Observation Report by Yeheng Wu
Describe the academic setting that you observed. Include the
professional's role in this setting. What were the goals for this class or
laboratory? Were the goals accomplished?
I observed a lecture given by Professor X on frontier physics. This course is
mainly about the computational physics. The goal is to learn physical laws and
math tools for today's technology. That is, learn how we model the interactions
between bodies and predict the results of those interactions. Computational
physics provides us a method to study the non-linear phenomena. The lecturer
will delve into the non-linear frontier and special relativity-a great
conceptual leap of the first half of the past century, as well.
Dr. X is the instructor of this course. Also he is a guider who leads the
students step into the frontier physics.
Describe the instructional strategies that enhanced the class or
laboratory that you observed. Consider the degree of involvement and interaction
that the students had with each other and the professional.
Dr. X use common teaching strategies and special strategies as well.
He uses theoretical deduction to show how the calculation comes, how to use
the math and computational tools.
He uses examples to show what causes chaos and how to use the knowledge we
know to study this complicate phenomenon.
When Dr. X is explaining the problem, emphasizing the main points, he may use
tune changing, body language, jokes to get the students' attention. That's a
good way to give a deeper impression in the students mind.
Sometimes, he may stop to ask students questions which are related to the
topic.
Every student in his class should finish one computing project before the
semester end. Students can work in group. Given challenging project, students
have chances to think about the real problem and then use what they learn from
the class to accomplish the mission.
Discuss what you have learned from this observation that you would like
to include in your own repertoire of instructional strategies.
Dr. X's special strategy is that he gives the students hand-outs every class.
The content of the hand-outs is the topic/material he is going to talk about
each class. Having these hand-outs, students don't have to make notes every
class, which costs a lot time and then the students have less time to join the
discussion of topic, think about the problem.
Also, there's in-class exercise in his class. In-class exercises urge
students to concentrate on the topic and digest the knowledge and idea discussed
in class. It also helps the students, especially lazy students, keep up to
progress of the course.
To keep the class alive is good for the students to accept the
concepts/ideas. Dr. X use jokes and exaggerate actions to keep the class alive.
This is what I learn from Dr. X's class.