The Physics Teaching Podcast

Covid Legacies: helping trainee teachers

We are delighted to be joined by the inspirational David Cotton to talk about supporting trainees who have missed out so much during the pandemic. Those who know David will know what a tireless champion of physics teaching he is. A genuine enthusiast, David is one of the ‘must follow’ list for physics teachers.

We have focused a lot on the effect on students and teaching, but David rightly points out that PGCE trainees and NQTs have had an impoverished introduction to the profession, and it is something we might bear in mind when our new generation of teaching heroes hit the classrooms over the next few months.

Some of the points we discussed to help are:

  • Join the IoP, or at least make sure your school is an affiliate
  • If your department is hosting a trainee, or you have an NQT in your department, look for opportunities to allow them to see other teachers, and for experienced teachers to support them.
  • If you are a trainee or NQT, don’t worry, you have time on your side. Lean on your mentor and colleagues, and befriend your technician. Together they will help you to develop your classroom practice, as well as your repertoire of teaching tools and experiments.

David will re-join us soon for a ways-to-teach episode on sound – we can’t wait!

Links:

IoP Spark

IoP affiliate programme for schools

Join in!

Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions – on our Facebook Page: https://fb.me/physicstp .  You can also message us via our website contact form at the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, Twitter @physicstp, email using  the address given in the podcast (if we remember), you could even email us an autio file if you are feeling really keen.

Music

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

Thomas