Read a summary of our conversation with Professor Jagannathan »
Kannan (Jagu) Jagannathan shared his reflections on his journey of teaching at Amherst College, a journey that started in 1981. Before coming to Amherst, however, he spoke about being a new graduate student at the University of Rochester, having completed his previous studies in India. At a social gathering at the University, he saw a coffee and tea station, and he went to make a cup of tea. After pouring hot water into his cup, he selected a tea bag and proceeded to start trying to open the tea bag to release the leaves into his cup. “No,” a colleague said, “you put the whole bag into the cup.” So, he did. Next, wanting to sweeten his tea, he took a packet of sugar and, as he was previously instructed, put the whole packet into his cup. “No,” this same colleague said, “you pour the sugar out of the packet into your cup.”
This was a baffling experience, and one that Jagu cited as demonstrative of a key goal he has for students: How to help students think deeply about Physics in a way that they are not merely replicating calculations using a formula, but instead thinking about the contexts in which a formula does or does not apply to the question at hand. To accomplish this goal, he said, he will often ask students to tell a story. What is happening in this problem? What is the narrative? When students are encouraged to describe the problem in their own words, he said, they are more likely to grasp the complexities and the contextual information that informs how to go about approaching a solution.
Jagu also reflected on how he has witnessed the research on teaching and learning change over his career. Moving away from a one-size-fits-all model, he said that he is encouraged by the increasing attention paid to context variability in pedagogical research. And, at the same time that the research on teaching and learning has expanded, so too, he said, has his capacity for new approaches to teaching in the classroom. Last year, Jagu partnered with Mariama-Alexis Camara through CTL’s Pedagogical Partnership Program. About this experience, Jagu said, “I’m now more open to trying things even if I’m uncomfortable trying them.”
As he reflected on his experience teaching for over 40 years at the College, he said, “Teaching and learning are processes, rather than states of being.” There is always more to learn and more relationships with students to forge. He said repeatedly how much he likes and appreciates his students, and described a goal for his teaching as one that fosters in students “a sense of being together, working together, on a common enterprise. We are on the same team.”
