lecture notes for scoring exam, I warned against being too dependent on the lecture notes. At best my lecture note only serves as a summary of the subject matter, in addition to being a material projected on the screen used for lecturing purpose. I took serious effort to make the lecture note to at least fulfil my own criteria. For example, I would never want to put in any statement I myself did not understand. The set of lecture notes forever undergo a constant process of evolution, correction, modification for improved quality. Usually a complete set of lecture notes for a course could cost me up to effectively 200 hours or more. It is also not uncommon that I made major modification to the existing lecture notes, or even a re-write. This happened for example in the first few years when I first taught the Calculus and Linear Algebra course ZCA 110, where I had written four effectively new set of lecture notes until they settled into a stable version.
As I have come to realise it after many years of observation, physics classes are almost inevitably dry, boring and sometimes, scary. In terms of physics analogy, it has unusually high thermal fluctuation that tends to disperse then to coagulate. Personally, my core belief is that physics is not a dry or boring subject. It is intellectually lively, interesting, and relevant to the real world. It is thus always possible to make a physics teaching process fun and interesting, if one bothers to do it. The actual presentation during the real lecture is of course the single most important criterion that determines whether a physics lecture is boring or interesting. On the other hand, quality of the lecture notes also affects quite directly the quality of a lecture in progress. As a matter of personal policy I always try to factor in two important elements. First there must be as much “fun” elements as possible into the lecture materials. Second, the course material should prompt the students to see distinctly the relevance between the theory they learn and the real world they are dwelling in. To achieve such effects, I adopted the strategy as proposed by Tony Buzan, the creator of mind mapping to attract our mind’s attention. According to Buzan, our mind gets attracted most easily to colourful and graphical objects, as well as objects that provide ample space for imagination. To this end, my lecture material are packed with graphics, cartoons, animation, questions that arouse curiosity, comics, physicists’ bibliography, poems, literature quotes, history and philosophy of physics, and other content that is surprisingly unexpected for a physics lecture note. As an example, I would use the movie Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers to illustrate the concept of simultaneity in my special relativistic class. See figure 1.
Figure 1: The two towers as appeared in the movie “The Lord of the Ring” were used in a scenario to illustrate the concept of simultaneity in the special relativity class.
Figure 2: A comic that makes fun of the equation E = mc2. The appearance of the humour in a typically boring physics lecture note adds a pinch of human touch to the learning process.
Figure 2 is a slide from my modern physics ZCT 104 notes, in which I slot in a funny cartoon to poke joke on the famous equation E = mc^2.
Figure 3: The bibliography of Heisenberg, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, as appeared in the ZCT 104 lecture material. Students learn some physics history in addition to the uncertainty equation.
Figure 3, also a slide taken from the modern physics lecture note, mention the controversial role played by the physicist Warner Heisenberg during World War II in the Nazi camp. I would usually tell interesting stories and inferences derived from these figures in the lecture hall when they appear on the screen. This story-telling part is what the students like best in during a lecture.
Figure 4. A suspense-creating question was asked in the beginning of the topic. It would get resolved only towards the end of the lecture after the students realised what time dilation and length contraction, as predicted by special theory of relativity, really meant.
Figure 4 is a “classic” slide from my modern physics course designed to prompt some suspense to the audience, “Can one travels through a distance of 200 light years within one’s life time?” The students would be kept in a suspense mode until the end of the topic when they fully comprehend the idea of time dilation and length contraction as predicted in special theory of relativity.
As I have come to realise it after many years of observation, physics classes are almost inevitably dry, boring and sometimes, scary. In terms of physics analogy, it has unusually high thermal fluctuation that tends to disperse then to coagulate. Personally, my core belief is that physics is not a dry or boring subject. It is intellectually lively, interesting, and relevant to the real world. It is thus always possible to make a physics teaching process fun and interesting, if one bothers to do it. The actual presentation during the real lecture is of course the single most important criterion that determines whether a physics lecture is boring or interesting. On the other hand, quality of the lecture notes also affects quite directly the quality of a lecture in progress. As a matter of personal policy I always try to factor in two important elements. First there must be as much “fun” elements as possible into the lecture materials. Second, the course material should prompt the students to see distinctly the relevance between the theory they learn and the real world they are dwelling in. To achieve such effects, I adopted the strategy as proposed by Tony Buzan, the creator of mind mapping to attract our mind’s attention. According to Buzan, our mind gets attracted most easily to colourful and graphical objects, as well as objects that provide ample space for imagination. To this end, my lecture material are packed with graphics, cartoons, animation, questions that arouse curiosity, comics, physicists’ bibliography, poems, literature quotes, history and philosophy of physics, and other content that is surprisingly unexpected for a physics lecture note. As an example, I would use the movie Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers to illustrate the concept of simultaneity in my special relativistic class. See figure 1.
Figure 2 is a slide from my modern physics ZCT 104 notes, in which I slot in a funny cartoon to poke joke on the famous equation E = mc^2.
Figure 3, also a slide taken from the modern physics lecture note, mention the controversial role played by the physicist Warner Heisenberg during World War II in the Nazi camp. I would usually tell interesting stories and inferences derived from these figures in the lecture hall when they appear on the screen. This story-telling part is what the students like best in during a lecture.
Figure 4 is a “classic” slide from my modern physics course designed to prompt some suspense to the audience, “Can one travels through a distance of 200 light years within one’s life time?” The students would be kept in a suspense mode until the end of the topic when they fully comprehend the idea of time dilation and length contraction as predicted in special theory of relativity.
The style of my exam questions
As an unhealthy tradition, students like to memorise formula, facts and solutions of past year questions when they go into the exam halls. How would you make them not to do so in your paper? First, you don’t’ recycle your past year questions. Second, design questions that genuinely test the level of their understanding. To put this into practice, in most of my final exam questions for the first year students, I would include a multiple choice question section, which contained between 20 – 40 questions. It is comprised of non-calculative questions that can be answered without a calculator, designed with the intention to test the level of understanding on the theoretical aspects of certain specific physics concepts. This section is “notorious” among the students because one will have very little chance to pick the correct option without having any in-depth knowledge and logical thinking of the particular concept being tested. In addition, these questions were never recycled, hence you can’t answer the questions correctly by only memorising the past year questions. All of the answers and occasionally the full solution to these multiple choice questions would also be uploaded online. On top of these, the solution scheme may also indicate the source where these questions were adapted or inspired. A large percentage of these objective questions were original. After a few years of teaching Modern Physics ZCT 104 for example, a large body of objectives questions have been accumulated. Students were advised to go through them as an effective way to deepen their understanding on a particular topic. The solutions were themselves valuable examples to illustrate the application of the physics concepts taught in the course. When I designed these exam questions I bear in mind that these question sets would be made as a source of knowledge for the students in the future. Understandable, preparing these multiple-choice questions demands quite a bit of thinking effort. To make matter worse, these questions were also required to be translated into Bahasa Malaysia, which often meant another whole-day work for me.
Experimenting the best way to assess the coursework
Other than giving short quizzes and test, throughout the years I have also tried to devise various not-so-conventional ways to assess the students as a continuous effort to optimise the quality of the assessment. Below are some examples of my attempts.
Open book quiz was administered right after the lecture on a chapter is completed. Usually open book quiz means the solutions are not directly available in the text book. Open book quiz free students from the almost compulsory practice of rote memorisation. On the other hand, despite having the textbook available for reference, students found themselves being challenged very hard in these quizzes, and were forced to think harder. However, this attempt did not work very well. Except a few students who could think out the box, most students who were average in their learning and thinking model failed to answer well these challenging questions. The overall coursework grade for the class was so poor that I never give open book quiz again in other classes.
The “Sample Questions by Students” initiative: Students were invited to design some samples of formatted objective questions based on the topics covered in the course. These objective questions were required certain criteria, especially, they must be original (no cut-and-paste from existing resources), conceptually correct, creative, and “interesting”. Copy cat or boring questions were filtered and rejected. Once accepted, the designer of the questions would be given bonus points for the coursework. The accepted “designed questions” were edited or corrected by me, and then stored in a question bank which, like all other course-related material, was accessible online. I also promised the students to adopt some of the selected designed questions in the examination as an incentive. This initiative promoted a good sense of participation in the teaching and learning process. In addition, to design an original objective question demands thorough knowledge about the subject matter. Creating sensible questions to someone deepen the level of understanding on a particular concept in the questioner, a wonderful and interesting way to make a student become learned. A student who attempted to design a question inevitably must also get involved in an in-depth learning process. Overall, in that attempt 143 designed questions were received. Not every ones found this initiative inviting, only about less than 20% students sent in their questions, of which many are copy-cat. But those who are enthusiastic found the initiative an interesting learning experience. One thing for sure, the initiative has successfully aroused the sense of participation in the teaching of the course, at least among those who submitted. Now, the down side of the initiative. To filter through and edit tons of submitted questions, of which many were copy cat or simply nonsensical, from a large class (or around 300 students) was an exhaustive task. The expansive cost of time and effort consumed had demotivated me to exercise it again in other semesters. Nevertheless, it is otherwise an interesting assessment method which I would still like to implement in smaller classes, with the condition that extra assistance from tutors becomes available.
Open book quiz was administered right after the lecture on a chapter is completed. Usually open book quiz means the solutions are not directly available in the text book. Open book quiz free students from the almost compulsory practice of rote memorisation. On the other hand, despite having the textbook available for reference, students found themselves being challenged very hard in these quizzes, and were forced to think harder. However, this attempt did not work very well. Except a few students who could think out the box, most students who were average in their learning and thinking model failed to answer well these challenging questions. The overall coursework grade for the class was so poor that I never give open book quiz again in other classes.
The “Sample Questions by Students” initiative: Students were invited to design some samples of formatted objective questions based on the topics covered in the course. These objective questions were required certain criteria, especially, they must be original (no cut-and-paste from existing resources), conceptually correct, creative, and “interesting”. Copy cat or boring questions were filtered and rejected. Once accepted, the designer of the questions would be given bonus points for the coursework. The accepted “designed questions” were edited or corrected by me, and then stored in a question bank which, like all other course-related material, was accessible online. I also promised the students to adopt some of the selected designed questions in the examination as an incentive. This initiative promoted a good sense of participation in the teaching and learning process. In addition, to design an original objective question demands thorough knowledge about the subject matter. Creating sensible questions to someone deepen the level of understanding on a particular concept in the questioner, a wonderful and interesting way to make a student become learned. A student who attempted to design a question inevitably must also get involved in an in-depth learning process. Overall, in that attempt 143 designed questions were received. Not every ones found this initiative inviting, only about less than 20% students sent in their questions, of which many are copy-cat. But those who are enthusiastic found the initiative an interesting learning experience. One thing for sure, the initiative has successfully aroused the sense of participation in the teaching of the course, at least among those who submitted. Now, the down side of the initiative. To filter through and edit tons of submitted questions, of which many were copy cat or simply nonsensical, from a large class (or around 300 students) was an exhaustive task. The expansive cost of time and effort consumed had demotivated me to exercise it again in other semesters. Nevertheless, it is otherwise an interesting assessment method which I would still like to implement in smaller classes, with the condition that extra assistance from tutors becomes available.
Assessing student's learning
Assessment is split into two parts in the courses I taught, i.e., 30% coursework and 70% final examination. The simplest way for coursework assessment is via tests which usually lasted for one hour each. Final exam is a necessary evil to measure the level of understanding by the students, and is a standard 2 or 3 hours written examination. There is little flexibility how the final exam is carried out. Fortunately, coursework assessment has more space to manoeuvre. I make good use of coursework assessment as a means to gauge, force and motivate students to learn continuously through out the semester. As a means to motivate students to revise their lecture content continuously, I devise a so-called “what get measured get done” tactics. Two tricks were employed in this tactics. The first trick is to implement weekly quizzes, and then instantly update the coursework mark and tests/quiz solutions online. Students check the solution of a quiz right after it has taken place. The latest statistics of grade distribution in the form of distribution curve would be updated once the last quiz was graded. Occasionally I would comment the latest grade distribution curve in the class as a tactic to alert the class of their overall learning progress. The key words here are “instant” and “latest online update of grade distribution information”. Thanks to the availability of web-based application, the release of the most updated coursework information delivers some immediate psychological impact to the students (that they are constantly “being measured”). The strategy has successfully imposed certain extent of positive impact in the learning attitude of the students.
SMS as a tool for lecturing
Our Asian students are traditionally a quiet breed, never speak or ask in public, especially in the lecture hall. Lecturing in USM is “easy” but unchallenging because you never got any query from the students publicly. On the other hand, they students keep smsing when the lecturer was speaking. Then I thought why not I get them to sms me instead of to their friend? My hand phone sms alert tone start to ring intermittently amidst the lecture, as I announce my mobile number to the class to encourage students to ask questions via sms. This trick works very well, and I got frequent questions from the students via sms when I was talking. When my mobile phone sms alert tone ‘interrupts’ more frequently, I feel a non-vocal rapport established between me and the anonymous sms-senders who sit among the students. This, I reckon, is one of the best ways sms can be used for more noble purpose than forwarding junk messages.
Throughout the last 7 years in USM, I have attempted many ways to incorporate electronic / IT related approaches to enhance the teaching of physics and mathematics subjects. Having no quantitative data to quantify the effectiveness in adopting electronic and IT approach in the teaching process, I dare not claim that these approaches is a more superior way to teach physics and math than a conventional no-computer approach (though I personally wish to think so). For sure, all these attempts take time to prepare, and demand quit a bit of computer know-how to implement. But ultimately, what truly matters is the personal motivation to make physics / mathematic comprehensible to the students.
Throughout the last 7 years in USM, I have attempted many ways to incorporate electronic / IT related approaches to enhance the teaching of physics and mathematics subjects. Having no quantitative data to quantify the effectiveness in adopting electronic and IT approach in the teaching process, I dare not claim that these approaches is a more superior way to teach physics and math than a conventional no-computer approach (though I personally wish to think so). For sure, all these attempts take time to prepare, and demand quit a bit of computer know-how to implement. But ultimately, what truly matters is the personal motivation to make physics / mathematic comprehensible to the students.
My experience of using Java animation in the teaching of undergraduate physics courses
We adopted Serway as the physics textbook for the first year physics undergraduate in the School of Physics, USM. The textbook comes with a load of Java simulation in the form of attached CD given for free to the instructor by the publisher. In these CD the physics instructor can find for every chapter computer simulations to demonstrate the evolution of physical systems under some specific physical laws such as conservation of momentum, energy, and Newton’s second law. Traditionally, these laws are taught and explained using figures and oral explanation by instructors, while the formulas are rote-momorised by students. The symbolic mathematical equations, which encode a profound amount of constraint on how a physical system should behave in space and time, make no sense to many students as they can’t make connection between these equations and the real world. Now thanks to the Java simulation, the students can visualise vividly how the energy make-up of a simple harmonic pendulum changes with time as the pendulum oscillate. The students can also see with their eyes what happen to the energy make-up as a function of space and time when the pendulum is displaced with different initial amplitude. When I was a student in the 1990’s an era when PC was still not a commonplace, the only way I visualise the simple harmonic pendulum is by making blind guess in my mind and were sometimes lead to wrong pictures of the real situations. Now the Java simulation has become so well developed and easily available. It is a very wasteful act of a physics teacher to not make use of these Java simulations for undergraduate level physics teaching. Adopting simulation in my lectures for the 101 Mechanics and the 104 Modern Physics is my policy. Computer simulation is one of the most effective tools to convey the physical relevance to our word as depicted by the abstract mathematical symbols. A physics teacher who is really enthusiastic about making physics comprehensible to his/her students should be one who shows Java simulations in his/her class.
Experience with Mathematica in the teaching of a Calculus and Linear Algebra course
I once taught the calculus and linear algebra course called ZCA 110 to a class of around 80 students for a couple of semesters. For this kind of course sometimes it is rather abstract to explain certain concepts such as taking the limit of a function or the convergence of a series expansion to a function. Mathematica is a very powerful software package that can do many mathematical manipulations such as displaying the graphs of complicated function, performing algebraic and numerical integration and differentiation, expanding a function into its series representation, manipulating matrices and many more. This software is quite popular among researchers who need a convenient tool for visualisation, symbol manipulation or computationally inexpensive numerical programming. It has also proven to be quite a workable alternative approach to teach mathematics. There even exist Mathematica courses designed to teach mathematics that take advantages of the various functionalities of the software. Armed with some familiarity with Mathematica, I decided to make use of it in my Calculus and linear algebra course. I observe that students were generally amazed by the powerfulness of Mathematica. The abstract symbols on the textbook suddenly manifest themselves into vivid graphical form now visualisable on the screen. As a concrete example, when I taught series representation of a function, the student can now see it directly the graph of a series with a few terms converges gradually to the shape of the generating function when higher order terms are added. The visualisation on the screen helps to strengthen the understanding of the concept of “convergence of a series to its generating function”. Within the push of button I solved a calculus or algebraic problem from the textbook. I reckon that using Mathematica for teaching could be quite effective in making students to understand the otherwise abstract concepts. However I am also aware of the possibility that students the computational tool may divert the attention of the students away from the core mathematical concepts, resulting in over dependence on the software rather than their own brain. In addition, over demonstrating Mathematica in the class may also cause unnecessary confusion to some weak or techno-phobic students. Therefore I demonstrated the use of Mathematica only in a selected few lecture slots. In these slots I have successfully obtained the response I was after: the students are stunned, and paid all of their attention to the lecture.
To use Mathematica for teaching purpose, one has to be familiar with its syntax and a little bit of programming knowledge, on top of the mathematical concepts he/she want to demonstrate with Mathematica. This is a technical part which may be quite time consuming for those who are not computationally inclined. But once one learn up the syntax and get familiar with the programming logic, producing a few lines of codes to solve a differential equation or taking the limit of a Riemannian sum become a simple routine. At the end of the lecture I would upload the Mathematica codes used for demonstration during the class onto the course web site. Enthusiastic students then download these codes to reply on their own PC.
As a trick to attract students’ attention or to arouse their interest during the lecture, I would randomly pick a student by running a simple Mathematica code I wrote called “luckyone.m” on the projected screen. When the computer button was pressed, students would see the screen displaying the name of the “luckyone” selected randomly from the class’s name list. The randomly selected student picked by the computer random code would have to handle some question thrown by me. The atmosphere became interestingly excited when they see me running the code on the screen. Again, I gained what I wished for: their attention and aroused interest for my class.
To use Mathematica for teaching purpose, one has to be familiar with its syntax and a little bit of programming knowledge, on top of the mathematical concepts he/she want to demonstrate with Mathematica. This is a technical part which may be quite time consuming for those who are not computationally inclined. But once one learn up the syntax and get familiar with the programming logic, producing a few lines of codes to solve a differential equation or taking the limit of a Riemannian sum become a simple routine. At the end of the lecture I would upload the Mathematica codes used for demonstration during the class onto the course web site. Enthusiastic students then download these codes to reply on their own PC.
As a trick to attract students’ attention or to arouse their interest during the lecture, I would randomly pick a student by running a simple Mathematica code I wrote called “luckyone.m” on the projected screen. When the computer button was pressed, students would see the screen displaying the name of the “luckyone” selected randomly from the class’s name list. The randomly selected student picked by the computer random code would have to handle some question thrown by me. The atmosphere became interestingly excited when they see me running the code on the screen. Again, I gained what I wished for: their attention and aroused interest for my class.
My experience with "Easy Note Taker" in my lecture
Some lecture halls in USM are so huge that at times I develop the fallacy of conducting a concert in a 50,000 capacity stadium. Even in the moderately sized ones writing on black/white boards is something students hate me doing, for the simple reason that the writing appears too tiny on the board. I once tried to write on the transparency over the over head projector (OHP) as a way to display enlarged hand writing. But the strong light on the OHP hurts very badly my sight and causes nausea. Taking heed of the complaints by students who can’t read the writing on the board, I took the initiative to purchase an electronic gadget know as “Easy Note Taker” using the money from my own research fund. The gadget senses the movement of an electronic pen and displays the writing traced out on my laptop which was projected onto the screen. In addition, these writing can be saved as electronic copies that are kept in my laptop as a reference or be uploaded to the course web site.
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