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Become a YouTuber
Rachel tells us what she’s learned about getting yourself online. Empowering stuff and some great advice from Rachel about how to make a resource that will be of lasting value in your classroom.
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The Doctor Will Teach You Now
Jo is a career-changer from a medical background who kindly agreed to join us to chat about her experience of teaching physics.
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Uncertainties
Friend of the podcast Dave Farmer returns to talk about a subject to strike fear into any physics teacher’s heart: uncertainty! We peel away some layers of complexity to reveal… more layers of complexity! Having worked with a lot of exam boards’ A-level specs over the last few years, Dave recommends reading the mark schemes and looking for examples of what your particular exam board recommends. Whether we are talking scale resolution, combining uncertainties or ascertaining the gradient of a graph with error bars, we couldn’t agree on any of them. But don’t despair, there’s a lot of uncertainty about uncertainty, so just work out what your exam board require and after that, let your students develop their ideas. We also emphasise that all of these methods are estimations and approximations: rigorous statistical consideration of uncertainty is a scientific career in itself, so inevitably A-level is just going to scratch the surface. Finally we celebrate a physics teaching hero: take a bow Dr Peter Edmunds the Science Doctor who has shared an immense catalogue of resource for physics at all stages. Stuck for some resources? You’ll find something on Peter’s excellent site – link below. Why not fill your boots and then buy Pete a coffee?
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A Gimmicky Demo Fan
Wall-to-wall gimmicky demos on this week’s podcast as we welcome John Hudson. Although we call them gimmicky, nothing could be farther from the truth: John introduces us to some great experiments and demos that are crammed full of physics to inspire and talk about.
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Bits and Bobs
What can we usefully get students doing at home to explore their physics and what (cheap) kit might we be able to provide them with come September?
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KEEP Teaching
We are delighted to talk to Mark Whalley, IOP Education Manager, former headteacher, and of course, a physics teacher. Robin caught up with him to chat about KEEP Teaching, a project funded by the EEF, run by the IOP, and evaluated by UCL that is looking to find out what will keep early-career physics teachers in the classroom.
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Teacher in Residence
The “new normal” has once again shrunk the globe, as Thomas and Robin reach out to Alberta, Canada to talk to the inspirational Laura Pankratz of the Perimeter Institute. Just as well we talked to her when we did because apparently we’ve discovered a black hole next door…
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Assessment and CPAC
The “new normal” is just another way of saying “weird” as far as we’re concerned. In this episode, we range around the emergency assessment routines that OFQUAL have put into place, reflecting on the humanity and fairness that they have managed to salvage from what is a stressful and potentially difficult end to our GCSE and A-level students’ studies. It is interesting to contrast with CPAC, as this time of year also sees us tidying up and finishing of this traditional aspect of A-level assessment. Thomas talks about his experience as an exam board moderator, and we discuss whether this model of accountability has somehow lost its way.
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@MissNeutrino, a Physics NQT
Alexia has a Physics degree from Imperial (which made Robin happy) and a PGCE from the London Institute of Education (which made Thomas happy). She has many strings to her bow. In addition to being a physics teacher, Alexia is a LaTeX guru, has a fascinaton with neutrinos and tweets as @MissNeutrino. Alexia tells us about her NQT year and how she is faring in her first year as a Teacher.
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Lockdown Lessons Learned
Thomas and Robin have heard some strange tales of what is going on in different schools. Virtual learning walks sounds like unnecessary stress at this strange time and what about detentions for the kids if they don’t turn up on-line? They have had some success with Teams and discuss how they are trying to set work for the children that is practical rather than more worksheets. Thomas is missing equipment for teaching and Robin is missing his colleagues. On we go in this strange time…