The Physics Teaching Podcast

Latest Podcasts

  • GCSE Astronomy (via Teams)

    GCSE Astronomy (via Teams)

    Space physics is a crowd-pleaser and a ‘way in’ for many physicists. There are few things in physics more memorable than seeing Jupiter for the first time through a telescope.

    We chat with William H who teaches GCSE Astronomy to three schools at the same time via Teams. He makes a great case for teaching astronomy, not just growing the excitement of physics, but also extending the professional repertoire of teachers.

    See the links for the schools observatory: a way around the inevitable issues of cost when it comes to accessing telescopes.

    We finish by reflecting that teaching across multiple schools will be an increasing (if depressing) feature of physics education. Get in touch if you want to put your view!

    Links

    https://www.schoolsobservatory.org/

    The nuclear valley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_stability

    Edexcel GCSE Astronomy: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/astronomy-2017.html

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    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.

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  • Don’t be scared of Ionising Radiation

    Don’t be scared of Ionising Radiation

    When it comes to emotive topics in physics teaching, radioactivity is up there. We have experienced colleagues who would refuse to work with school radioactive sources, even though there you generally encounter more risk while boiling a kettle. But you need to register, store and handle them properly or you could land your school with a fine.

    Thomas and Robin talk radiation and encourage you to get over the administrative hurdle, talk to your RPS and get trained in the use of sources so you can teach radioactivity with sources. If your school doesn’t have an RPS and you don’t know where to start, make sure you have a CLEAPSS membership and give them a call (see links for how to contact CLEAPSS).

    Surprisingly, the greatest risk is financial as falling foul of the regulations can result in a LARGE fine, so do make sure you satisfy all the requirements. You will need a Radiation Protection Officer (different to the RPS mentioned above, and generally more ‘expert’ on the regs). Between the RPO and CLEAPSS you should get enough advice to become compliant (or rarely to conclude that radioactive sources are not an option in your school).

    So whilst you shouldn’t be gung-ho, this is more to ensure you don’t risk a fine; the sources themselves are not inherently dangerous if handled carefully.

    Links

    CLEAPSS – why join?

    PDF L93 Ionising Radiations and Radioactive Substances – CLEAPSS

    XKCD – comparing radioactive doses

    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.

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  • That Einstein Fellow

    That Einstein Fellow

    Thomas and Robin were bowled over to hear from the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow 2023-24. Thomas caught up with Michael Stewart to talk about the amazing opportunity he has had to be involved with Education policy at the highest levels in the USA.

    Michael reminded Thomas about an episode in 2021 (GCSE Long Answers and MyMarkingMachine.com) in which Mark Robinson talked about a structured way to address questions: PVsELS. Thomas has run with this and renamed it the “DVEL’S in the Detail” to help his students process their way through questions.

    Robin had already returned to work and was teaching radioactivity. Check out the links for some fun radioactivity sites, and also a reminder of friend-of-the-podcast Richard Brock’s stories, including the origin of the Banana Equivalent Dose (no, really – it’s a thing!)

    Don’t forget: if you want to hear it, let us know!

    Links

    Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship

    Richard Brock’s Stories from Physics: Weird Units and Wonderful Measures

    The xkcd Radiation Dose Chart

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    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.

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  • Chat(GPT)ting

    Chat(GPT)ting

    Everyone has been talking about it for a year or more so high time your finger-on-the-pulse physics teaching nuggets got to grips with ChatGPT (other AIs are available).

    To start though, we cantered through another week of physics teaching. Robin was finishing electricity with his year 10 groups, and wondering what others do with those odd bits of the specification that someone up the exam-board food chain (presumably) feels it’s ‘important’ for children to learn. For Robin, this was ‘mains safety’ in electricity which has minimal physics but lots of detail. How do you deal with this? Back when I had to teach biology a lot (don’t ask!) I used to have to teach “Commercial Uses of Plant Hormones” and it took two lessons – so I feel your pain if you are not a physicist. All tips gratefully received – perhaps you’d like to come on and talk about it?

    Meanwhile Thomas had been doing great things with inverse-square law investigations, challenging his A-level students to prove inverse-square or not. See the Inverse Square Carousel below for more, but as always, WP adds an inspiring dash of creativity to what could be some pedestrian practical work. If you’ve done anything similar, drop us a line.

    We chat ChatGPT and this was where we landed…

    Things ChatGPT is good at…

    • getting past writers block. If the blank page looks vast, try putting a brief into ChatGPT. At the very least it will give you a structure to work with, at best it will give you ideas. Do be careful to rewrite ideas in your own words…
    • more text-based problems. Robin always struggles to imagine up testing explanation type (long-answer) questions, but ChatGPT is pretty good at this – but do check carefully as it is not 100% reliable!
    • a source of material that students can critique. Thomas used this method to good effect – if ChatGPT spits out a load of garbage, can your students spot the nonsense?
    • mindless low-impact admin. Use it to generate standard email responses, box-ticking reports, PM targets and objectives – the sort of things that sap time and have minimal impact.

    Things ChatGPT is not so good at…

    • Numbers! If you want numerical questions / answers then ChatGPT can be a bit weak / suspect. Again, possibly a source of critique for your students but there may be other AIs that do a better job – let us know! (Mark Whalley mentioned claude.ai which appears to do a better job?)
    • Technical diagrams / circuit diagrams etc. Again, there are probably better AI engines for this so do let us know if you have found one.

    All technology goes through an initial phase of over-excitement in terms of its transformational potential, but AI does have uses and strengths and Robin has included some examples of a worksheet (with answers) and a set of practical activities in the thermal energy transfer topic so you can see what you make of them. These took about 30 minutes to generate, most of which was getting to grips with the interface and what question to ask (you need to phrase carefully), with remaining time given over to tidying up. You may feel (like Jo) that this represents too much of a time sink, but some will find it helpful I’m sure.

    heat-transfer-activitiesDownload
    Heat-transfer-worksheetDownload
    Heat-transfer-worksheet-w-ANSWERSDownload

    Links

    Inverse square Law Carousel

    Thomas loves this one. No photos of the GM tube and sources, but that is pretty standard.

    They are not allowed to touch the magnet (risk assessment)
    Two pencils to record the angle of rotation
    Vernier to get the clamp diameter and hence height of lift from circumference – also a 4mm pieve of aluminium to set the height of the clip above the magnet
    Light – don’t forget risk assessment of the hot bulb vs black paper
    Sound – stop the beam and just measure amplitude
    Sound setup

    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.

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  • Retention Done Well

    Retention Done Well

    We talk to Doug Simon, who takes issue with the assertion that CPD is not C, P or D for Physics teachers.

    Having heard from Mark Whalley last episode about some of the gotchas that schools can fall victim to when trying to hang on to their (physics) teachers, we hear this week from Doug who reports some of the positive things they do to support their science teachers and keep them teaching.

    First up, though, Thomas and Robin talked electricity as that is what they both had been doing this week.

    Thomas had demonstrated a bit of uncertainty that GCSE students can get their heads around: the meters sometimes lie! See below…

    Thomas’ three ammeters and three voltmeters reading randomly

    This is a nice way to introduce a discussion on precision and accuracy in measurement.

    Robin had been investigating LDRs and Thermistors and trying to avoid the pitfalls he has hit in the past – either it takes waaaay too long, or it causes cognitive overload with all the fussy details: digital multimeters on the ohm setting, light meters (probably for the first time), multiple experiments, different scale settings with different units, new circuit symbol (ohm-meter anyone?). Doing both together might seem odd, but if you emphasise that both experiments are effectively looking at the same thing – an energy transfer changing resistance – students can see parallels. You only have to set the DMM up once, and I always explain that it is doing what they did recently: measuring voltage and current at the same time and working out R for them – they like that. There are better ways to teach this, sure, but this is ‘quick and dirty’ if you are short on time (and we always seem to be!). See the thermistor practical in the links section – thank you Mrs Cook! I hope you are still teaching physics.

    … and talking of still teaching, back to Doug who gives us practical advice on how science teachers can be nurtured and recognised. Some highlights:

    • a specific period per week to support planning & teaching
    • commitment to the subject in department meetings (not exam admin, other initiatives, safeguarding etc.). Meetings are used for discussion / CPD
    • CPD for teachers in meetings based around answering tough questions / misconceptions and ways topics have been taught.
    • Ensuring a common language in maths. Where skills are common (e.g. rearranging equations) can you provide physics-based maths exercises to your maths colleagues?
    • 6 periods per fortnight for KS4 science.
    • specialist physics technicians whose CPD is also worthy of investment.

    Doug’s school has had success in holding on to their teachers – it can be done! Why not reach out to a school doing good things and keeping science teachers? Culture can make a real difference and Doug’s school has shown how positive culture can help a school keep its teachers.

    Thanks to Doug for getting in touch. Do let us know if you have anything to share with the physics teaching community. It was great for us to be in contact with Clare Harvey from the Ogden Trust this week (we’ll hear from her on the podcasts soon). the Ogden Trust do great work supporting physics teachers and we will be hearing about their work and how they can help support your practice.

    Links

    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.

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  • Retention – Full Interview

    Retention – Full Interview

    We thought that Mark Whalley had a lot of interesting things to say on retention and couldn’t fit them in to the main podcast. Here is the full interview as promised.

    We mention the previous episodes on force and weight, here are a few:

    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.

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  • Retention

    Retention

    After a break that was longer than we had planned due to bike accidents and ridiculous workloads, we are back and raring to go. Although physics teachers raring to go is the problem we discuss this week* with Friend of the Podcast, Senior Lecturer and physics teacher retention guru, Mark Whalley.

    Thomas drops the bombshell that he is taking an extended sabbatical from teaching**. Before he fell off his bike (again) and broke three ribs (again) we had planned to speak to Mark about this and it was a pleasure to finally catch up.

    Mark has run projects for the IOP around retention (see the link below to “Keep Teaching”) and we ask him the question: what is in a school’s power to prevent Physics Teachers from leaving the profession?

    As a school leader what can you do? Well Mark has a few tips

    • Respect teachers’ professionalism: minimise the menial admin istrative tasks they have to carry out.
    • Avoid CPD that is none of those things. Allow physics teachers time to explore their professional practice. It is more challenging for them in isolation.
    • Recognise the extra burden on physics teachers in small departments (often only 1!) and allow extra time for them to support physics teaching in the school (e.g. for non-specialist colleagues).
    • Timetable sympathetically. Nothing annoys scarce physics teachers more than spending large chunks of their time teaching other subjects.

    Robin suggests the radical step of breaking the universal pay agreement for shortage subjects… what do you think? Would a pay scale for shortage subjects work, or be more trouble than it’s worth? Share your thoughts on X (Twitter).

    With the management challenges facing schools, this issue is lower on the list of SLT priorities than it should be, but perhaps we can change a few things to raise the issue. Mark’s helped us to suggest a few low cost things that perhaps we CAN do.

    *I know – we haven’t lost ANY of our slickness…

    ** He wants to fall off his bike in more exotic locations.

    Links

    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.

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  • Ways to talk about… Energy

    Ways to talk about… Energy

    In the last episode, Robin and Thomas were delighted to welcome Charles Tracy to talk about teaching energy at KS3. Charles generously agreed to come back for the next episode: energy at KS4

    Charles lays out the rationale for talking energy using the correct terms: using adverbial forms really helps to enshrine the principal that energy is not a tangible ‘thing’ rather a quantity that we observe is conserved before and after a separate process has occurred. Energy is stored kinetically, gravitationally, chemically and so forth (nuclear-ly is still problematic though).

    At KS4 the trick is to focus on the calculation. “If you’re not going to do a calculation, there’s no point talking energy”.

    Links

    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.

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  • Ways to Teach… Energy to 11 Year Olds

    Ways to Teach… Energy to 11 Year Olds

    There’s no two ways about it, the story we used to have on energy was bad. Inconsistency, incoherence, subjectivity: words to send a shiver down the spines of any scientist. Something had to change. The response from IOP was the ‘stores’ and ‘pathways’ model. This was championed by our podcast guest this evening. Thomas and Robin are honoured to welcome Charles Tracy (@charlesmtracy) of the IOP about how to introduce Energy to 11 year olds.

    Charles did so much to champion the new model of energy, tirelessly convincing educators, exam boards and textbook manufacturers that the new way was consistent and straightforward and gave students a much better account of this essentially abstract quantity.

    If you are introducing energy at KS3 you face an immediate challenges: energy is all about calculation and of course there are no calculations until KS4. That said, Charles tells us that we can think about energy conservation and talk about how much is in a particular store without calculating.

    An important consideration is defining your start and end points for your consideration of the transfer between stores. A bouncing ball may go through any number of transfers between stores over the course of a few bounces, but defining your ‘start’ as just before the ball is released and your ‘end point’ as just before it first bounces, means you can talk specifically about the specific transfer between the gravitational store and the kinetic store.

    To help you frame the start and end points Charles explains how it is important to have a calculation you could perform in your mind when designing an experiment. (eg. “How much kinetic energy does the ball have at the start and the end?”) You don’t need that for most year 11 year olds but it certainly comes in when you revisit Energy in the run up to GCSEs (Exams for 16 year olds in the UK).

    Listen close to Charles’s descriptions: the elegance and clarity of the model comes through. Charles has promised to return to talk energy at KS4 – we could listen to him all day!

    Charles wanted to add:

    It is helpful to look at phenomena using these three steps:

    1. Description – of what you observe and what is happening
    2. Explanation in terms of mechanisms and processes; changes that occur due to forces, differences in temperature, chemical reactions etc.
    3. Energy analysis – based on start and end points.

    Something I would draw out for part 3 is that you should not try to mirror or reproduce the mechanisms and processes in the energy analysis. The energy analysis performs a completely different task – based on solely the start and end points.

    Links

    Teaching Secondary Physics 3rd Edition

    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.

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  • Revising for Exams

    Revising for Exams

    It’s that time of year: as we prepare to bid farewell to our exam groups, how do we teach students to prepare effectively for GCSEs or A-levels? Thomas and Robin talk through how they help students revise for exams.

    Both agreed that past papers form the core of their revision strategies and there are various sources for these, not least the relevant exam board, but also some excellent sites that have grown up in support of past paper practice.

    There’s an overarching theme: the students need to be taught to revise and shown what good revision looks like.

    Robin’s method is confusingly summarised below.

    There are apps and sites that can help (see links section). Also colleagues are generous in their sharing of revision resources.

    Past papers are key and Thomas reminds us to keep them fresh. Tips to keep some balance and not turning it into a slog are:

    • Use knowledge quizzes as quickfire ways of recapping key terms like definitions, equations, unit conversions etc.
    • Involve the core practicals – even if it is just a demo – to remind students how they work. Ask them to describe the experiment, analyse some data,, interpret a graph – anything that your exam board repeatedly asks.
    • Keep a visual log (e.g. on the board) of common learning points, useful mnemonics, little tips.
    • Rehearse specific question types (e.g. 6-markers, questions on practicals) and command words (Explain, evaluate, describe etc)
    • Mix it up so students don’t get past paper fatigue. Use practical resources, post-it notes, small challenges, competitions – anything to mix it up a bit.
    • Coach students in how to engage with the mark scheme.
    • Encourage students to look through the exam paper before they start writing so they can clock the questions and get their minds going.

    Useful links

    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.

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