Author: Thomas

  • Refutation Text for the Jelly Chair

    Refutation Text for the Jelly Chair

    I said in Episode 6 I would share what I came up with for the Jelly Chair lesson and refutation texts. I did put some thought in to this but think that there is room for improvement. I ended up writing a few sentences for the kids to do: The ancient Greeks thought that arrows…

  • Kicking a Rock on the Moon

    Kicking a Rock on the Moon

    In Episode 6 I mentioned a thought experiment with a concrete-filled rugby ball. I have used this model for years and knew it came from a text book long ago and I have since been searching for it. I was convinced it came from Peter Warren, the head of department where I did my teacher…

  • Entries! and Momentum Round-Up

    We put out the competition not really knowing quite what to expect. Four entries before 8:15am was an exciting start to the day though as I write at 4:30pm it is still four, which has brought me down to Earth somewhat! Momentum Day Today was “Momentum” day. After talking with Ben Rogers about cognitive Science…

  • Interact and Win a T-Shirt!

    Now we have listeners, and an Instagram page (@physics_teaching_podcast) we thought we would encourage you to share the podcast by having our first competition. Join us at the bottom of an exponential by winning 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…

  • Face to Face + Progress on Momentum

    I had found an excellent purveyor of T-shirts and as a joke got a couple made up with “I’m at the bottom of the exponential” for Robin and I to wear. This necessitated a visit to his house so we decided to have a face to face chat (so far we have done them virtually…

  • Squeezing it all in + pondering momentum ?

    This week’s episode was a bumper edition, and we had to work hard to keep it down to just under 27 minutes. I really wanted to put in the Practicals In Memoriam (PIM) section and this led to cutting down the interview. Robin and I have talked a few times about the ideal length for…

  • Thinking back to when I started

    Talking to Imogen for the new podcast has made me think back to when I started. I remember very well how I was only a few years older than the kids I was teaching, and my knowledge was only marginally ahead of theirs. I have wondered over the years whether my knowledge has moved on…

  • “Air Is Heavy”

    After mentioning my memories of my first physics experiment I decided to look for that exercise book. I turned the house upside down a couple of times looking for the battered little grey blotter before my wife remembered a plastic bag of old school books in the roof. I had strong memories of putting the…

  • Tick-Tock

    So, the first podcast will go live at 5:00am tomorrow. Arbitrary timing I know, but it gives us time to panic in the night and pull the plug on this crazy idea. I was teaching this morning and tried a couple of the experiments we talked about because I could almost, kinda, sorta, squeeze them…

  • Steep learning curve

    Wow. My respect for podcasters grows daily. We have done much testing in the last week or so and found that our backup solution for interview (Skype) could give very high quality sound when it was required. We had to use Skype with our chosen interviewee for the first podcast and the quality of the…