Teaching Sciences in 21st Century

1
Teaching Sciences in 21st Century sharing of
experience

• T.K. Ng
• (HKUST)

2
Contents

• Background What has changed compared with 10, 20
  years ago?
• New Education system in HK, New students profile
• Different Learning Philosophy
• New horizon in Sciences
• What are we doing in response?
• New modes of teaching, new style of assessment
• Teaching Diversity/Education for everyone,
  Education for the Gifted
• Use of Internet/multi-media resources

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What has changed?

• 334 education system
• School-Based admission versus Program admission
• Whole person development is emphasized
• Students have to acquire diverse background of
  knowledge
• Students have to have the ability to upgrade
  themselves even after graduation (whole-life
  learning)
• Problem
• We (both secondary school university) are
  teaching sciences to students with very diverse
  background!

4
What has changed?

• 334 education system
• For example admission to HKUST
• 42x
• We require only one Science Subject (x) for
  admission into both Science and Engineering
  Schools
• The other subject (another x) can be anything
  Science has no advantage
• Problem
• We (both secondary school university) are
  teaching sciences to students with very diverse
  background!

5
What has changed?

• 334 education system
• For example studying at HKUST
• All students have to talk 1 calculus course
• All students have to talk courses in science
  technology, humanities and social analysis
  (Common Core)
• All Engineering students have to take 1 physics
  course
• All Science students have to take 1 course from
  each science discipline (Phy., Chem., Bio)
• Problem
• We (both secondary school university) are
  teaching sciences to students with very diverse
  background!

6
What has changed?

• Different philosophy of learning
• The philosophy of both learning and working has
  changed
• Whole person development is emphasized
• Communication/language and other general skills
  are emphasized
• Rigorous scientific (quantitative) approach/skill
  is for small number of students only
• But yet students are supposed have a broad
  knowledge base and are able to pick up the basic
  ideas behind ALL fields!
• Problem
• We (both secondary school university) are
  teaching sciences to students with very diverse
  background!

7
What has changed?

• New Horizon in Sciences
• Sciences have evolved drastically in the past 30
  years
• In Physics, Idea of particles and Newtonian
  mechanics is NO-LONGER fundamental in our modern
  application of physics
• Fields (EM field, magnetic field, etc.) and
  Quantum Physics is fundamental to our modern
  technology
• In string theory we are talking about whether we
  can design a new universe with different
  fundamental laws of physics
• Yet
• We need to teach the physics fundamentals
  (mechanics, EM, Thermodynamics) to understand
  new developments in physics
• (fundamental physics is like calculus)

(Field) (Thermal)
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vIXEC-v5lQ64
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vY350oOiunf4
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What has changed?

• New Horizon in Sciences
• Sciences have evolved drastically in the past 30
  years
• scientists and engineers are different compared
  with their seniors 20 years ago

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuZ6k2cfb2Ig
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vL7GAx9b8HAQ
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vKw8dcb8iKSM
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What has changed?

• New challenge in Sciences
• The problem of students not having enough
  background in Sciences before taking the subject
  is just one of the many problems under the big
  picture of the changing world of science
  education!
• What can we do?
• The goals of teaching has to be defined
  separately for different groups of students
• ? Different ways of teaching for different kinds
  of students
• ? different ways of assessments correspondingly!
• (In HKUST we have different calculus/physics
  classes designed for students with different
  academic background.

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Teaching diversity (I)- education for everyone

• UST example 1st Yr. Physics courses
• Common Core and School-Sponsored course (Energy,
  Astronomy, Relativity)
• Requirement for students with zero background in
  Physics (Eng. Sci.) (General Physics 0)
• Requirement for non-major students (General
  Physics Ia)
• Requirement for major students (General Physics
  Ib)
• (In HKUST we have different calculus/physics
  classes designed for students with different
  academic background.
• We have also ordinary and honored courses for
  majors (2nd and above years)

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Teaching diversity (I)- education for everyone

• In Physics, a large number of students have
  interests in the concept and/or application of
  physics but not the mathematical details of the
  theory
• - Examples Galilean invariance (to
  layman)
• Key idea
• Teach physics concept without using mathematics
  but try to explain/demonstrate a physical picture
  using whatever means.
• Mathematics come in only if you want to have
  quantitative answers/numbers.
• Notice students learning concept this way answer
  questions in examinations differently

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Example 1 Galilean invariance

1. The laws of physics is insensitive to uniform
   motion (or Newtons Law is the same in all
   inertial frames.)

Recall Newtons First LawAn object remains in
its state of rest or uniform motion (moving with
uniform velocity) in a straight line if there is
no net force acting on it.
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The important of Galilean invariance can be seen
from the following example
Imagine you are travelling on a very big
boat Maybe in this one
This is a very big boat, and is very stable so
that you do not feel any floating up-and-down
motion of the boat.
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Suppose you are living at the interior of the
boat and have no window to look outside.
15
One day, you wake up from a nap, and out of
curiosity you want to find out whether the boat
is
Can you find that out without asking someone, and
without going outside?
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Expt.?
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What Galilean invariance said is that you cannot
determine whether you are moving (with uniform
speed) or not if you perform experiments
involving Newtons Law inside the boat, like
looking at the trajectory of a little ball that
you throw up, or looking at the motion of
anything you see.
?
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?
32km/sec
Why dont we feel that?
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Question in exam Two space ships are traveling
in parallel in this universe with same velocity v
(see figure) separated by distance. The two ships
are communicating with each other either by
sending light signal or by sending boxes of
papers in between.

1. Let the velocity of light be c, how long does it
   take for the light signal to go from one ship to
   the other? Explain your answer.
2. Let the velocity of the traveling box be u
   (relative to the ship), how long does it take for
   the box to go from one ship to the other? Explain
   your answer.

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Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted

• University education for all
• Whole person development is the goal of general
  education
• Communication/language and other general skills
  are emphasized in general UG education
• Rigorous scientific (quantitative) approach/skill
  is not emphasized in Secondary/University
  education
• Problem
• General education is not catered for individual
  needs but students are ALL different!
• Students gifted in particular area (Science,
  Music, Sports, etc.) cannot benefit from present
  education system where everybody goes through the
  same curriculum.

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Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted

• A New Philosophy
• Everybody is gifted in his/her own way, the goal
  of gifted education is to help students to fully
  utilize their potentials!
• http//ygt.dcsf.gov.uk/
• Gifted education
• ? a new philosophy of education for ALL students
• Gifted/talented students are those
• who give evidence of high performance capability
  in areas such as intellectual, creative,
  artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific
  academic fields, and who require services or
  activities not ordinarily provided by the school
  in order to fully develop such capabilities
• i.e. Gifted education is complementary to
  general education catering for diversity of
  students abilities/needs!

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Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted

• Gifted education in Science Technology
• Science and Technology is vital to the long-term
  survival/development of a country
• The only way to maintain a sustainable
  world-class ST team is to make sure that
  students interested/gifted in Science are
  properly nurtured.
• Notice that contrary to the above communication
  and other general skills are emphasized in
  general UG education nowadays ? Education for
  Gifted students is one of the top-priorities in
  ST education worldwide (unfortunately not in HK)
  

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Gifted education in HKUST

• 2001 - offer first course in mathematics (HKUST)
• 2003 -2012 - offer training of HK team for
  International Physics Olympiad (HKUST) very
  successful!
• (Other universities join in actively since
  then and new courses in computer science,
  biology, humanities, etc. are being offered with
  the establishment of HKAGE. Not successful
  because of lack of coherent structure)
• 2007 we decide to build our own program for
  Gifted education
• collaboration with Trumptech in
  offering World Class Test
• 2010 collaboration with CTY (Johns Hopkins) to
  offer joint summer camp

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Gifted education in HKUST

• 2011 HKUST offered first systematic program
  (Dual Program) for secondary school students
  where
• Students spend most of their time at secondary
  schools for whole-person development
• They come to UST at weekends/holidays to take
  courses (in ST) of their interests and earn
  University credits
• Very successful!
• 2012-2013
• - Expansion/adjustment of Dual program and
  collaboration with other local and international
  partners!
• 2013 - Start new B.Sc. track International
  Research Enrichment
• - Start programs at primary schools
• Problem no flexibility in HKDSE/Admission of
  students allowed by EDB

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Internet resources Teaching

• - Efficient use of internet resources in teaching
  is necessary to keep us (our education) ahead
  worldwide (at least in the next 20 years)
• All major universities have on-line free
  courseware taught by their best teachers
• No single education unit can match the on-line
  resources available worldwide
• We need to learn how to use these resources
  effectively to enhance our education

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Example 1 Projectile motion

• - Use of internet resources to make class more
  interesting
• Students got bored by always facing a single
  teacher
• in general they think that videos are more
  interesting.
• They learn English
• They will find out that you are actually teaching
  very well

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vrMVBc8cE5GU
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v11W0RyRtSIU
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Example 2 complicated/unfamiliar functions

• Harmonic (sin?t, cos?t) functions
• Solution of harmonic oscillator
• We dont prove that its the solution of Newton
  Law for harmonic oscillator in our class
• We show that wave motion is useful and realistic
  and can be understood from harmonic
  oscillator-like equations
• Mathematics is used to write down a answer we
  know is correct
• Exercise what is roughly the frequency of
  oscillation, ? in the demonstrations?

(animation) (wave in water droplet)
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vT7fRGXc9SBI
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzaHLwla2WiI
http//ocw.mit.edu/high-school/physics/oscillation
s-gravitation/simple-harmonic-motion/
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Example 3 Relativity

• Use of internet resources to explain difficult
  concepts and to connect what you are teaching
  with the most fascinating development in physics
  in the world
• I start with a story..
• Videos are good for explaining difficult concepts
• I show more than 10 different videos to explain
  relativity
• Examinations are concept driven, no derivation,
  simple application of equation, explanations
  needed.
• Mathematics is used to write down the answer we
  know is correct

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vev9zrt__lec
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v3enwR6e9V9A
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnZiROWO6iVs
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• Thank you