Everyone learns at their own pace, and Physics is a subject that requires a lot of thinking. Many students find that class moves so fast, they just don’t have time to wrap their head around the new ideas. Its like trying to drink from a fire-hose. The next thing you know the homework is due and you still haven’t grasped the concepts. When the exam rolls around all you can do is try to memorize a few formulae and hope for the best. Next year you start at a disadvantage because your new teacher assumes you mastered the material in that last class, so the cycle repeats. This is no way to learn. There must be a better way!
I always loved physics and I was lucky enough to have some wonderful teachers, but I never found it easy. Too many instructors forget how they struggled to master Newton’s Laws, Ohm’s law, Archimedes’ principle, geometry, algebra, and calculus. Simply explaining the material well in class isn’t enough for most students. Something else is needed.
Research shows that the most effective strategy is for the teacher to work closely with you the student, to identify and address your misconceptions so that you can truly master the inner workings of the universe*. Unfortunately this is not possible in a typical classroom setting because there will be more questions than students, and only 50 minutes for one teacher to address them all.
This is where I come in.
*Yes, in case you didn’t realize it, Physics is the ultimate quest to understand life the universe and everything. Its not really about blocks sliding down ramps, that’s just our cover-story.
thephysicsprof.com 