Teaching Strategies

Topic Strategy Title Description
Forbidden Transitions Analogy

Use an analogy for forbidden transitions in phosphorescence: Anecdotes from the movie 'Born American' (1986). American Backpackers cross from Finland into Soviet era Russia and try to get out again!

Quantum Mechanics for Large Objects

We describe quantum mechanics for an electron, but when it’s a tennis ball, what would the equation look like? This gives them the idea that the model works for every kind of particle.

Large Scale Analogies

Students tend to think that large-scale analogies are appropriate. For example, billiard balls colliding. Use such analogies but then deconstruct them for an introduction to quantum mechanics.

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Macroscopic Analogies

Students come in, like all of us, trying to apply macroscopic analogies to everything – (the billiard balls colliding and similar things) and using them as models for atoms. Try to get across that it's a simple analogy but it's not as simple as that in reality. I guess go back a step and try and...

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Limiting Reagents Using Sandwiches

Something you can do visually in the lecture theatre is to take in some things you wish to connect and make up an item. Or in PhET, for example, there’s a little activity you can do making sandwiches and you can work out how much you need of which one and whether you’ve got something that’s...

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