Hey everyone. Recently we got this new science teacher who has never taught the physics course before. Due to a teacher shortage, our school has not been able to hire any physics teachers and we've been left with nobody who can actually teach the course.
Initially, we did have a physics teacher. They went through some summarised notes that they had made and illustrated concepts with diagrams. From here, they explicitly set out chapter questions for us to complete. On average, we were doing 20 or so questions per day from the Surfing Physics booklet which was heaps of fun (I like learning lol).
Even though I do note taking at home, it was extremely helpful having a teacher who knew what they were doing by starting off with the basics which we could take to enhance our understanding. With this new teacher, however, this is how lessons are structured:
1. Open the Jacaranda physics textbook
2. The teacher reads the textbook word for word the entire lesson
3. When it says "exercise," our teacher sets us those questions. Usually there are only 3 or so, and three physics questions per day is hardly beneficial
Up until recently, they did make some basic PowerPoints for module 6 which summarised concepts. Even though it was pretty much a copy and paste situation, we got through these in half of the lesson and from here, our teacher set us questions from the same textbook that our old teacher did. This was super helpful and my marks were excellent for module 6 since we were given heaps of questions.
Now, however, for module 7, he doesn't do this. I am feeling so demotivated. I loved physics being my favourite subject and now I feel how I would going to English classes when I walk into physics. I have not learnt anything from this teacher and doing 3 questions per lesson doesn't cut it for me. Whenever I ask for the harder textbook, my teacher says "oh sorry, I forgot it in the staffroom," or "oh, I'll upload it tonight," and never does. The other day I went off at him and stated how I'm learning absolutely nothing in these lessons and these questions are not helping me in the slightest. I, along with the majority of my class, have literally done barely any homework this term because there is no clarity in what homework we should complete. Since we take so long to get through the textbook, it literally takes us a week to get to chapter questions as opposed to these random little 'exercise' boxes with 3 stupid questions to 'consolidate our understanding.'
He even has a massive drive from the previous teacher which literally has annotated explanations from the harder textbook, and I feel like it would be more efficient for him to just STFU the entire lesson and we work it out ourselves, since we are wasting time. I feel really bad for the year 11s too. My friend has a brother in year 11 and he along with the rest of the class learn absolutely nothing. This is literally a living hell and I'm contemplating the idea as for whether I should repeat since I wanted a band 6 in this subject at the beginning of year 12. Now, since I have had a whole term without homework, I don't think this is possible and I don't know what I'll do. Parents will literally kill me.
Before you suggest talking to the school, we tried that and they can't get a teacher.
Initially, we did have a physics teacher. They went through some summarised notes that they had made and illustrated concepts with diagrams. From here, they explicitly set out chapter questions for us to complete. On average, we were doing 20 or so questions per day from the Surfing Physics booklet which was heaps of fun (I like learning lol).
Even though I do note taking at home, it was extremely helpful having a teacher who knew what they were doing by starting off with the basics which we could take to enhance our understanding. With this new teacher, however, this is how lessons are structured:
1. Open the Jacaranda physics textbook
2. The teacher reads the textbook word for word the entire lesson
3. When it says "exercise," our teacher sets us those questions. Usually there are only 3 or so, and three physics questions per day is hardly beneficial
Up until recently, they did make some basic PowerPoints for module 6 which summarised concepts. Even though it was pretty much a copy and paste situation, we got through these in half of the lesson and from here, our teacher set us questions from the same textbook that our old teacher did. This was super helpful and my marks were excellent for module 6 since we were given heaps of questions.
Now, however, for module 7, he doesn't do this. I am feeling so demotivated. I loved physics being my favourite subject and now I feel how I would going to English classes when I walk into physics. I have not learnt anything from this teacher and doing 3 questions per lesson doesn't cut it for me. Whenever I ask for the harder textbook, my teacher says "oh sorry, I forgot it in the staffroom," or "oh, I'll upload it tonight," and never does. The other day I went off at him and stated how I'm learning absolutely nothing in these lessons and these questions are not helping me in the slightest. I, along with the majority of my class, have literally done barely any homework this term because there is no clarity in what homework we should complete. Since we take so long to get through the textbook, it literally takes us a week to get to chapter questions as opposed to these random little 'exercise' boxes with 3 stupid questions to 'consolidate our understanding.'
He even has a massive drive from the previous teacher which literally has annotated explanations from the harder textbook, and I feel like it would be more efficient for him to just STFU the entire lesson and we work it out ourselves, since we are wasting time. I feel really bad for the year 11s too. My friend has a brother in year 11 and he along with the rest of the class learn absolutely nothing. This is literally a living hell and I'm contemplating the idea as for whether I should repeat since I wanted a band 6 in this subject at the beginning of year 12. Now, since I have had a whole term without homework, I don't think this is possible and I don't know what I'll do. Parents will literally kill me.
Before you suggest talking to the school, we tried that and they can't get a teacher.