Currently Phys 157/158 are facilitated as a student centered instruction style. This style requires students to struggle with understanding course material on their own from the text book. The majority of us are experienced with and prefer teacher centered learning. This style of learning refers to where the professor thoroughly introduces required material to students who then practice and gain deeper understanding of the concepts through assignments. Teacher centered learning makes more effective use of students time and tuition allowing them to obtain more information from their highly educated professors in comparison to watching them go over examples. Worked examples are better left for tutorials or homework assignments.
Updates
February 25, 2016
Seeing so many of you echo my frustration with these physics courses confirms that I am not alone in wanting a better way to learn. This momentum proves that students are tired of struggling through textbooks when we should be learning from our professors.
21 Comments
Regardless of how interesting the physics 157/158 course is, it has always only been a struggle for me because I could never understand what ever was going on in class.You can't expect us to read the book, and understand physics.We sometimes just spend hours on one example , or a bunch of clickers , and not explanation of theory.
Kahn Academy has taught me more than anything in lecture has. Flip classroom learning is not necessarily a bad thing, it just has to be done right but PHYS 157/158 does not work. You can't expect students to learn the material from reading a textbook and then spend 3 lectures on one example and believe that is sufficient. Consider APSC 160, the videos and the notes that accompany them are incredibly well done. Furthermore, a part of what makes APSC 160 successful is the relevant worksheets and the amount of TA's that come around and help. In PHYS 157, there were more worksheets but one TA and one professor cannot help 300 some students. Of course we try and work together, but that doesn't work when nobody understands what is going on.
Physics is a class that is probably best taught taught with the old school blackboard method. Clicker Questions of things we haven't learnt before in class is pointless to the idea of clickers.
UBC, please teach instead of making students learn material on their own. Students paid for the course.
Profs should be teaching this course rather than students learning on their own through pre-readings.
Q: What do you call a surprised Chinese man? A: Ho Lee Fuk
Was 9/11 really that bad?
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Currently Phys 157/158 are facilitated as a student centered instruction style. This style requires students to struggle with understanding course material on their own from the text book. The majority of us are experienced with and prefer teacher centered learning. This style of learning refers to where the professor thoroughly introduces required material to students who then practice and gain deeper understanding of the concepts through assignments. Teacher centered learning makes more effective use of students time and tuition allowing them to obtain more information from their highly educated professors in comparison to watching them go over examples. Worked examples are better left for tutorials or homework assignments.
Updates
February 25, 2016
Seeing so many of you echo my frustration with these physics courses confirms that I am not alone in wanting a better way to learn. This momentum proves that students are tired of struggling through textbooks when we should be learning from our professors.
21 Comments
Absolutely. The style of teaching as it is makes it not worth anyone's time to show up to the lectures.
Regardless of how interesting the physics 157/158 course is, it has always only been a struggle for me because I could never understand what ever was going on in class.You can't expect us to read the book, and understand physics.We sometimes just spend hours on one example , or a bunch of clickers , and not explanation of theory.
Kahn Academy has taught me more than anything in lecture has. Flip classroom learning is not necessarily a bad thing, it just has to be done right but PHYS 157/158 does not work. You can't expect students to learn the material from reading a textbook and then spend 3 lectures on one example and believe that is sufficient. Consider APSC 160, the videos and the notes that accompany them are incredibly well done. Furthermore, a part of what makes APSC 160 successful is the relevant worksheets and the amount of TA's that come around and help. In PHYS 157, there were more worksheets but one TA and one professor cannot help 300 some students. Of course we try and work together, but that doesn't work when nobody understands what is going on.
Physics is a class that is probably best taught taught with the old school blackboard method. Clicker Questions of things we haven't learnt before in class is pointless to the idea of clickers.
UBC, please teach instead of making students learn material on their own. Students paid for the course.
Profs should be teaching this course rather than students learning on their own through pre-readings.
Q: What do you call a surprised Chinese man? A: Ho Lee Fuk
Was 9/11 really that bad?
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Absolutely. The style of teaching as it is makes it not worth anyone's time to show up to the lectures.