This Saturday, on March 9, 2019 we held our 41st UBC Physics Olympics. More than 730 BC secondary students participated in the events. They represented 72 teams from all over British Columbia who worked tirelessly for months to create their pre-builds, prepare for the Fermi Question and Quizzics competitions, and get ready for the hands-on […]

I am very fortunate to be teaching an online course that explores modern educational technologies and their influence on learning. The most exciting thing about the course for me is not that I am teaching it, but I am learning with my students. They are experienced mathematics and science educators who know so much and […]

I am currently teaching an online graduate course on creative use of technology in mathematics and science education. However, as we discussing technology use and mathematics and science teaching and learning and in teacher education, we inevitably come back to these questions: What does it mean to KNOW? What SHOULD our students know? WHY should […]

Last week while preparing myself for writing a research paper, I was reading about the invention of logarithms by John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617). The story of logarithms is a fascinating story connecting mathematics, science, and our everyday life. You can find a lot of information about it online, including many excellent videos, books, and […]

As I am saying good-bye to my students, who will soon be going on a physics teaching practicum in local schools, I keep recalling how I started physics teaching almost 30 years ago. It was not easy, considering I also had to do it in a foreign language (Hebrew) and in a school that had […]

I am very fortunate to be able to attend the STEM in Education 2018 conference organized by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. I am a Co-Chair of the 2020 STEM in Education Conference that will take place at UBC in 2020. This conference was one of the best I have attended […]

  For more photos click here. On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018, we had an amazing 8th Family Math and Science Day. My Mathematics Education colleague Dr. Cynthia Nicol and founded the event in 2010 and it is going strong!Despite the weather, we had almost 400 guests, more than 130 volunteers and lots and lots of fun. This […]

As we are celebrating the first day of the fall and are wondering what the winter has in store for us, I cannot think of a better science connection to the inevitable change of seasons than a very famous study by Philip Sadler – A Private Universe. I use it in my undergraduate and graduate […]

As I am writing my last blog post this summer, I have noticed a number of new posts online on the “stop-homework-before-it-stops-us” movement. The movement, or at least the way I understood it, aims to abolish homework in our schools as it has very low value (if not a negative value) in the eyes of […]

When I watched this video (in Hebrew), I knew that I had to make sure that my students – future physics teachers can watch it as well. This motivated me to contact an Israeli physics teacher – Dr. Ilya Mazin and ask him if it would be OK for me to translate it into English. […]