7. Ben, Big Ideas and beginnings

Thomas and Robin talk about the podcast’s roots and where it all started, to help all teachers of physics to feel a sense of professional community. You can help by sharing it with your friends, and if you do that you have a chance to win a podcast T-Shirt! The competition lasts until 30th November 2018 and the winner will be announced in the Episode 8.

We were joined by author and all-round lovely man Ben Rogers, whose books The Big Ideas in Physics and How to Teach Them is taking the physics teaching community by storm.  Ben tells us about cognitive science (links below); why he is not opposed to practical work, and how he came up with all the history and characters in the book.

Thomas enthuses about the versorium needle (everyone should make one). 

Robin was on his soapbox again (it happens, just ignore him) encouraging teachers to avoid the temptation to treat new ideas as how they should be teaching, rather to use the ideas to enhance the good practice you’ve built up.

Ben’s References for Cognitive Science

• John Hattie – Visible Learning
• Twitter Daniel Willingham has a web site and is on twitter as @DTWillingham, Dylan William (@dylanwiliam)
• Niki Kaiser (@chemdrk) is a chemistry teacher and gatherer of people – she’s very well informed in CogSci and you can read her blog.
• Learning scientists (http://www.learningscientists.org/) have podcasts and downloadable resources.

…and finally

Don’t forget to enter our first competition. Win a beautiful podcast T-shirt (in the colour of your choice) by interacting! To win, tell us why you like listening. There are many ways to do this:

• You could tweet us (@physicstp).
• You could use the contact form below.
• You could share our Facebook page.
• You could follow us on the new Instagram page (@physics_teaching_podcast)
• You could leave a voice memo to +44 7898 814716 on WhatsApp or Telegram (don’t forget to say your name)

Thomas and Robin will pick a winner and announce it in Episode 8.

It remains an engrossing and uplifting adventure making this podcast for you.  You’ve already taken it in directions we weren’t expecting; it really is your podcast, so please get in touch: teachers of physics are our very favourite breed of hero!

Join in!

Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions by messaging us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/physicstp.bsky.social .  You can also message us via our website contact form on every page of the web site at  the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, or email using the address given in the podcast (if we remember). We are moving away from X but can be found there as @physicstp.

Music

• Season 7: Physics Is Our Business by Miracles of Modern Science.
• Seasons 5 and 6: Crescents by Ketsa.
• Seasons 3 and 4: Disco Sheik by Podington Bear.
• Seasons 1 and 2: One legged equilibrist polka by Circus Homunculus.
• Occasionally we also use Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith.

The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License