The Physics Teaching Podcast

If you are one of the heroes who wouldn't call themself a physics teacher... but teach physics anyway, meet the Ogden Trust: their SKPT programme is designed to give you the professional recognition for your physics teaching!

GCSE Astronomy can be a great way to get enthusiasts hooked and can be more accessible than you think. William H joins us to make the case for a partnership approach to astronomy.

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.

The US government wants to hear about physics teaching. So much so that they fund a Fellowship that takes a teacher to Washington DC so that they can inform education policy. Thomas meets with Michael Stewart, the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow 2023-24.

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).

Keeping hold of good science teachers involves a culture that respects their professionalism and Doug Simon of Heathland School in Hounslow joins Thomas and Robin to share how his school maintains a culture conducive to science teaching.

Retention - Full Interview

Senior Lecturer from the University of Chester, Mark Whalley joins Thomas and Robin to give some low-cost ways that schools might support retaining physics teachers.

Ways to talk about... Energy

Ways to Teach... Energy to 11 Year Olds

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.

Will Pope (@PopeDoes) joins us to talk about all things UCAS. What is our role as teachers, what is the right way to write the reference and how does the reference get used down the line. With grateful thanks to Will, Sarah Butler, Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor and Alex Sawyer.

Thomas and Robin are joined by our original guest - Jessica Rowson from episode 1 returns to talk Newton's laws and how we would teach them and in what order.

Mastery, retrieval practice, automaticity, call it what you will, practice makes... better!

Ruth Cheesman returns to talk about her first few weeks of A-Level teaching.

Thomas and Robin return after an extended break, inspired by a Tweet from Ruth Cheesman, who joins us to ask for tips to get started with her A-level class this week (good luck Ruth!). We also welcome Sarah Dowd to help answer Ruth's query, Sarah teaches at UNIS in New York and joins to share her practice in the first of two upcoming appearances (she'll be back in a few weeks to talk ChatPhysics!)

Space is a challenging subject to teach, so a good subject for the first “Ways to Teach…” of this academic year. Thomas and Robin start with a look at some physics in the news. The proton is smaller than we thought! About 5% smaller which will make it even harder to find one if you lose it, but let’s not be negative… In other news, a new wonder-polymer promises transparency, strength and lightness all in one. Will it be as successful as graphene (which Robin made the mistake of questioning in front of an engineer). And so to space. If there’s one message (and thanks to Dr David Boyce and others for this advice) try to use models, demos and activity to show what’s going on. It’s tempting to think you can’t do anything other than PowerPoint and YouTube for this topic, but whilst the odd video of cosmic phenomena can be great, you can make this subject live in the classroom. So whether it’s “phases of the egg” or redshift on a balloon, try to get students involved in the subject. Living orreries, using beachballs to represent the sun and modelling the solar system’s scale with a beachball and a pea – all this and more is in our first “Ways to Teach…” of 2022.

Thomas and Robin return after an extended break to talk A-level expectations, girls in physics and strategies for inclusion.

New year, new groups and tips to get underway. All this and an interview with the force of nature that is Professor Averil MacDonald. It can only be a brand new season of TPTP.

Well, we made it. What. A. Year. Robin and Thomas hook up with Patrick Kaplo to hear about how he has been getting on in the North Eastern USA and, as usual, get somewhat distracted. Thomas nobly tries to steer the whimsical chat towards physics teaching with limited success. Patrick had to cancel his extraordinary trebuchet competition because of the pandemic (see video below) and has also been suffering under incredible heat. This leads to him crushing another of Thomas' stereotypes about the USA and for Thomas to explain how he used his Physics teaching knowledge to save some money by investing in an inverter. Thomas thanks David Cotton (@newmanphysics on twitter) for a gift he sent of a vintage textbook of practicals and a tiny triple LED light demonstrator. We drift in to chatting about how relevant our Physics specs are to everyday life. Thomas asserts that he only used his knowledge of a vernier scale but Patrick quicly points out all the other ways. Robin is adamant (look away now CLEAPPS) that a basic knowledge of electricity is enough to do DIY electricity*. We then talk about the difficult year and Thomas reflects on his failures with Year 7 - making the same mistakes he made in his first years of teaching. We talk about what we are going to take forward from the pandemic and really hope that CPD will be better! No more drawing a "perfect teacher" or "perfect student"... Patrick and Robin both have a new start next year and Thomas is expecting a huge uptick in students at A-Level. We talk through the changes we'll face. If you teach a huge class of A-Level students PLEASE get in touch and come on the podcast to tell us your strategies. Patrick has itchy feet and wants to avoid James de Winter's "velvet lined rut". Finally some thank yous. Thank you to everyone who has listened, we couldn't do it without your support and kind words. Thank you to all the guests; so many wonderful people who have freely given their time. Thank you to Robin for being the brains of the operation, bringing some credibility and always doing the show notes (and nearly always on time). This is my least favourite task but I have muddled through ~ Thomas +And thank you Thomas for all the heavy lifting ~ Robin