Teaching Sciences in 21st Century
– sharing of experience
T.K. Ng
(HKUST)
Contents:
1. Background: What has changed compared with 10, 20
years ago?
– New Education system in HK, New students profile
– Different Learning Philosophy
– New horizon in Sciences
2. What are we doing in response?
– New modes of teaching, new style of assessment
– Teaching Diversity/Education for everyone, Education for the
Gifted
– Use of Internet/multi-media resources
What has changed?
• 3+3+4 education system
–
–
–
–
School-Based admission versus Program admission
Whole person development is emphasized
Students have to acquire diverse background of knowledge
Students have to have the ability to upgrade themselves even
after graduation (whole-life learning)
• Problem:
– We (both secondary school & university) are teaching sciences to
students with very diverse background!
What has changed?
• 3+3+4 education system
– For example: admission to HKUST
– 4+2x
– We require only one Science Subject (x) for admission into both
Science and Engineering Schools
– The other subject (another x) can be anything; Science has no
advantage
• Problem:
– We (both secondary school & university) are teaching sciences to
students with very diverse background!
What has changed?
• 3+3+4 education system
– For example: studying at HKUST
– All students have to talk 1 calculus course
– All students have to talk courses in science & technology,
humanities and social analysis (Common Core)
– All Engineering students have to take 1 physics course
– All Science students have to take 1 course from each science
discipline (Phy., Chem., Bio)
• Problem:
– We (both secondary school & university) are teaching sciences to
students with very diverse background!
What has changed?
• Different philosophy of learning
–
–
–
–
The philosophy of both learning and working has changed
Whole person development is emphasized
Communication/language and other general skills are emphasized
Rigorous scientific (quantitative) approach/skill is for small
number of students only
– But yet students are supposed have a broad knowledge base and
are able to pick up the basic ideas behind ALL fields!
• Problem:
– We (both secondary school & university) are teaching sciences to
students with very diverse background!
What has changed?
• New Horizon in Sciences
– Sciences have evolved drastically in the past 30 years
– In Physics, Idea of particles and Newtonian mechanics is NOLONGER fundamental in our modern application of physics
– Fields (EM field, magnetic field, etc.) and Quantum Physics is
fundamental to our modern technology
– In string theory we are talking about whether we can design a
new universe with different fundamental laws of physics
• Yet:
– We need to teach the physics fundamentals (mechanics, E&M,
Thermodynamics…) to understand new developments in physics
– (fundamental physics is like calculus……)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXEC-v5lQ64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y350oOiunf4
(Field)
(Thermal)
What has changed?
• New Horizon in Sciences
– Sciences have evolved drastically in the past 30 years
– scientists and engineers are different compared with
their seniors 20 years ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ6k2cfb2Ig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7GAx9b8HAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw8dcb8iKSM
What has changed?
• New challenge in Sciences
– The problem of students not having enough background in
Sciences before taking the subject is just one of the many
problems under the big picture of the changing world of science
education!
• What can we do?
– The goals of teaching has to be defined separately for different
groups of students
–  Different ways of teaching for different kinds of students
–  different ways of assessments correspondingly!
(In HKUST we have different calculus/physics classes designed for
students with different academic background.
Teaching diversity (I)- education for everyone
• UST example: 1st Yr. Physics courses
– Common Core and School-Sponsored course (Energy, Astronomy,
Relativity)
– Requirement for students with zero background in Physics (Eng.
& Sci.) (General Physics 0)
– Requirement for non-major students (General Physics Ia)
– Requirement for major students (General Physics Ib)
(In HKUST we have different calculus/physics classes designed for
students with different academic background.
We have also “ordinary” and “honored” courses for majors (2nd and
above years)
Teaching diversity (I)- education for everyone
• In Physics, a large number of students have interests in
the concept and/or application of physics but not the
mathematical details of the theory
- Examples: Galilean invariance (to layman)
• Key idea:
– Teach physics concept without using mathematics but try to
explain/demonstrate a physical picture using whatever means.
– Mathematics come in only if you want to have quantitative
answers/numbers.
– Notice: students learning concept this way answer questions in
examinations differently
Example 1: Galilean invariance
1. The laws of physics is insensitive to uniform
motion (or Newton’s Law is the same in all
inertial frames………….)
[ Recall Newton’s First Law:
An object remains in its state of rest or uniform motion
(moving with uniform velocity) in a straight line if there
is no net force acting on it. ]
The important of Galilean invariance can be
seen from the following example:
Imagine you are travelling on a very big boat…
Maybe in this one…
This is a very big boat, and is very stable so that
you do not feel any floating up-and-down motion of
the boat.
Suppose you are living at the interior of the boat and
have no window to look outside.
One day, you wake up from a nap, and out of
curiosity you want to find out whether the boat is…
actually parking somewhere,
or is traveling with a
uniform speed.
Can you find that out without asking someone, and
without going outside?
Expt
.?
What Galilean invariance
said is that you cannot
determine whether you
are moving (with uniform
speed) or not if you
perform experiments
involving Newton’s Law
inside the boat, like
looking at the trajectory
of a little ball that you
throw up, or looking at
the motion of anything
you see.
?
equator:
1600km/hour
?
32km/sec
Why don’t we feel that?
Question in exam: Two space ships are traveling in parallel in this
universe with same velocity v (see figure) separated by distance. The two
ships are communicating with each other either by sending light signal or
by sending boxes of papers in between.
v
d
v
I)Let the velocity of light be c, how long does it take for the light signal to go from
one ship to the other? Explain your answer.
II)Let the velocity of the traveling box be u (relative to the ship), how long does it
take for the box to go from one ship to the other? Explain your answer.
Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted
• University education for all
– Whole person development is the goal of general education
– Communication/language and other general skills are
emphasized in general UG education
– Rigorous scientific (quantitative) approach/skill is not
emphasized in Secondary/University education
• Problem:
– General education is not catered for individual needs but
students are ALL different!
– Students gifted in particular area (Science, Music, Sports, etc.)
cannot benefit from present education system where everybody
goes through the same curriculum.
Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted
• A New Philosophy
– Everybody is gifted in his/her own way, the goal of gifted education
is to help students to fully utilize their potentials!
– http://ygt.dcsf.gov.uk/
• Gifted education
→ a new philosophy of education for ALL students
• Gifted/talented students are those
– who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as
intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic
fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the
school in order to fully develop such capabilities
i.e. Gifted education is complementary to general education catering for
diversity of students abilities/needs!
Teaching diversity (II)- education for the gifted
• Gifted education in Science &Technology
– Science and Technology is vital to the long-term
survival/development of a country
– The only way to maintain a sustainable world-class S&T team is
to make sure that students interested/gifted in Science are
properly nurtured.
– Notice that contrary to the above communication and other
general skills are emphasized in general UG education nowadays
 Education for Gifted students is one of the top-priorities in
S&T education worldwide (unfortunately not in HK)
Gifted education in HKUST
•
2001 - offer first course in mathematics (HKUST)
•
2003 -2012 - offer training of HK team for International Physics
Olympiad (HKUST) – very successful!
(Other universities join in actively since then and new courses in
computer science, biology, humanities, etc. are being offered with the
establishment of HKAGE. Not successful because of lack of coherent
structure)
•
•
2007: we decide to build our own program for Gifted education
– collaboration with Trumptech in offering World Class Test
2010 – collaboration with CTY (Johns Hopkins) to offer joint summer
camp
Gifted education in HKUST
•
2011: HKUST offered first systematic program (Dual Program) for secondary
school students where
– Students spend most of their time at secondary schools for whole-person
development
– They come to UST at weekends/holidays to take courses (in S&T) of their
interests and earn University credits
– Very successful!
•
•
•
2012-2013:
- Expansion/adjustment of Dual program and collaboration with other local
and international partners!
2013: - Start new B.Sc. track: “International Research Enrichment”
- Start programs at primary schools
•
Problem: no flexibility in HKDSE/Admission of students allowed by EDB
Internet resources & Teaching
- Efficient use of internet resources in teaching is
necessary to keep us (our education) ahead worldwide
(at least in the next 20 years)
– All major universities have on-line free courseware
taught by their best teachers
– No single education unit can match the on-line
resources available worldwide
– We need to learn how to use these resources
effectively to enhance our education
Example 1: Projectile motion
- Use of internet resources to make class more interesting
–
–
–
–
Students got bored by always facing a single teacher
in general they think that videos are more interesting.
They learn English
They will find out that you are actually teaching very well
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=rMVBc8cE5GU
http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=11W0RyRtSIU
Example 2: complicated/unfamiliar functions
- Harmonic (sint, cost) functions
– Solution of harmonic oscillator
– We don’t prove that it’s the solution of Newton’ Law for
harmonic oscillator in our class
– We show that wave motion is useful and realistic and can be
understood from harmonic oscillator-like equations
– Mathematics is used to write down a answer we know is correct
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7fRGXc9SBI
(animation)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaHLwla2WiI
(wave in water droplet)
– Exercise: what is roughly the frequency of oscillation,  in the
demonstrations?
http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/physics/oscillations-gravitation/simple-harmonic-motion/
Example 3: Relativity
- Use of internet resources to explain difficult concepts
and to connect what you are teaching with the most
fascinating development in physics in the world
–
–
–
–
–
I start with a story……..
Videos are good for explaining difficult concepts
I show more than 10 different videos to explain relativity
Examinations are concept driven, no derivation, simple application of
equation, explanations needed.
Mathematics is used to write down the answer we know is correct
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev9zrt__lec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3enwR6e9V9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZiROWO6iVs
~ Thank you ~