My Teaching and Learning Philosophy

One of the common response that I received every time I introduced myself as a Physics teacher, was “WOOOO…you are so ‘terror’..”, or something similar to that.

 (note: “terror” is a Malaysian slang to describe awesomeness, greatness etc.)

People still think that Physics is a hard and killing subject. Most of our students have fears and became inferior when it comes to learn Physics. I have to admit, I was one of them too, not so long time ago.

My goal was simple. I want to change that! I used to chickened out in Physics class during secondary school. I avoided eye contact with my teacher, because I am afraid of answering questions. I don’t want my students to be like that. Physics should be fun, well IT IS FUN!!

During my first few years of teaching Physics, I’ve struggled a lot. I have to re-study the content and I did a lot of exercises. My teaching and learning (T&L) session were focused on delivering the content. In order to achieve the learning outcomes, I have forgotten to add some seasoning to my T&L. It was so dull and boring.

But then, I realized I need to do something as I have chosen teaching as my career.  I can’t be that one boring teacher for the next 30 years. I want my class to be memorable to my students.

So in 2012, I challenged myself to do something new. I changed the way I conduct the class. I tried to improve the usage of technologies in my class. My T&L wasn’t only focused on the contents, but I get my students involved in more hand-on activities and I let them discover the contents in various ways.

As the years pass by, I think I have become more prepared. I believed every student have their potential to succeed. All they need are efforts, attitudes and of course with full supports from their teacher. I believed that learning is a continuous process, teacher can also learn while teaching.