Pigs and toast

Friday 17 March 2017

Piglet was born yesterday as a result of several hours of thinking about ways to help my students remember definitions. First I thought of flash cards, I've never used them so why should I expect my students to? The idea of randomly flashing definitions in front of my face to help me remember stuff just isn't going to work. There is something else wrong with this, definitions don't stand alone, they are part of  a system, there is nothing to be gained by learning them out of context, except maybe for exam purposes where you can pick up some marks by simply stating a definition. Difficult problems require you to see connections.

"If I calculate the velocity using conservation of momentum I will be able to find the kinetic energy."

So instead of flash cards I started making short (about 3 minutes long) videos putting together all the definitions and laws from a topic in the context of a pig. In my lab I have a complete pig farm of flying pigs and my students love them so the choice was easy.

Memory is a strange thing, every time I slice bread I remember Sylla Cousineau who once told me that my slices are all exactly the same width. I don't know Sylla very well but remember him every day. Maybe the pig will be your toast?


Tags: pigs, reflections