Learning from an Expert Teacher: Feynman’s Teaching of Gravitation as an Examplar

Abstract

An expert teachers’ instruction can be helpful to other teachers because good teaching effectively guides students to develop meaningful learning. Feynman is an excellent physics lecturer as well as one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century who presented and explained physics with his unique teaching style based on his great store of knowledge. However, it is not easy to capture and visualize teaching because it is not only the complex phenomena interrelated to various factors with the content to be taught but also the tacit representation. In this study, the framework of knowledge & belief based on the integrated mental model theory was used as a tool to capture and visualize complex and tacit representation of Feynman’s teaching of ‘The theory of gravitation,’ a chapter in The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman’s teaching was found to go beyond the transmission of physics concepts by showing that components of the framework of knowledge & belief were effectively intertwined and integrated in his teaching and the storyline was well-organized. On the basis of these discussions, the implications of Feynman’s teaching analyzed within the framework of knowledge & belief for physics teacher education are derived. Finally, the characteristics of the framework of knowledge & belief as tools for the analysis of teaching are presented.