{"id":12979,"date":"2013-06-05T12:46:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T16:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=12979"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:20:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:20:51","slug":"spotlight-on-teaching-excellence-rowan-thomson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2013\/spotlight-on-teaching-excellence-rowan-thomson\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on Teaching Excellence: Rowan Thomson"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Sabrina Doyle<\/em><\/p>\n

Rowan Thomson is used to standing out from the crowd. Throughout her post-secondary education, she was one of the few female faces in the male-dominated classrooms of physics and mathematics. These days she\u2019s teaching those same classes and still sees a stark gender imbalance, though now she stands out for a different reason: she has just won an award.<\/p>\n

In her third year of teaching at Carleton, Thomson has been awarded one of the university\u2019s New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Awards<\/a>, an honour handed out by the Educational Development Centre. She teaches three different classes and says she tries to make them engaging, approachable and interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysics is different from many other subjects in that it\u2019s very technical,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can\u2019t just spend the whole class talking about an idea or debating an idea. You actually need to get through content or you\u2019re not going to cover the course material.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this reason, physics classes have a bad rap as being extraordinarily dry. Thomson\u00a0didn’t\u00a0want that to happen in her classes, so she came up with some strategies. She\u00a0didn’t\u00a0use the same ones for every group, of course \u2013 different classes required different approaches \u2013 but there were a few that she found to be generally effective.<\/p>\n

For instance, the scientific history books are littered with accidental discoveries and colourful characters. Why not inject some stories into the lecture along with the formulas, says Thomson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the second year course, there\u2019s this one experimenter \u2013 Rutherford \u2013 who looked at the scattering of helium nuclei off gold foils. The results were so unexpected that he said it was as if you shot a gun at a piece of tissue paper and the bullet bounced back straight at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomson also makes a point of opening the lecture with questions to spark initial engagement, and when possible she tries to connect the lecture material to her personal research or to what\u2019s happening in the news.<\/p>\n

Two years ago news agencies started reporting that scientists had discovered neutrinos that were faster than light. At the time, Thomson\u2019s class was discussing special relativity and how nothing was faster than the speed of light. The stage was set for a great opportunity to connect real-world discoveries to the classroom material.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat day when I walked in the classroom I didn\u2019t even have to open my mouth and it was just \u2018Hey professor did you hear?!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(In fact the neutrinos are not \u2018faster\u2019 than light \u2013 they just take a more direct route as opposed to light, which bounces around a lot.)<\/p>\n

Thomson believes that students are more likely to retain information when she uses these strategies. When asked what pushes her to try new things and go that extra mile, she is matter of fact: \u201cWell I want to do a good job of teaching\u2026 In my mind there\u2019s just no other way I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Sabrina Doyle Rowan Thomson is used to standing out from the crowd. Throughout her post-secondary education, she was one of the few female faces in the male-dominated classrooms of physics and mathematics. These days she\u2019s teaching those same classes and still sees a stark gender imbalance, though now she stands out for a different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[377,378,201],"yoast_head":"\nSpotlight on Teaching Excellence: Rowan Thomson - Teaching and Learning Services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By: Sabrina Doyle Rowan Thomson is used to standing out from the crowd. 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