The Physics Teaching Podcast

Thomas doesn't know which week it is; thinking there is one more week of term he drags Robin to his garage to test some vacuum cannon upgrades. Thomas and Robin also look backwards and forwards though the podcast's second season. A Tight Collar Thomas has been experimenting with the collars that are used to join vacuum cannon spec pipes. After initial excitement (described in the podcast) Thomas does some further testing (described in an addendum) and finds that they don’t seal perfectly...

What will the well-dressed physics lab be wearing this year? Jonathan Shaw secured £53,000 of funding to kit out his physics department and asked Thomas and Robin to throw this over to the physics-teaching hive mind, and you did not disappoint! We had some fantastic suggestions, and some surprises.

Peter is one of those special people who is a finisher. Dissatisfied with the resources available to him in his trainee year, Peter set about creating his own resources. Not only that, he shared them through his web site, sciencedoctor.school.blog. His one problem with all this #sharingiscaring? The endless requests for the answers. If you use the resources and there are no answers, then please send them to him. Thomas says he will put a link to Peter's site on the resources aggregator we...

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.

Jo is a career-changer from a medical background who kindly agreed to join us to chat about her experience of teaching physics.

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...

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.

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?

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...

Patrick, Thomas and Robin try out zoom. Patrick tells us hhis successes and failures and gives Thomas the top tip of zoom breakout rooms. Thomas is clueless about what to do with Year 7 and asks for advice. Thomas then chats with Emma Brown in Shanghai who has to teach classes of 70+ online. She has some good advice about using video and ways of checking the kids are engaged. Finally Thomas and Robin report back about how they got on and Thomas gives an update on his collaboration with Helen...

So much has happened in such a short time, Thomas and Robin decide to talk to some experts about how to support their students remotely. YouTube is a great resource, but also Physics teachers all over the World are cooperating and sharing. The podcast scrapes the surface of this but we get some good advice along the way.

Fabio Di Salvo joins us to talk about Chat Physics, Physics chat on Twitter. Robin asks for advice about the photoelectric effect.

Isaac Physics

The International Year of Sound (Good Vibrations)

Ways To Teach... Momentum

Density Required Practical, Accuracy and Precision (Two Dense Objects)