1. Workshop Photos

2. Participants

Theme: Innovation in Physics Teaching

Targeted participants: Physics Teachers

Aim:
How can we illustrate to students the beauty and relevance of physics, that it not only helps us to understand natural phenomenon and activities in daily life but also to design useful technologies? How can we explain clearly, and bring to life, abstract concepts mentioned in textbooks? How can we make physics enjoyable? How can we inspire and motivate students to see physics not only as an examination subject but as a wonderful scientific discipline?


Structure and Activities:
The workshop will consist of several short talks, lasting five to ten minutes each, illustrating the use of successfully tested innovative methods to address the above questions: Methods ranging from use of improvised demonstrations, daily life examples, analogies, story-telling, newspaper reports, historical examples, natural phenomenon, videos, interactive activities, puzzles, games, biographies, case studies, project work, movies, magic, etc.

While some of the speakers will be University lecturers, we invite teachers from the schools to give the majority of the talks, sharing their specific methods and concrete ideas.

In addition to the short talks, there will be a round table discussion, a talk on resources teachers can use to generate ideas and an online post-workshop forum for networking and continued discussion. (An optional post-workshop guided tour of the Physics Departments demonstration laboratory will be conducted for those interested).

Workshop Timeline on 19th November 2009:
10.15 Registration
10.45 Welcome and Overview Talk (Rajesh Parwani, NUS)
11.00 Designing and Conducting Demonstrations (Sow Chorng Haur, NUS)
11.45 Why students find physics difficult, and how to overcome this. (Julie Quah, RGS)
12.15 Lunch Break
13.45 Using astronomy to motivate students interest in physics (Cindy Ng, NUS)
14.15 Designing authentic assessments for mechanics (Yeo Siew Li, SCGS)
14.45 Tea Break
15.15 Making Physics Fun: an illustration with Newtons Laws (Tay Seng Chuan, NUS)
15.45 Resources for generating ideas (Rajesh Parwani, NUS)
16.15 Conclusion
16.30 Optional guided tour of Physics Demonstration Laboratory (Lim Kim Yong, NUS)

Venue:
NUS Physics Department Conference Room, M-01-11/12, in building S13. See http://www.nus.edu.sg/campusmap/ for the campus map and how to get to NUS. For those driving, please park only at lots for visitors as otherwise you will incur heavy penalties.

Registration Details:
The workshop will be limited to 40 participants, chosen mostly on a first come first served basis, with two major exceptions: Speakers, especially those covering different areas within the school physics syllabus, and those illustrating different methodologies, will be given priority. We expect there to be 6-10 speakers from the schools and 2-4 from the University.
(For those conducting demonstrations, for the practical purpose of this workshop, we prefer those which do not use expensive, specialized or bulky equipment, or those that require a long time to set up).

For general participants (non-speakers), we will implement a soft-quota so as to encourage broad participation from the schools: If more than four participants register from the same school then the fifth and beyond will be placed on a wait-list until last day of registration. If space remains then, they will be moved up to the confirmed list.

Confirmed general participants need to pay a registration fee of $20 by cash on the day of the workshop. The fee will be waived for confirmed speakers, who will also receive a transport allowance.

Registration begins in mid-August 2009:

Click here to enter registration page

Registration closes on 10th October 2009.

More details about the workshop will be announced later at this site.

For general queries, contact usprrp@nus.edu.sg with PTW2009 in the subject field.

SUPPORTED BY:

Department of Physics, NUS
and Institute of Physics