Episode 66 – Geoff Nunes – “In learning, especially for physics, a key component is soak time”

In this episode, Mark and Geoff talk about how Geoff learned about modeling methods and the various mini-labs he has developed to help illustrate student thinking about new phenomena. They talk about the challenges presented by increasing the number of topics covered in a course without increasing the number of instructional days, necessitating the instructor to determine what can be cut to save time while remaining true to the ideals of modeling. Finally, Geoff describes some of the tools he has published on his website and they ways they can be use.

Guest

Geoff Nunes

Geoff is in his ninth year teaching at St. Joseph's Prep, an all-boys Jesuit high school in Philadelphia. He came to high school teaching after 15 years in research and development at Dupont, and before that, eight years on the faculty at Dartmouth College. He learned about Modeling Instruction while he was still at Dartmouth, but had to wait until the summer of 2017 to take his first workshop. As a hobby, he maintains a website full of modeling-friendly software for student use, including a graphing program, an electric field simulator, and a video analysis tool. Website

Highlights

[5:22] Geoff Nunes "It's so important that the lab be accessible to the students and actually correctly show them the physics you're trying to teach them." [7:50] Geoff Nunes: "I'm trying to build as many aha moments into the class as I can." [13:34] Geoff Nunes "nobody can teach anybody anything. People have to teach themselves. And so what you as a teacher have to do is provide the environment in which the students can teach themselves. And that's what modeling does."

Resources

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