Physics might have a stereotype of being tedious and traditional, but with items such as lasers, bikes and fog machines, Penn-Trafford physics teacher Ryan Tucek manages to keep students engaged.
AP Physics C student Daniel Hough explains how he thinks Tucek is different from his other teachers.
“Mr. Tucek does demonstrations on what we learned multiple times a week. It helps me make sure that I can leave the class everyday understanding the subject more than the previous.”
Tucek calls this style of learning modeling and he explained how beneficial it is to students.
“I believe this allows students to make concrete connections to the topics they are learning. They can recall what they did in lab to future problems,” Tucek explained.
Whether it is assigning students to build an egg drop to build teamwork skills, or letting students control lasers to see how light reflects, immersing students in the lesson helps them remember what they learned.
Astrophysics student Deva Maju stated how beneficial non-traditional learning is for her.
“I’m never bored in class because he always has something fun and unexpected to use as a teaching method. I would much rather learn like this than by sitting in a lecture,” Maju said.
Students said that Tucek captures their attention with his teaching. Not only is he hands on, he asks students to answer questions during teaching in order to make sure they understand the material. He calls this flipped learning.
Hough said that this helps him focus and pay attention.
Tucek said he believes that this is yet another way to go more in depth with the information learned in class. He tries to keep his students active and communicating.
“My classes are always actively working and presenting to their classmates. It controls the rate of their learning,” Tucek explained.
While not all classes may be like this, students can be glad to know that their day will always be in motion when they walk into one of Tucek’s classes.