Courses

Given that I hold a joint appointment with UWC and SARAO, I have a half teaching load. My strength is computational physics skills and so those are the primary courses I teach. I teach following two components of larger modules:

PHY720 - Computational Physics course (Hons)

I teach a semester-long course at Honours level on computational physics. I taught this for the first time in 2021, in the height of the pandemic. The aim of the course is to equip students with the skills and knowledge required to solve research problems in physics. Many of the skills they obtain are also highly relevant to a wide variety of technical jobs in industry. The course is purely continuous assessment based, as an exam is considered a highly artificial form of assessment for a course of such a practical nature. While in 2021 this course was taught almost entirely remotely, as of 2022 we have returned to in-person teaching, heavily supported by resources on iKamva. I include the schedule and course content below, and further discuss details of my approach to this course in Teaching Practices. I've also included a photo (reproduced with permission) of the Honours class of 2022 and their tutor (one of my PhD students).

Outline of the course objects from the Honours iKamva site. The objectives for 322 are similar, the content is smaller in scope however.

Comp Phys Hons 2022 Schedule

PHY322 - Physics Practicals (3rd year)

Since 2020, I have taken a component of the 3rd year physics student practical courses. Traditionally, this component has taken the form of a programming project done in groups. When I took over, I changed it to a more heavily scaffolded practical course in computational physics. I considered this change necessary for two reasons: the first was the pandemic made group work more challenging, especially for those with poor internet connections, and the second was that because of the wide range of experience with programming (see Student Context for more discussion), I felt that group projects were unfair to beginners and experienced programmers alike. I thus developed a new series of guided practicals to more gradually introduce the required skills while still providing a good set of challenging problems to solve. Below I show the outline of the course, with a new practical for students to work on every two weeks. I found this is sufficient time for students to get to grips with the work, especially as it allows two in-person sessions to assist students less familiar with programming. I further discuss my approach to this course in Teaching Practices.

PHY322 Prac Schedule

Tutor Koketso explains a concept to a 3rd year student while another student listens to music to help him focus on his work (photo shared with permission).

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse