A new activity for me in the academic year 1999/2000 was teaching a section of Physics II at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY as an Adjunct Professor.  The teaching techniques at RPI have improved considerably since Gena and I were there.  We remember physics recitation classes taught by foreign graduate students who could barely speak English.  RPI now uses the Studio Method for teaching physics.  Each class is two hours.  In the first hour, we go over the homework and the professor (me) lectures about new material.  In the second hour, the students form small groups to do an activity or simple experiment to reinforce the material in the lecture.  (To learn more about the Studio teaching method at RPI, CLICK HERE.)

All incoming students at RPI must have or buy an upper-end IBM laptop.  They get excellent discounts.  My students have nicer laptops than I do!  They plug their laptops into network connections in the classrooms.  All quizzes and homework problems are done on the computers, but not the major exams.  When they take experimental data, they use data acquisition devices that connect to their laptops and special software to plot the data curves for them.  It lets them do the work faster, but do they understand the fundamentals?  After a year of teaching at RPI, it struck me that students know more about computers than we did, but less about math.  This is unfortunate, because I believe that a solid math background is essential to learning new technical skills quickly.

I found that I enjoyed that experience so much that I became a full time Clinical Associate Professor in August 2002.  I am the course coordinator for Physics I, the introductory physics course taken by over 800 students each year (about half each semester).

If you are interested in the course, you can check our website here: Physics I.

Last update: February 07, 2003