In an environment of almost-exclusive focus on research and publications, the Physics department organized a teacher’s training workshop for Physics teachers belonging to secondary and higher secondary school and colleges. The workshop was aimed to reinvigorate the primary responsibility of the college and university teachers which is to train our future generation such that our students are scientifically literate and develop critical thinking skills. It was an honor to have Dr. Asad Abidi as the lead trainer for the workshop along with Dr. Sabieh Anwar.
Dr. Abidi presented topics from mechanics relating to rotational kinematics that are usually found confusing to the students and that how the theory connects to the real world. He emphasized the importance of physics teachers to invoke examples from everyday life to develop intuition and infuse critical thinking so that we could develop a sound national scientific mindset. The session was followed by a vivid exploration of hands-on science through artistic demonstration of the same concepts by Dr. Sabieh Anwar. Using a camera and an inclined plane Dr. Sabieh presented a hands-on classroom approach towards laboratory teaching to the participants. He exhibited how the theoretical derivations of rotational and translational motions could be explored using a simple carom board through the eyes of a camera and image processing techniques.
The workshop was a huge success with over 85 participants from cities across the country such as Abbot Abad, Faisalabad, Peshawar, and Haripur. The sessions were very illuminating and a great learning experience. We hope that this ignites a flame in physics teachers to improve their teaching. The department hopes to arrange many more such workshops in the future.
