My Experience in Learning Physics

The characteristics of an effective teacher include both qualities related to the personality which are being warm and caring, and characteristics related to the cognitive abilities and knowledge of a teacher. The teacher must be knowledgeable with the material he’s teaching and has a general knowledge in pedagogy. (Arens, 2011).

During my intermediate and high school years I really found understanding physics very hard. I used to study a lot without getting any result and my grades were really disappointing. However in my terminal year I had a new teacher. This teacher started with us in a different way other than other teachers, since for example they gave us the analysis directly without passing in the lower levels of thinking first which include knowledge and comprehension. This teacher set the basis of knowledge and considered that knowledge is constructed based on previous experiences. He would start explaining each idea by reminding us with prior knowledge about it and by connecting it to the current knowledge and future implications and foreshadowing. Moreover he would set the basis for each new idea by starting with knowledge and facts, and then by comprehension, next he would move to application, analysis and evaluation. (Orlich, Harder, Callahan, Trevisan, & Brown, 2004).

Moreover this teacher was able to transfer knowledge from the book and notebook only to experimental work and he used a lot of cooperative learning techniques. The experimental work included many types of intelligences mentioned by Gardner and mainly the kinesthetic and visual intelligences. We also did some plays and acted some scenes in class that included the other types of intelligences like the auditory, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. (Council, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, 2000).

Moreover the teacher didn’t only care about the material coverage only by teaching the book; he expanded his activities to outside activities by using problem solving teaching methods. Those methods didn’t increase our levels on thinking but also made us know each other more and have better social skills. We also got high grades in the official exams which really made us proud of how much progress we made in one year, and proved that objectives coverage doesn’t always have to be direct instruction usually used by the teachers. (CRDP)

The positive effectiveness was also shown in the class discussions and group work that were fruitful. And this made me feel more accomplished and improved in the terminal class.

For me, I was able to overcome the struggle in the physics course and learn from my experience that nothing can be attained if I didn’t do my best and exert effort to understand the materials and transfer them to the real life examples instead of the raw material taught before. Negative experience can be changed into a positive when we believe that mistakes aren’t signs of weakness but they’re methods for us to improve and learn.

Works Cited

Arens, R. (2011). Learn to Teach.

Council, N. R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington.

CRDP. (n.d.). Retrieved from crdp.org: http://www.crdp.org/CRDP/Arabic/ar-curriculum/a_curriculum_objectives.asp

Orlich, D., Harder, R., Callahan, R., Trevisan, M., & Brown, A. (2004). A Guide to Effective Instruction. Boston, Newyork: Houghton Mifflin Company.