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Middle School Physics and Optional Courses Department: Online Teaching Opens Another Window for Teacher-Student Interaction

April 21, 2020

Since online teaching began in late February, the teachers of the Middle School Physics and Optional Courses Department of SHSID have been working together to actively respond to challenges. Guided by the concept of “cultivating independent learners”, teachers have made many interesting adjustments and received good feedback.

There are many differences between online teaching and traditional teaching. Although teachers and students are not directly face-to-face with online teaching, this does not limit teacher-student interactions. Online teaching sometimes can even break through barriers present with classroom teaching, opening new windows for teacher-student interactions.

In traditional offline teaching, time is limited, and teachers often start class lessons immediately. How can teachers help students eagerly start a new lesson online? Through communication with students, the teachers of the Physics Department found that many students have watched the American TV show “The Big Bang Theory”. This led them to have the idea of opening an online class with physics problems similar to those mentioned in the TV show. However, implementing interesting openings in each course is not easy. For seemingly simple ideas, teachers usually spend a long time to find suitable materials. Students who have never watched “The Big Bang Theory” are still able to learn some interesting knowledge from the opening segment of class. This is a unique way to expand upon online teaching.

Online teaching gives every student an opportunity to participate in class discussions. In order to strengthen students' understanding and application of knowledge, teachers will carefully select a problem in real life for each online lesson. Teachers then invite students to follow the discussion in a forum on the online teaching platform. The message board of each online class and the forum on the teaching platform also provide students with a variety of opportunities to ask questions. Some students who were relatively silent in the past can also take the initiative to express their opinions and ask questions.

In terms of project-based learning, different physical locations do not stop teamwork. Teachers of the Physics Department put up project topics and materials on the online teaching platform, and students claim the topics that they’re interested in as teams, and vote for the best project presentation on the platform. Using the zoom conference software, each student team takes turns to show their independent research results, just as they would in a real classroom.

Performing experiments is undoubtedly important in teaching physics, so the physics team has guided students in carrying out small experiments at home. The students observed and recorded phenomena and then communicated on the teaching platform. Physics teachers also performed interactive teaching experiments using the powerful H5P interactive function of the teaching platform. This is a new online form for having experiment in class. Teachers designed the experiment’s steps and made videos of the experiment process in advance, with hints and questions included at important moments of the experiment. These moments are either the difficult parts of experimental operation or a collection of experimental data and analysis. After the initial video recording is completed, in post-production, these moments are edited with guiding questions. Multiple choices, filling in the blanks, true or false, and other types of questions are designed to help students pay attention to the practical operations that may get easily ignored or mis-operated during the experiments. Students need to answer questions to unlock the following video content. Although it is not done by themselves, students also need to carefully observe and record the measurement data to complete the experimental report. At the end of the interactive experiment video, there is a page for submitting experiment results and also a summary report of all questions answered during the viewing process. With the advantages of platform functions and careful experimental design by teachers, the Middle School Physics Department has found a brand new way of teaching experiments.

Online education in this special period is a rare teaching experience. The Middle School Physics and Optional Courses Department will summarize our experience and continue to explore in order to provide students with a quality education.

(Written by Gu Dungang, Shen Ying, Wu Wenyi Pictures by Middle School Physics Department)