Ms. Twu, in front of her classroom advertisement for her videos.
Ms. Yau-Jong Twu, an AP physics B and C teacher at ERHS, creates and produces her own YouTube videos on physics lessons.
Ms.Twu has her own website, www.twuphysics.org, from which students can access YouTube videos on everything covered in the AP physics B course.
She also has links on her website to lectures and demonstrations from an MIT professor. She says these can be helpful because “there are not so many good teachers out there.”
She first started making her videos around April of 2012. Her students are required to study her videos at home, and to come to class prepared to either learn or review further.
According to junior Peter Kalu, the videos change the pace of the class. Ms. Twu does not need much time to teach in class because her videos are so detailed. “I feel like they help class go by faster because she doesn’t spend time teaching,” said Kalu.
Most of the time in class is spent reviewing what was in the videos for homework the previous night, so students can get enough practice with certain topics.
Junior Khalil Bilal said Ms. Twu’s teaching methods is “the most effective way of grasping the concept of physics.”
The videos might be made primarily for her AP classes, but on her website she encourages anyone who is learning physics to watch her videos in hopes that they will prove helpful. When asked whether video lessons or learning in class is more effective she says it is “different for different people” and she is just “trying to do something that will reach more people.”
Some schools have difficulty finding qualified physics teachers. She said when she “heard people looking for physics teachers” she said she thought “I can do this, at least I know how to teach physics.” She got this idea from watching online videos, such as how to fix a leak in the faucet of her house. About a year before making her videos, Ms. Twu had a deaf student in her class, and it is difficult for an interpreter to translate certain physics terms. She said she is still working on her videos, and that the next step would be to add subtitles to her physics videos.