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It’s Time to Break Bad Pandemic Learning Habits

I used to be in scientists for over 20 years as a member of the physics department on the University of Southeast Louisiana in Hammond, Louisiana. Here the department is sufficiently small that we will all take a course, which is sort of nice – it gives me the chance to show a big selection of courses, from physics (for non-science majors) to all of the technique to quantum mechanics.

In the early years of the pandemic, everyone in education needed to adapt, and most of our activities weren’t conducted under probably the most ideal conditions. At my school, we began by moving all classes online using Google Meet. (It wasn’t very funny.) This was supplemented with short lecture videos. (I actually enjoyed making them.) We then implemented a hybrid model where some students were in school and a few online. (It was scary.)

While distant learning can have some benefits, as a teacher I even have noticed that we now have all picked up bad habits over the previous few years. Have you noticed that after the vacations, once you’ve been sitting around watching an excessive amount of football, eating greater than usual, you might not be at your normal fitness level? Well, the identical can occur with science.

Thanks to exercise, that after the vacations it’s essential to go to the gym or go outside to get back in shape and feel ready to beat the world. I believe learning is more about determining methods to constructively use the technologies which have helped us go the gap reasonably than counting on them as crutches.

smartphones

It may be shocking to comprehend how much power we stock with us on a regular basis. Your phone will not be only a really powerful computer, but additionally has an honest camera and plenty of other sensors.

And smartphones often belong to high school: you should utilize your phone to gather and analyze data. As an experiment, students can use the accelerometers on their phone to measure the gap an elevator travels. How about using an extended exposure photo to measure the speed of the International Space Station? You may even solve physical problems by creating Python code right in your phone, or use the built-in lidar to create 3D maps of the room.

In larger lecture-style classes, as a primary step in school discussions, I even have students vote using their phones to reply conceptual questions. (One of my favorites is the acceleration of the thrown ball at the very best point. The common answer is that since velocity is zero, acceleration can also be zero – but that is not true. In fact, if acceleration were zero at the very best point where velocity would is also zero, the ball would magically appear stationary.)

However, there’s a technique students use their phones in school that I do not think is at all times a very good idea: they take pictures all. (Admittedly, this has been happening for quite a while, so it is not just related to the pandemic.) Don’t get me mistaken – I also take a number of photos. Photos aren’t just an incredible technique to capture memories of your favorite dog; they also can function a reminder of things we want to do, equivalent to taking an image of a shopping list. So what is the problem with students taking an image of a physics solution or an equation derivation?

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