Teaching

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."
—Shunryū Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

My teaching philosophy. I believe that the best way to teach or learn physics is to do it together, and that we keep physics vibrant and alive by experiencing and by discovering it with others. I strive to speak from the beginner's perspective and to strip away jargon. I seek to foster an open community, a friendly atmosphere, and a collaborative spirit. I emphasize questions, dialogue, and the agency of the class. I try to be approachable, and to exhibit generosity and compassion. I hold that repeated failure is necessary in physics, and should not be discouraged. For more about these and other principles that inform my teaching, here is my full Teaching Philosophy Statement.

Community involvement. I am a graduate member of the UDIP (Undergraduate Diversity and Inclusion in Physics) organization at UCSB. I also mentor undergraduate physics students and participate in UCSB's Physics Circus, an outreach organization dedicated to bringing physics demonstrations to younger and more diverse audiences.

Courses I have taught. I have been a Teaching Assistant for over a dozen introductory (lower-division) and advanced (upper-division) physics courses at UCSB. Here is a complete list of all of them.

Instructor of record. In the summer of 2022, I taught PHYS 103 (Intermediate Mechanics and Special Relativity), following Taylor's Classical Mechanics, as the instructor. Here is the syllabus.

Teaching Materials

Some miscellaneous materials I have written to supplement the courses for which I was a TA

• The light cone frame (Modern Physics): a fun exploration of the extreme relativistic limit.
• How to throw a frisbee (Advanced Mechanics): a demonstration by UCSB grad student Sean Buechele of the rotational dynamics of an axisymmetric body, with precession and nutation on full display.
• Black hole thermodynamics (Thermal and Statistical Physics): a sequence of problems and solutions.
• The double well, problems and solutions (Quantum Mechanics III): a series of exercises on perturbation theory, the variational principle, and the WKB approximation in the context of the double well potential.
• Entanglement and entropy (Quantum Mechanics III): a review of quantum entanglement and an introduction to mixed states, density matrices, and their von Neumann entropy.
• Lecture notes on Newtonian mechanics and special relativity: these lectures for a 10-week course cover Newton's laws, work and energy, small oscillations, and some special relativity. Coming soon!

Excerpts From Teaching Evaluations

Anonymous testimonials from undergraduate students for whom I was the TA

"I have had David as a TA for 4 classes and he is by far the best TA I have had throughout college. His command of the material is impressive and goes far beyond any minute detail discussed in any of the classes. He is powerful in his ability to explain topics to a range of listeners and have them each understand. His preparation, accessibility, and constant drive to go above and beyond make him a powerful learning asset to all those who are blessed to have him in their course. Beyond that he is personable, funny, and truly enjoyable to talk to, and therefore spreads his enthusiasm for physics to all that he teaches."

"He always provided excellent notes and summaries of all the material we covered. He responded quickly and always provided clear explanations. Even in our online format he did demonstrations and made them interactive. He wrote his own additional problems when they weren't provided by the professor. He always had a smile and was very enthusiastic and passionate. His sections were the only online sections that I actively looked forward to. I learned a lot more from him than from the professor."

"Best TA I will ever have. He is the most inspired and inspiring TA I have ever come across and is so well informed. He often answers questions with a unified view of physics and mathematics that is simply breathtaking. He is very generous with his time and kind as well. He can not only eloquently describe a solution or method, but also talk about the history of the methods in use and how they came to be in their time, deepening one’s perspective and awe in striving to understand what is."