What is your current affiliation and role?
Canggu Community School (Indonesia) – IB Mathematics and Physics
What drew you to write teaching & learning resources for us?
The Pamoja Study Companion is a great resource for students and teachers alike.
What do you see as the principal challenge(s) in teaching the new Science curriculum?
Packing such a great deal of information into the course, especially for the new Physics HL, will certainly be a challenge for teachers. It’s likely that teachers will find it hard to balance content coverage with the number of hours they have with their students.
Looking at your subject, how does the new syllabus impact teacher planning & course delivery?
The fact that optional topics have been removed might seem like it will make the teaching easier, but that may be deceptive. Much of the options material is now included for all students.
What recommendations or practical tips would you give teachers as they prepare to teach the new curriculum? (What do they need to change, incorporate or do differently?)
Teachers may very well need to familiarise themselves with the optional topic material that they typically didn’t teach in the past, but that is now part of the syllabus. For example, if you never taught relativity before as an optional topic (perhaps you taught Astrophysics or Engineering), then the sections on time dilation, length contraction, and spacetime diagrams may need refreshing. If you as a teacher haven’t taught the Engineering option, then a refresher will likely be needed for the rigid body mechanics and thermodynamics.
What needs do the materials that you are developing fulfill for students? For teachers?
For students, the theory videos help give them a lesson in their pocket, so to speak. In case they missed a class, or else needed to learn about the concept again, the theory videos can help them out immensely. For teachers, the theory videos can help support them in having a ‘flipped classroom’, where students can learn the theory at home, then spend the valuable class time with the trained expert (the teacher), doing actual, hands-on experiments – they can see the physics in action and put it into a specific context.
What do you like best about the resource package that is available on ManageBac / Pamoja Study Companion for student learning & review (exam practice / theory videos / flashcards / revision guides)?
I love how the Pamoja Study Companion has three different media types to support students with the theory in the way that suits them best – we know that students don’t just learn from one method but by a combination of approaches. Having Flashcards, Revision Guides and Theory videos helps students make sense of the theory. Crucially, having the exam questions plus video solutions that explain every step of the process (not simply showing a slideshow of the answer but showing how to approach a question from a blank page) helps students to prepare for their exams. I love how all of the content is mapped to the IB’s syllabus.