GUNTHER ROLAND: The writing skills are, I
think of, essential importance for any of the physics majors
here.
It doesn't do you much good if you
do the science just for itself.
You want to tell people about it,
and you want to be able to do that
in a professional manner that really
gets the appropriate appreciation
for your scientific work.
And to do that, you need to understand
what is really the form of communication
that scientists, physicists use.
And that is, I think, one of the key elements in junior lab--
to really explain how this is done,
and then through practice, really develop that skill.
So two of the things that the students do in 8.13 and 8.14,
in addition to performing the experiments, is to,
A, give 15-minute presentations on the experiments
in the style of an APS parallel session
and write four-page papers on each experiment in the style
of Physical Review Letter.
And I think there are two elements to this.
And one is, of course, that this is a large part of their grade.
So this is a skill that we judge.
But I think it is also a skill that the students really
develop in 8.13 and 8.14.
Most of them, before joining the lab,
have never written a paper.
And many of them have not given presentations in that style
before.
Some of them have.
Some of them haven't.
And so this is a skill that they get to practice.
It's a skill that they really need later on.
And it's also something that many of them
are rather worried about when starting the class.
One of our teaching--
one of our writing instructors likes to say,
fear of public speaking is one of the top fears
that people list when asked what they are really worried about.
And what we tell the students, and what they really find out
during the class, is that public speaking
is a skill that you can really perfect through practice.
And for me as an instructor-- and I hope also
for the students-- seeing the progression of them
during the semester from really not knowing
what to do with the 15 minutes of speaking time
to having professional presentations at the very end
is really one of the most gratifying things in 8.13,
and then later in 8.14, to see how much their skill really
improves over the course of three, four months.
So there are many ways in which we
try to help the students really develop these communication
skills.
One is, of course, instruction and examples.
Before they do their first presentation,
then they give the presentation.
They meet with the writing instructors
afterwards to go over the presentation
and get feedback from them.
Typically, what we do is we have 15-minute presentations
and then a 15-minute question and answer session
that we also use to give feedback on the presentations.
And then at the very end of the semester,
the students take their favorite of the three presentations
they gave during the semester, refine it a bit,
and then give it in front of the whole class--
again, after getting feedback from the writing instructor.
So there's a lot of practice, and there's
a lot of back and forth between the students, the writing
instructors, and the lab staff.
In 8.13, obviously, at the beginning of the semester,
there's an extremely wide spectrum
in terms of their communication skills.
Some people are just naturally more
inclined to talk to a large audience,
to present themselves, whereas others
are mortified doing that.
And I think by the end of 8.13, that spread
becomes much narrower.
Of course, not everybody will have the same spirit
when giving a presentation.
But I think by the end of 8.13, everybody
is at a level where they have no problem giving
a 15-minute professional presentation.
I think 8.14, the focus really moves
from just being able to fill the 15 minutes somehow
to a much more detailed discussion
of the professional elements of the presentations--
the uncertainty analysis, really the depth
in which they examine the data that they've taken,
and the sophistication of the analysis methods.
I think that is more of the focus in 8.14
after 8.13 has really prepared them to--
just the basic tools.