{"id":391,"date":"2020-01-14T11:04:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/?p=391"},"modified":"2020-01-14T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:06:08","slug":"faculty-spotlight-don-mathewson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/faculty-spotlight-don-mathewson\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Spotlight: Don Mathewson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Lisa Gedak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don Mathewson values family. This fact is evident when you look at the\nsmiling pictures adorning the walls of his Richmond campus office, and when he\nspeaks about those closest to him. This deep-rooted appreciation for familial\nvalues permeates into his practice at KPU where he teaches physics, \u201cI love\nbeing a parent, I think largely I view my students as somebody else’s children,\neven when they’re here, and they\u2019re older, they are still somebody else’s children;\nso, I take care of them like I would like somebody to take of my children.\u201d\nThis declaration for the care of his students is only one of the reasons Don is\ndeserved to be recognized for teaching excellence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I arrived at Don\u2019s office door for this interview, he was in the\nprocess of folding boxes upon boxes of T-shirts for the Kwantlen Science\nChallenge, of which he is the founder. The Kwantlen Science Challenge is a\nday-long event for teams of students from grades eight to twelve, and consists\nof practical laboratory challenges, and activities that are designed to be\neducational and entertaining. This multi-school event allows for high school\nstudents to explore KPU\u2019s programs and facilities. Don founded the event in\norder to \u201cpromote science and experimental science, and attract high school\nstudents to KPU programs\u201d For him, this is cyclic as the road leading to his\nown physics career began in high school \u201cI studied physics in high school, and\nwhen it came time to go to university it just seemed like the hardest thing, so\nI thought I would do that\u201d. Clearly, Don was up for the challenge, and, as his\nfirst ten years of teaching was within the high school context, organizing an\nevent of this nature came honestly. He notes that his current post-secondary\nlearners and the high school students he taught in those first years of his\ncareer are not so different \u201cby and large, I don\u2019t have a significantly\ndifferent approach, you know, I am a physics teacher; I teach physics to\neverybody\u201d, and if organizing one large multi-school event each year wasn\u2019t\nenough, Don took over the Junior Physics and Engineering competition about\nseven years ago, where junior science students in the lower mainland from\nvarious schools in grades eight to ten; learn about physics, build stuff, and\nhave some fun. It is another chance for Don to introduce high school students\nto the world of physics and what KPU programming has to offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once new students arrive on his door, he has some interesting lessons to offer. One of the more visually dynamic experiments he has done of late is demonstrating thermal expansion and buoyancy for his thermal physics students at KPU Richmond campus in an open outdoor space. \u201cbasically, it\u2019s a really big garbage bag, you get the students to run around and fill it with air. They fill it up in the shade and get it, so it is fairly tight and then bring it out into the sun. As it warms up, it expands and becomes less dense, and it floats\u201d physics offers many opportunities for experimentation and active experiences, and the learning is scaffolded from the first year to the second \u201cin first year, they are maybe not yet so proficient with their hands, so it is much more about interactive demonstrations. Some students might participate in the demonstration physically, but they all participate in it intellectually. You will elicit predictions, then have them discuss the predictions, and then do a final reveal, and then discuss what that shows you; that\u2019s a technique called interactive lecture demonstrations, which is something that I use a lot in that class\u201d and Don has many of these interactive lecture demonstrations, with no particular favourite, \u201canything that has an unexpected result really creates teachable moments, you get their attention when something happens, they didn\u2019t expect. One easy one is that I take a margarine lid, cut it in half and project it for the class to see, and I push a golf ball, and it rides against the rim of the lid. The question to the class is which path does it follow when it leaves the margarine lid? There are three choices, one, because of circular momentum it keeps going, two, because there is no more force on it goes in a straight line, three, because when something pulling in a circle is going outwards, the golf ball tends to fly outwards\u201d Obviously having no background in physics, I really didn\u2019t know what the answer could be, nevertheless, I couldn\u2019t help but contribute a guess as his enthusiasm was palpable. It would stay circular, right Don? \u201cthat is Aristotelian thinking, Aristotle circular motion, the motion of the planets moving around the sun was natural, that\u2019s the way things move; for him, the hard thing was to explain things going in a straight line. But of course, Newton, said that if there is no force, objects will go in a straight line; that is the law of inertia; and that the reason things move in a circle is that there is a force acting on them. So, all those answers are very well prescribed, but then you do the demonstration to see who’s right?\u201d So, who is right? Well, it turns out Newtonian thinking is correct \u201cwhen the rim is no longer pushing on it, it goes in a straight line\u201d He notes that by using physics assessment tests around the world, researchers have found that most students tend to be natural Aristotelian thinkers rather than Newtonian thinkers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time those first-year students end up in second year, they are ready\nto participate in their own experiments \u201cIn my second-year courses, the\nexperiments are actually built into the class, they actually do seatwork\nexperiments, and when you are teaching thermal dynamics there are a lot of neat\nlittle experiments you can do to reinforce their learning\u201d Clearly, whether\nfirst year, or second; his students are benefitting from more than just\npassively listening to lectures. And it is not only KPU students and lower\nmainland high schoolers who are benefiting from Don\u2019s wisdom, enthusiasm, and\nkindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aside from teaching, Don was heavily involved for six years in the Richmond\nminor jets hockey association as Referee in Chief. This involved a lot of\ncommunication and education of the young referees, the parents, the players,\nand the executive. Don loved this role and the community involvement that went\nwith it. In fact, his dedication to his hockey family, and the love for his\ncommunity, led him to go under the clippers on behalf of the minor hockey\nassociation for BC Children\u2019s hospital and to shave off his hair and beard \u201cI\u2019d\nalways said that one day I would grow a big bushy beard and then I would take\nit off and just be done with it, and so the catalyst was this hair shaving\nfundraiser came up, and I thought here’s a good opportunity, it was just that\nextra push I needed.\u201d Not everyone was sad to see it go, \u201cIt was time to lose\nthe hair. Everybody hated it, my kids hated it, my wife hated it, my parents\nhated it, my sisters hated it; so eventually it just became time\u201d but, did the\nbeard reach the level of bushiness he was hoping for? \u201cNo, I wanted a Gandalf\nbeard,\u201d so, is there a Gandalf beard in Don\u2019s future? \u201cNo, it’s been done. I\nenjoyed it, but as I said everybody else that mattered hated it\u201d that may be\ntrue, but members of the Richmond scout troop where Don is the current\ntreasurer had no complaints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI was Santa for the party, I had both the beard and the girth; and I had the merry laugh\u201d Don was a scout as a kid in Montreal, and once his kids were both in scouts, becoming involved was natural \u201cWhen my kids get involved in things, I pitch in and help out\u201d physics also had a part to play in his scout role \u201cThere are programs at the weekly meetings, and some of them are STEM programs, and in the past, I have brought in science demonstrations to show the troop\u201d It seems Don\u2019s love for family and teaching are never far apart. But Don is not always the teacher; there have been many lessons he has learned from scouts and hockey that he pulls into his teaching practice \u201cwith sports, you learn about how to handle stressful situations, right? and difficult people, so, maintaining your cool as the only adult in the room is important as both a referee and in the classroom. Also, scouting is largely about character, so as an instructor I try to maintain high standards of personal conduct, I don\u2019t use profanity, I try to frame things in positive ways, those attitudes are important.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those valuable lessons and the desire to foster collaborative learning\nexperiences for his students, also contribute to Don\u2019s teaching excellence \u201cthe\nstudents spend the large part of class working in groups on whiteboards in what\nI call studio mode\u201d These collaborative opportunities spark deeper thinking and\nhelp students make essential connections \u201cwhen I hear them say something\ninsightful, or talk back and forth and come up with a solution I find\ninspiring, it infuses me with positive energy\u201d I can’t help but wonder if there\nis any further room for positive energy in this man. Still, before I can ponder\nthis, his eyes dart back to the pictures of his family on that office wall\n\u201cThey are what really infuses me with positive energy\u201d he says, and again\nreiterates that all of his students are \u201csomebody else’s children\u201d and that\nthis frames his teaching. Thank you for being a part of the KPU family Don, and\nfor treating the students that grace your classroom as a part of yours<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by: Lisa Gedak Don Mathewson values family. This fact is evident when you look at the smiling pictures adorning the walls of his Richmond campus office, and when he speaks about those closest to him. This deep-rooted appreciation for familial values permeates into his practice at KPU where he teaches physics, \u201cI love being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","iawp_total_views":45,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}