Creative Teaching
Ideas
My first aim on
starting to write down these ideas was to
bring together a collection of interesting
demonstration experiments and ideas
that I have come across in over thirty
years of Physics teaching in a number of
schools. I do not claim that all the ideas
are my own, indeed many have been
suggested by relatives, friends and
colleagues not to mention many of my
past and present pupils who have
encouraged me over the years and many
others have been gleaned from
magazines, lectures and other
publications. Since the initial period of
writing I have added more explanation
and background theory to help those
teachers whose basic specialisation was
not in Physics.
I have tried to
make it of use to all Physics teachers
both new and experienced. I am sure that
many of those who read it will come
across old favourites but I hope that all of
you will find at least something that is
new, challenging, informative and fun.
I like
analogies and I have included a number
of those within the text. We all have our
own favourites but I hope that teachers
will be able to use some of mine or at
least get some ideas for alternative ways
of explaining things.
I also hope
that the ideas will go some way to
popularise the subject and make people
realise that there is much of fun and
interest in Physics.
At a dinner party once
on finding out that I what my job was a
lady said to me "Ah - Physics - end of
conversation!" I really hope that these
pages will show that Physics does have
something to offer.
Safety
considerations must always be born in
mind when demonstrating experiments or
suggesting ones for pupils to carry out
themselves. However if a zero risk policy
were to be adopted we would do no
practical work at all!
I am
especially grateful to all those teachers
who have allowed me to add their ideas
to this collection. If you have not been
individually mentioned I apologise but
without you the collection would have
been the poorer.
The folder on
the CD is divided into a number of
chapters totalling about 250 A4 pages containing some 700 experiments, ideas and analogies. It is grouped under the following
headings:
Finally I hope that those of you who
read and use this material will find it
helpful, interesting and
enjoyable!
Keith Gibbs
Taunton 2007
