KEVIN DAVENPORT

The core of my educational philosophy is the accessibility of knowledge.  I firmly believe that anyone can learn anything given the right guidance and exposure to the subject.  The secret, in my opinion, is the choosing of the correct narrative.  Over the last two decades, I have had the opportunity to teach complex technical material to creative people and creative topics to very technical-minded people, I’ve taught physics to architects and artists and color theory to structural engineers and draftsman.  In all these cases, the most important and effective item in my teaching toolkit has been to find an anchor point for the student, to let them see not only why it is important that they learn the topic, but that they are, if fact, capable of learning the topic. 

In teaching physics, the most common refrain I experience is that the student is just “too dumb to understand” or that they “just don’t think the right way” to do physics; I think that both statements illustrate past failures of instruction.  Indeed, in my physics courses, my number one priority is to teach them how to think the right way, to build physical intuition about a topic, calling on their own anecdotal experience.  Science is a human endeavor that anyone can participate in; my position as an instructor is to facilitate that participation and help the student understand that any level of participation has meaning.

I feel a moral obligation to provide my students with the best instruction and presentation possible, especially in introductory courses.  The vast majority of students I have in, say, an introductory mechanics course are likely not physics majors.  This may very well be the primary exposure they will have in their life to the discipline of physics, and it is incumbent upon me to present that material in as an engaging and useful way as possible.  A large part of this, I believe, is helping the students to understand instruction is a two-way communication, that my classroom is not a static delivery of material regardless of the population or their response.

To this end, I try to bring a wide range of things to my classroom to facilitate learning.  I spend a lot of time building a rich, online environment where students can access material in both text and video format to learn as they choose and to respect the different time constraints the students may have.  I make my class policies as transparent as possible to ensure they know exactly what I expect from them as they learn, how they will be evaluated, and that I am very open to changing the system if things aren’t working.  I try to employ as many visual cues as possible in my presentation, leveraging my knowledge of design principles and the use of color, for example, to highlight the important items subconsciously.  I build my lectures with reference to an overarching narrative which I try and set up at the beginning of the class and always touch throughout to give the students a sense of direction and flow.  Finally, I try to craft activities using active learning, such as group work problems in a discussion section, and keep them numerous to provide students with flexibility to reduce the stress of learning as much as possible.