Teaching and communicating magnetism

This is a reprint of an article that I have written for the IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter (November 2022 issue, edited by Jia Yan Law). Please do check out the Newsletter if you are interested in contents related to magnetism, technology, activities of the Magnetics Society as well as announcements of conferences, awards and events.

Nowadays, the majority of people are likely to encounter magnetism in their everyday lives, be it by simply seeing the magnets on their refrigerator door, using magnetized screwdrivers, navigating with a compass, swiping a credit card, undergoing an MRI scan, or saving an image file on their computer's magnetic hard drive. Of course, in the IEEE Magnetics Society, we have a much closer and more professional relationship with the world of magnetism, for instance, by conducting fundamental research or driving the evolution of magnetism-based technologies. This places us in an optimal situation to teaching and communication outreach in the field of magnetism!

12 questions every physics department should ask themselves

Here are 12 questions that every physics department should ask themselves in regard to teaching and the educational curriculum: 

Having the right mindset for a physics degree

Recently, I had a nice discussion with a colleague about the mindset of undergraduate physics freshmen (i.e., first-year) students. This conversation has inspired today's blogpost on the very same topic. 

Many things are different at a university as compared to high schools. Physics students oftentimes feel overwhelmed during their first semesters at college. Professors are rushing through the course material, homework is due every week in multiple classes, and a major part of the fellow students appear to be geniuses. They seem to grasp even complex contents very quickly, do not need to spend much time on their homework and ask a lot of smart questions during the lectures. One might get the impression that they do not need to work hard to pass exams and achieve their goals. These are only a few examples of the mindset that many students tend to develop. I would like to argue that such thoughts are largely unfounded and are making life unnecessarily harder for many students.

Thoughts and conversations on teaching during a scientific conference

Last week, I attended the annual conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM) which took place in Minneapolis (United States). While the central topics of this conference were all related to cutting-edge research in the field of magnetism, I still had the chance to think and talk about teaching physics and materials science. Therefore, in today’s blogpost, I would like to touch on a few of my thoughts and conversations.

More resources for teaching methods and materials

As the beginning of the winter semester 2022/23 is approaching here in Germany, we are currently in the process of finalizing preparations for our teaching activities. This is yet another reason why I am dealing with physics education these days and therefore I would like to share a few more interesting resources that I stumbled upon.

The teaching statement

Recently, I have talked to a friend about the application process for faculty positions in the United States and Germany. While in the US it is very important to write substantial and convincing statements on teaching as well as on diversity, equity and inclusion, it is not that common in Germany and other European countries. From my experience, even if it is required, both the applicants and the search committee do not seem to take such statements very seriously. Of course, in the US it also depends on the specific university, but in general I would contend that the aforementioned documents play a much bigger role in the States. As I argue quite often on this blog, I think that the importance of teaching skills of future faculty is highly undervalued and should be at least as important as the research profile of an applicant. Obviously, it is hard to quantify a person's teaching skills, but I think that a teaching statement and a teaching demonstration are appropriate ways to better assess an applicant.

Declining student enrollment numbers in physics

Today, I had a look into the most recent statistics about physics undergraduate and graduate student enrollment numbers at German universities. Typically, these statistics are published each year in the "Physik Journal", which is a monthly magazine published by the German Physical Society (DPG, Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft). You can find the current statistics here.

Is there a need for teaching faculty in Germany?

In the United States and several other countries, it is common practice that introductory lectures are being held by teaching faculty, i.e., lecturers and teaching professors. In physics departments, this includes classes such as "Introduction to Experimental Physics" (classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, optics). Higher-level classes as well as electives, however, are often taught by "regular" faculty who only devote a certain fraction of their working hours to teaching while also being involved in research and service activities. By contrast, in Germany also the introductory classes are taught by the aforementioned "regular" professors, and typically no additional teaching faculty are hired by the universities. Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages to each of these two distinct approaches. For example, hiring teaching faculty leads to additional costs for the university, but on the other hand one might argue that, on average, their higher enthusiasm for teaching and the fact that they solely focus on their classes leads to a greater success in the students' learning experience. Unlike "regular" professors who may regard teaching as an obligation, teaching faculty usually have a strong passion for teaching and do not have many other duties that would distract them from preparing their classes. 

Hiring teaching assistants for an introductory physics class

After interviewing a few candidates for teaching assistant (TA) positions within the framework of our introductory experimental physics (classical mechanics and thermodynamics) class for freshmen this week, I have had some new thoughts on teaching and learning physics in higher education, especially with regard to TAs and their significance. In the following, I will discuss some of these thoughts.

Some helpful resources on teaching in higher education

This blog is dealing with teaching physics (and materials science) in higher education. I started the blog a while ago because this topic constitutes a personal matter and I see a lot of potential in improving physics teaching and learning in the future. Not only with regard to physics, teaching in higher education is constantly evolving and transforming. This is why I believe that it is crucial to share and exchange our ideas about novel approaches, stories of success, and biggest failures in the context of teaching and learning.

Why physics classes at German universities should be held in English

While many influential physics books and articles were written in German prior to World War II, English has become the lingua franca of science. Nowadays, the majority of journal articles are published in English, physics conferences are held in English language, and a significant portion of renowned scientists are based in the United States and the United Kingdom. Consequently, English is the language used by scientists with different backgrounds when talking about research projects, teaching approaches or other topics. Due to the ever-growing importance of English as the global language, it certainly makes sense that nowadays, in countries such as Germany, kids start learning English as their first foreign language already in elementary school or even during their time in kindergarten. 

Why study physics and not engineering?

Nowadays, more and more people seem to be asking the question "Should I study physics or engineering?" 

From my experience in the United States, engineering majors such as electrical and computer engineering (ECE), mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and aerospace engineering are extremely popular with young people. As an engineering student, your future career options are relatively straightforward, since you become an expert in a specific field with a great selection of potential employers in industry. In other words, as an aerospace engineer you will most likely end up in industries in which you design and build aircraft, spacecraft, satellites, missiles or related applications. No big surprise. Certainly, this is also true for the German system as well as for the rest of the world.  

Teaching advice of the week: Get to know your students

Today, I present this week's teaching advice: Get to know your students.

A common and helpful advice on giving a presentation (for example, on scientific conferences) is to "know your audience". The same applies when teaching a class. What kind of students are attending your lecture? What is their motivation, expectation and background? Try to build a relationship with the students, ideally in the beginning of the semester. You may feel confident about the contents of the class after teaching it for several years, but you might need to adapt your teaching style every time because your audience changes every time. 

Computational physics is underrepresented

The subject "physics" can be divided into experimental and theoretical physics. In order to become excellent physicists, students attend numerous classes on these two subcategories of physics. The neverending "battle" between theoretical and experimental physicists on which group of people are the "real" physicists is being fought on (presumably) each and every university campus in this world.

But does the simple division into two categories, theory and experiment, do justice to this large and complex subject termed physics? Not really. How about computational physics?

The syllabus

The syllabus. Americans will probably know what I am talking about, but how about our readers from Germany? Do you know what a syllabus is? And why it is useful? 

Thoughts on a new class named "The Physics of Modern Information Technology"

Currently, I am thinking about a new (elective) class on the physics of modern information technology for both B.Sc. and M.Sc. students that I would like to teach in the near future.  

Technically, this idea isn't entirely new, since, for example, there exists a book and a related class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by Professor Neil Gershenfeld. However, the concept of my own proposed course is quite a bit different with a stronger focus on magnetic recording and spintronics, new devices in information technology (e.g., resistive random access memories and phase change memories) and alternative computing architectures (i.e., non-von Neumann computers based on neuromorphic computing, probabilistic computing, etc.). I also like the concept of the "Information Storage and Spintronics" class taught by Professor Atsufumi Hirohata at the University of York.

Does (condensed matter) physics have an image problem?

Fewer and fewer people in Germany choose physics as their major at a university. 

This is not just hearsay, but it is actually based on a statistical evaluation by the German Society of Physics (sorry, the document is in German only, but you can clearly see the trend in Fig. 1). Also, there are fewer people getting a B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD degree.  

Here are some thoughts on the issue whether physics -- in particular, condensed matter physics, because that is the very discipline I am working in -- has an image problem and why physics as a subject may be less appealing to people nowadays than it used to be some years and decades ago. Certainly, I do not have a simple solution for this problem, but perhaps some of the following points could be important factors in this context.

A few more words on group projects and group dynamics

In my last blog post I have been praising group projects. Group projects in higher education are great. But that is not the whole truth. Be aware of the pitfalls.

One could argue that group projects involve the following issues: When working in teams of several students, chances are pretty high that there may be a subgroup of people who are less motivated and do not want to invest a lot of energy into the project. Or perhaps they are just less talkative than their partners and prefer staying in the background during discussions. Another possibility is that there are other types of students involved, let's call them "control freaks" or "self-promoters". I believe that there is no need to explain these personalities in more detail.

Defining success in higher education teaching

"What are you most proud of to date in your teaching career in higher education?"

That was one of the questions during my interview for an assistant professor position at a primarily undergraduate institution in the United States. 

I think that every teacher, professor and lecturer has had some very positive moments, but also negative experiences in their past teaching activities, no matter how advanced they are in their career. It is extremely valuable to reflect on these experiences, and usually you can draw important conclusions for teaching in higher education in general. I will try to do this in today's blog post by considering one of my greatest achievements thus far as a teacher. Perhaps I am going to do the same in a future post, but with a negative example. 

What is this blog about?

Welcome to the "Teaching Physics in Higher Education" blog! 

My name is Dr. Martin Lonsky and I am currently a research scientist at the Goethe-University Frankfurt in Germany. Aside from conducting research, I have a great passion for teaching physics and materials science. I am always excited about trying out new teaching approaches and to spark students' interest for natural sciences by conveying my enthusiasm for the aforementioned subjects. 

But why exactly did I decide to start writing my very first blog? Does the world really need a blog about teaching, especially in the field of physics? Is there really so much to talk about this specific topic?