Graduate attributes

First Tier Graduate Attributes

Through a heavy focus on self-directed learning, my students engage frequently with online content in the form of videos, text books and tutorials. While I give them sets of curated references, they are expected to search for additional information to help them complete the practicals. By first setting them problems which help direct their learning using existing resources, I encourage my students to develop a critical approach to the references they use, quickly discarding those that are irrelevant or unhelpful.

At first glance, a computational physics course does not seem to offer strong connections to social justice and the good of the world. However, I place a strong emphasis on ethical conduct in my courses and continually remind my students that they will soon be joining the workforce, whether it be academic or in industry, and must learn to conduct themselves appropriately.  Plagiarism is a key issue faced by all universities, given the ease of access to materials and other students through the internet. I provide training in my all my courses about plagiarism and have a clear policy regarding plagiarism, outlined in Assessment Practices.

This graduate attribute is close to my heart and is central to my entire approach to my courses. By focusing on self-directed learning, I empower my students to take charge of their own learning journey. I show them tools and resources that they can use to further their understanding well beyond what they learn in their degrees. I ensure they understand that as a professional in any technical discipline, they will never stop learning and independence will be central to their success, whatever career they choose.

With a strong practical focus, my courses naturally develop this graduate attribute in those who attend them. The assessments are all problem-solving driven and push students to apply what they have learnt to solve, in some cases, very challenging problems. I especially draw problem sets from physics, to help consolidate their learning from the rest of their degree. I also set more challenging problems inspired by my own research, which develops skills that are highly applicable to future careers in physics related disciplines. However, as I am also aware that most physics graduates will not actually become physicists, I make sure the problems they work on are also similar in nature to those found in data science and related disciplines. 

Second Tier Abilities and Skills

I love the phrase “inquiry-focused”. I believe this natural sense of curiosity is what draws many students to science and physics in particular. Inquiry-focused means to be driven by the need to understand, which is at the heart of every scientist. The way I structure my courses is to first present students with the problems that they need to solve, and then guide and support them in their journey to learn how to solve those problems. This emulates what many graduates will experience in the real world, where they will be presented with problems they may not at first have the tools to solve and instead need to equip themselves with those tools. I outline this approach further in Teaching Practices and Assessment Practices.

With my approach to teaching, this ability develops concurrently with  the previous one. Students have no choice but to engage with existing resources on the internet in order to solve the problems I set them. I find that, having for the most part grown up with google at their fingertips, even students less familiar with computers find this approach very natural. Rather than pushing students away from relying on the internet, which is actually quite normal for many professionals, I focus on developing critical and responsible use of internet resources. Students need to quote resources used to help them with problems and we work together in class through example problems to see how to use internet resources effectively to learn what they need to know. This is further discussed in Teaching Practices and I include below an example from the Honours course where I ask students to watch a video about Monte Carlo methods and then answer questions about it.

This is a key set of skills I aim to develop in my courses. It can be challenging to design a course to simultaneously develop autonomous and collaborative skills. I tend to shy away from group work as I feel it is rarely fair in situations with such a wide range of familiarity with programming. Instead, I encourage students to help each other and explain concepts to each other, which I find they do very naturally, while still submitting their own work. We discuss early in the course how to work together responsibly (see an extract below) so they understand how to work together while still maximising their development of independent skills. I really like the wording describing this set of skills, where individual and collaborative work should be driven by “openness, curiosity and a desire to find solutions”. I feel the structure of my courses tries to embody this sentiment.

Although computational physics as a field is somewhat less connected to social ethics and the environment than other fields, I still try to instill a strong sense of ethics and fairness in my students. In Assessment Practices, I have an extensive discussion on plagiarism and the policies I have implemented to train students to avoid this unethical behaviour. With my graduate students, we have more time to discuss ethics and social responsibility. My graduate students come from a range of backgrounds and our group is a wonderful opportunity for cultural exchange. This interaction alone makes them more socially aware of the South African context. I also bring them in as tutors for my classes and encourage them to do outreach, such as tutoring school kids or giving public talks, which gives them an opportunity to give back, especially to those from similar backgrounds to them. We often have discussions around the ethical responsibility that comes with being funded by taxpayers’ money. I ensure they understand where their bursaries come from and that they have a duty to be responsible with their funding, pursue their studies diligently and take every opportunity to make strong contributions to South African science. 

I often find the students I teach expect to communicate purely through mathematical equations or code, and are sometimes surprised when I ask them for written work. Although my courses focus on practical problem solving, I do have questions where I ask students to read a particular resource and then summarise their understanding. Or draw links between what they are learning about and what else they know about physics and write that down. Written communication is an essential part of being a good scientist and, while I do not ask for essays or papers, students do learn how to write clear practical reports and discuss their results. At the bottom of this page is an example of a question from the Honours course students to which students must give a written answer. Another important communication skill is that of giving presentations, which unfortunately I have not found room for in my courses. This is however emphasised in group meetings with my postgraduate students.

The courses I teach do not really develop this particular set of skills as I don’t have a strong focus on teamwork. I feel students at UWC are lucky enough to meet people from many different backgrounds which helps to develop this skillset. My postgraduate students have a fantastic opportunity to interact with not only other South African students from different backgrounds, but also with members of the Astronomy group who come from all over the world. I feel deeply gratified when I watch my students interact. Each student has unique strengths that they use to support each other without reservation. See my Student Supervision page for an image of them working together to understand a research problem.

Extract from PHY322 iKamva site

This is a short resource I provide to my students as part of educating them in how to collaborate in way that is more conducive to learning. This relates to the 4th graduate attribute of the second tier, which says students should be "autonomous and collaborative".

Extract from Prac 2 in Comp Phys Honours

This is an example of a question I give students which is not typical problem solving. Questions such as these help to develop students who are "critically and relevantly literate", by getting them to engage with modern resources, but who are also "skilled communicators" as it develops their written communication expertise.