When I coach students, I have the students draw a cartoon. I tell them what to draw (e.g. “Draw a horizontal line at the top of the page that’s about an inch wide.” and then I give them another instruction and another and another,  until they’ve drawn the whole situation that I want them to think about. Then I describe to them what I just had them draw, and I ask them questions to help them reflect on what might happen if a specific object in the drawing starts moving to the right, or sinks, and so on. This starts the reasoning process that is the foundation of physics.

When I work with students, I don’t wait for them to tell me about a homework problem that they’re struggling with or ask me a question. Oftentimes students don’t know how to start the homework because they don’t understand the subject. And if they knew what questions to ask, they might be able to ask ChatGPT or Google or another student or even maybe their teacher. If they need a tutor, it is usually because they feel lost.

I think of teaching physics like teaching a student to ride a bike. If the person who agrees to teach you to ride a bike spends day after day riding the bike themselves and describing to you what they’re doing the whole time, while you take notes one it – by the time Friday comes and they give you an assignment to ride the bike, it will be the first time you have ever ridden a bike! It may not go so well. And if that assignment is graded and the grade affects how the teacher, your parents, and your friends treat you and whether you can go to the college that you want, it really sucks.

I call what I do coaching because it is effectively like coaching somebody to ride a bike properly. This means that they get on the bike, not me. I tell them where to put their feet, their hands, and I tell them that they will fall in 20-40 seconds, and that’s OK. They have all of the protective gear and they are not going to get hurt. And then they are just going to shake it off, and get back on the bike again. But they are riding the bike, not me.