Naa: My Classes

Video

Physics Professor Mark Peterson, Naa and students in a Mount Holyoke physics lab.

Audio from video

Physics and Mathematics on the Alumnae Foundation Professor Mark Peterson:

“Naa is always the last one to leave. She is always carefully crafting an essay — that’s part of this lab is to write up what you do. She always makes sure she understands everything… In this particular class, I’m thinking about pre-med students above all, because it’s an introductory physics class aimed at them. I consciously think of what they’re going to need, and what in my experience they don’t yet have. So I’ve really tried carefully to construct a class that will get from here to there… the beginning of physics was the realization that you can model the world mathematically in terms of variables and their relationships. Especially, for example, the relation with proportionality. A very simple relationship. But if students don’t have that, they can cover up, but it cripples them later on. So this is a class that is just constructed to get that idea across. To think in terms of variables and not in terms of numbers. That’s the best way to say it, I think.”

Naa:

“We’re learning about — I guess so many different things, but right now we are actually doing electromagnetic fields…He definitely doesn’t want to give the answer just right away. He really wants you to think about it and discuss it. And his thing with physics is that it is all about proportionalities. And so you end up not doing a lot of memorizing in this class. Because he really wants you to understand how things relate together. You know, linking concepts. So that’s the main principle of his class, and his teaching style is definitely like — I write the question on the board, I’ll let you guys discuss it; okay, think about it. And then he will come back and sort of lead us along to the right path. It’s a very interesting way of learning and I really like it.”

Prof. Peterson:

“She is very fresh and enthusiastic about things, and often, often almost naive, because I think — hopefully there’s a little bit that’s new to everyone, but Naa makes it seem as if it is new. And she very thoroughly gets it. It’s always Naa and me at the end of the day.”

For more information on Naa’s PHYSICS 204: Phenomena of Physics

(Links to related sites outside this tour)

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