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Reflections on teaching undergraduate engineers

Peter Johnson is a Principal Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London. He works in the Mechanical Engineering department, within the thermofluids division. This blog contains short reflections, usually hurriedly expressed on the train on the way home.

Imperial profile: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/peter.johnson

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbjohnson

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Algorithmic trading

My colleague and I had a satisfying experience today. Students have taken a low-stakes test where they are marked automatically. The key benefit we have found to this approach is that students can get immediate feedback after the test, and we can provide a meaningful debrief at the same time. Students get closure and move…

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Worked solutions: when and how to use them?

‘Worked solutions’ are a relatively modern phenomenon and are symptomatic of mass education. With ample time available, a master would guide an apprentice through the solution to a problem by the Socratic method, and would adapt to the apprentice’s approach. There would be no need for a ‘worked solution’ because the only meaningful solution for…

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Challenge yourself

I had a great time on a climbing wall recently, my first time trying it. There’s different levels of challenge on the different walls, and even on the same wall. You can start by climbing however you like, or challenge yourself on the same wall to only use blobs of a certain colour to make…

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Friction in the ideal learning process

We have identified ‘getting stuck’ as a universal experience in self-study. Students and teachers alike declare that they get stuck a lot when doing homework. Sometimes – but not always! – getting stuck is a blockage that impedes progress in learning. Unblocking is seen as an essential role for tutors. Students attend ‘clinics’ to relieve…

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