Education Business 19.2

Well Educated Banking www.lloydsbank.com/ schoolbanking

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR EDUCATION – www.educationbusinessuk.net

EVENT REVIEW

! The Education Show’s Poppie Mickleburgh talks to Professor Brian Cox to discover what advice he gives to his students ahead of The Education Show 2014. HOW DO YOU MAKE PHYSICS MORE ENGAGING FOR YOUR STUDENTS? I lecture first year students at Manchester in their first term. I get to teach the 18 year olds who are straight out of school about Quantum and Relativity. We have a syllabus that is agreed in the department, but what I try and do is make the content as up to date as possible. So, although Quantum and Relativity might be up to date, you are talking about theories in terms of special relativities from 1905, and the quantum mechanics we teach is from the 1920s and 1930s – so both theories are 100 years old. So although the subject matter is well established and we know how to teach it, I try and talk about LHC and where things are relevant to that, and then wander off for five minutes and talk about current tests of relativity e.g. new space missions that are relevant. I find that the students enjoy that and we get some really good feedback – they like it when I wander off and talk to them for a bit in the lecture, and the diversions about modern physics before coming back and teaching them the thing they need to know. What we really want is to get them to do maths and apply it to physics, especially special relativity; it is a process they have to go through. They have to learn the seemingly dull stuff and the mechanics of it, but what they like is when you go off and put it into modern context, and that is what I try and do.

HOW DO YOU THINK TEACHERS CAN ENSURE THEIR PUPILS FIND SCIENCE FUN AND EXCITING? They like cutting edge stuff. For example, a new experiment in the US has been announced about Neutrinos and the UK are going to be involved; my students love it if I turn up on Monday and mention about the experiment and then explain how it relates to quantum mechanics and relativity. So the key is up to date cutting edge physics. DID YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE TEACHER AT SCHOOL? WHAT MADE THEM SO GREAT? I got on very well with my physics teacher, Mr Galloway, not surprisingly! He was very young at the time and he has only just retired (last year). It is the idea of making it relevant and exciting. At the time I was really into music and he helped a friend and I build a little piece of electronics that we wanted to use in order to make music – it allowed us to interface a drum machine to a synthesiser, which was very difficult to do in the 80s! He designed it and helped us build it, which is a lot of work for a teacher. My experience is when you go beyond the strict limits of what they need to know to pass an exam and taking the time to engage in their interests, which really works – it did for me! At the time I didn’t like electronics, but I did when I found out I could interface a drum machine to a keyboard. WHERE DID YOUR PASSION FOR PHYSICS COME FROM? It was really early on – it was astronomy fuelled by Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’, which came

Education Show 2014