So I Am Your Intro Physics Instructor

I posted this elsewhere (on my personal blog), and someone mentioned that maybe it might also be useful here on PF. So I’m reproducing the entire entry here in case it might make a difference. This is essentially a “sequel” to my earlier essay on “So I am Your Academic Advisor“.

My aim in writing this piece is to try and impress upon the students in such a course of the fact that, even if they don’t want to be in that class, there is a wealth of stuff they can acquire out of it, and most of it isn’t even “physics”. I want to try and tell the students of all the important skills and knowledge that they can get that WILL become very useful for them later on in life. And I want to be quite deliberate in telling them that, rather than have them “accidentally” acquiring such skill.

So here is my essay:

Dear Students,

Welcome to the intro physics course. For many of you, this is the first college-level physics course that you are taking. Hopefully, it will lay the foundation for the rest of your undergraduate education and becomes something that you will find useful.

I would like to let you know of some of my expectations from you and would like to let you know what you can expect from me. I know that many of you are taking this course because you have to, not because you want to. I am also aware that the majority of you are not physics majors. However, I hope to impress upon you why you would want to do well in this class. Besides the fact that it will affect your overall GPA, I want to make you aware that there are a lot of things you can learn and acquire from this class that will be very useful to you not only in your academic pursuit but also in other parts of your life later on.

The most important point I want to make is this: while the material that we will be covering is important for you to understand to do well in this class, what is equally important is the ability in analyzing a problem that you are faced with, and figuring out how to systematically solve it. I want you to pay attention not only to the content of the course but also to how I approach a problem and how I go about solving it. I will try to teach you physics and also the problem-solving technique. I will try, as best as I can, to describe to you what I’m thinking when I look at a problem, and how I analyze it to know what to start with and how to proceed.

Keep in mind that while this is something that I can attempt to teach you, it really is a skill that you can only acquire after repeated practice. It is very much like learning how to ride a bike. I can tell you what to do, but you’ll never gain the skill to ride a bike until you have practiced several times, and taken a tumble here and there. The homework that you will have to do is meant to be your vehicle to practice on to acquire such skill.

At some point, you may question why we are studying certain things, or why we are trying to tackle a certain type of problem. One example that I can bring up is the projectile motion that you will see and have to solve till you’re sick of it. You may find it strange that we are asking you to solve various configurations of the projectile motion problem. Are we trying to train you to be an artillery person? No.

You see, I could teach you that F=ma and then walk away. There. We’ve covered a huge section of our semester already. Now, go use that to build me a house. Chances are, you can’t. What you’ve received is only superficial knowledge. You may know the relationship between F, m, and a, but you don’t understand how it is used or how it can be applied. Knowing how to do that will give you knowledge beyond the superficial level. So we try to apply F=ma in a number of examples. Unfortunately, the examples that we can use that are simple enough are limited. We can’t exactly apply all the real-life conditions to an example because it will make the problem too complex, and you will be thoroughly confused. You will be distracted by the complexity and lose the focus on how F=ma is applied. So we have to deal with simplified examples on how we use F=ma, and this is where examples of projectile motion, the motion of objects sliding on inclined planes, etc.. come in. We are not trying to turn in your experts in artillery or building a slide. You should not be focusing on the nature of the example. You should be focusing on the aim of these examples, i.e. how F=ma is applied.

Now, because I want you to understand both the material and the technique, you should not hesitate to ask me questions if you do not understand anything. This is especially true if you do not understand why, in solving a problem, I would do such-and-such, or how I know to start with such-and-such if it is not obvious to you. It is important that you make sure you understand things every step of the way because we will be building on what you learn early in the semester and apply it to more complex situations later on. If you start with a shaky foundation, you will not be able to master the material that you will be faced with later in the semester. So please, ask me questions in class, or come to my office hours. I have been paid to serve you and impart knowledge and skills. Make use of this opportunity.

My last advice to you here is that the process of learning is a very private, internal activity. While you have your texts, your notes, your instructor, etc. to help you, in the end, it is YOU who has to make the effort to acquire such knowledge and skills. It must sink in for you. At some point, you have to figure things out for yourself. It means that you need to understand things on your own and be able to do your own thinking. You have to figure out how you understand things and what you need to do to get something.

And this is where this physics course can be of tremendous value to you, not just for your future academic pursuit, but in your later life. To put it bluntly, you will consciously learn how to think and how to analyze a problem. You will learn to what degree you can say that A causes B, and how can you figure out what affects what. This ability transcends a physics class and will be extremely useful to you as you become a responsible citizen.

I hope you have a productive and enjoyable time in this class. Now let’s get to work.