About PTTS Programme

Physics Training and Talent Search (PTTS) is a training Programme for highly research motivated and talented undergraduate and post graduate students across the nation following active learning methodology of training.

Some participants in the past  have been provided internships . There is a possibility of providing internships for few highly promising students who perform well in the program.

EARLIER PROGRAMMES

The first Programme of its kind was held from Dec18 to 30, 2015 at Kuvempu University, Karnataka for about 50 BSc III year students selected across India, with funding from several research institutes and national science academies. This Programme was highly successful and it motivated us to continue it. Since then, 4 Programmes have been held at different venues every year.

  • PTTS-2015 Kuvempu University (BSc - III year students)
  • PTTS-2016 Regional Institute of Education, Mysore (BSc - III year students)
  • PTTS-2017 Loyola College, Chennai (MSc - I year students)
  • PTTS-2018 National Institute of Technology, Surathkal (BSc - II year and MSc - I year students)
  • PTTS-2019 Manipal Institute of Technology,Mangalore (BSc II year and MSc I year)
  • PTTS-2021 ,(Online ) Ahmedabad University BSc II year and MSc I year

OBJECTIVES

To provide a platform for motivated students to interact with peers and experts in the field.
To identify talented students and nurture their talent for a research career in Physics.

Main Features

 

Active learning is gaining popularity in western countries.Interview with Carl Weiman, Nobel Laurate in Physics.

Teaching will be interactive in nature, where students will be encouraged to think, ask questions, critically examine the concepts and apply.Unlike in traditional lectures, in this programme classes will not be in the conventional chalk and talk style will be interactive in nature. Students will be asked questions, and will be encouraged to ask questions, in the lectures.They will be encouraged to discuss the solutions among themselves in the tutorials with the teacher playing more the role of a facilitator.

The experimental physics course will be structured so as to make students think of how to propose and design an experiment, and to identify errors in obtaining and interpreting the data. They will not be given a pre - designed experiment with instructions.

Though the content of the course is by and large traditional, the goal will be to train them to think like like a physicist.

To bring to focus the novelty in teaching methodology, a set of suggested guidelines for teachers has been prepared for both theory and experimental courses. which will be shared with the resource persons. We believe that this teaching methodology, in the theory courses and especially in the experimental course, will have a larger impact on the philosophy and training in physics education beyond PTTS.

 

GUIDELINES FOR TEACHERS IN THEORY COURSES

During the class:

 

 

  1. NO Power point presentation of lectures, but only blackboard presentation.

 

  1. Classes have to be interactive. Conventional continuous lecturing should not be more than 10-15 minutes at a stretch.

 

Pause, by asking students for suggestions as to how to proceed further, giving hints if needed. Ask simple questions to check if they understood what was said.

 

WE DO NOT COMPROMISE ON THIS ASPECT.

NO LECTURING FOR THE FULL DURATION WITHOUT INTERACTION WITH STUDENTS AT REGULAR INTERVALS

 

 

  1. Care should be taken, so that we do not end with bright students alone answering with not so sharp or shy students not answering. Possible ways to avoid this include:
    • Ask everyone individually what they think
    • Ask other students if another student’s answer is correct.
    • Ask them to vote for different answers

 

The following has to be emphasized in the course of lectures:

  • Emphasize the Importance of notation: like arrows for vectors,
  • Don’t compartmentalize subjects: teaching course A, how concepts/techniques appear/change in other courses B,C.. must be pointed
  • Train them to  taking limits, qualitatively first guess the answer.

 

  1. Students should develop the spirit of They should be encouraged to ask and

answer “why, why not” kind of questions at every stage.If they dont, you ask them such questions.

 

e)We would like the teacher and tutor to attend the other courses at the same level. Coordinators will also be attending the classes.

We encourage any teacher attending the class to ask a potential good question which you expect a student must ask. Students must observe a mature question asked and learn to ask such questions in future.

 

SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION OF LECTURES

 

  1. Usually one proves some general result and then illustrates it in several

See if it can be reversed it by working simple examples and then making students see the general result for themselves? This should give them a thrill of discovery.

  1. Students can be trained to ask questions which can be critical or

Critical questions: Something new is taught, how does it agree/not agree with what is already known?

Creative questions: If some result is shown in a given situation, envisage a different situation or add some complication and ask how the result is modified?

Such questions can be prepared when preparing the course. Feynman lectures has such approach.

  1. Students must learn to ponder over a problem/puzzle for a while and to arrive at a solution after thinking hard about it. This can be achieved by giving quiz/puzzle questions to be answered the next

TUTORIALS

Tutorial problems can have the following components, wherever possible:

  1. Critically examine concepts
  2. application of concept/technique 
  3. numerical problems to get feel for numbers
  4. prove some results.

Problems can be of increasing difficulty.

 In tutorials , participants will be asked formed in groups. Once problem sheet is given, they will be asked to discuss among themselves as to how to start the problem.

They should not jump to start writing without discussing. Each group has to be check with the tutors, if their approach is correct. Tutors will be more facilitators to help them come with their solution.

GUIDELINES FOR EXPERIMENTAL COURSE

  1. Pose as a question what to investigate/prove.

 

Example: Show experimentally a)Force  is a vector, b) does diffraction depend on the state of polarization.?

 Example: Find a method of measuring the instantaneous velocity of a moving object.  Can involve circuits, which they can come up with.

 

2) Also it can be a problem posed to have  a controlled study and there should be scope for student to give qualitative theory to explain what they find.

Example: Measure damping constant of a damped oscillator as a function of temperature/concentration /pressure and find the behavior. Explain why such a behavior is seen.

Measure terminal velocity of any object and investigate how it depends on temperature/pressure/density of liquid. Give a theory to explain.

.

  1. Students should NOT be given any instructions as how to do the experiment.
  2. Students look around and use any available equipment/apparatus. Since we provide

very minimal equipment, students will have to fabricate their own equipment. The

budget constraint of Rs. 200 per student forces them to be innovative.

We sometimes give only empty room/empty lab .

  1. There should be scope for making measurements.
  2. Experimental error analysis: 1) identify sources of errors due to limitations of the

measurement process 2) identify sources of error due to mismatch between theoretical

idealization and experimental conditions.

There should a lecture on error analysis on the first few days

 

Past Programs

PTTS -2015      at Kuvempu University

PTTS 2016     at   Regional Institute of education

PTTS-2017  Loyola College  

PTTS-2018   National Institute of technology , Surathkal

PTTS-2019  Manipal Institute of Technology, Udipi

PTTS-2020 Cancelled due to the pandemic

PTTS-2021 Ahmedabad University(online

 

 

How to Apply