Jose de la Hera

How will I make Science and Maths cool? Drawing from my background as a teacher and student, I bring a broad range of experiences and interests to the classroom, which gives me the necessary flexibility to connect a new concept to a student’s knowledge base and personal interests. For example, to connect physics to everyday experiences, I describe how LCD screens use polarization and color-mixing to display images, or how the iPhone works by sensing changes in capacitance. Making a clear connection between technological breakthroughs and fundamental physics research gives students a better understanding of the scientific process. Bringing current research into the classroom, and bringing students into the lab are both effective ways to show students how current research, and physicists specifically, fit in to global scientific progress. When students realize the impact they can have on their world by knowing how it works, they tend to be much more interested in continuing to learn about it. I enjoy the fact that a student’s perspective can be different from the teacher’s perspective in surprising and interesting ways. Students teach me, as an attentive instructor, how best to instruct them. By being open to this aspect of the educational process, I can differentiate my instructional style to reach as many students as possible. In the classroom, I demonstrate to the students that I am committed to their learning experience by creating opportunities for feedback and responding quickly to such feedback. In class, I strive to create an environment where all questions are asked, and students feel comfortable coming to me for assistance. To accomplish this, I make it a point to maintain an appropriate level of informality that puts students at ease and demonstrates that my goal is to learn Physics, Maths, Chemistry or Science with them, and facilitate their learning in general. To maintain this environment, it is also important to foster interactions between the students that support these goals. Group discussions, collaboration on lab projects, and group problem-solving exercises all provide opportunities for positive interactions.