Educating educators

“Education breeds confidence…

I am attending the 14th International Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics that is hosted at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. This bi-annual meeting brings together educators from all over the world: this year 230 participants from 28 countries have travelled to Hangzhou to attend ETOP. In the history of this conference, 866 papers have been written to report development on novel teaching methods for students from primary schools to senior postgraduate levels, including 110 on outreach endeavours. I co-authored a paper at the 2015 ETOP event on the outreach program that I have led in Southampton (open access online), but this is my first time in attendance. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to be surrounded by experienced educators that have been advancing teaching in their communities for many years.

Confidence breeds hope…

The plenary session of the conference was “presented” by Eric Mazur. I use inverted commas for presented as this was a masterpiece in engagement, an incredible live demonstration of an educating exercise. It explored the meaning of teaching, illustrated by a live demo of active learning, which gave me that ah-ha moment when I realised how Archimedes’ principle worked (note to self: volume is really important). I have never thought much about my teaching. I have put myself in positions where I could do it, I have enjoyed the process of finding what works, and developed my teaching platform through experienced mentors, peer-collaboration and practice. The talk was a good opportunity to reflect.

How do I understand Teaching now? Teaching is the construction of knowledge. It must be an emotional process, to be efficient. The student goes through the steps of reflection, opinion-forming and discussion to become better informed. The teacher has a role to facilitate the transfer of information, by offering students her/his experience and giving them resources (books, course notes, etc.) to acquire this. The class becomes a safe communal space for peer-learning, with teachers for mentoring, and where students can connect the information with their personal experiences.

Hope breeds peace.” Confucius

At a time of international turmoil, education must serve the purpose of enlightenment. Offering children and adults those “ah-ha” moments is key. Experiencing and engaging with science, research and their applications to their everyday lives are vital ingredient to building knowledge in society. If those smiles I have seen in my education experience can be transferred to everyone’s daily lives, then I feel, candidly perhaps, that the world will be a better place.