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Barbara Dellenback: From KLCC Media, this is The Oregon Grapevine. I'm Barbara Dellenback. The Oregon Grapevine highlights fresh-pressed conversations with people who are actively and passionately creating the present and future in which they wish to live. Dr. David Altman is a physics professor at Willamette University. Thank you so much for taking the time to come to The Oregon Grapevine, David. I appreciate it.
Dr. David Altman: Thank you so much. I'm really happy to talk with you today.
Dellenback: Physics is a huge place to begin. Why are you teaching physics? Are you teaching it to people for whom it's their passion, or is it more of a broad-based look at what physics is? How do you make it accessible?
Altman: Good questions. My audience at Willamette is at a liberal arts college where students are interested in a broad education. I teach plenty of people for whom physics is not necessarily their passion. It really runs the gamut. Some know that's where they want to go and have a burgeoning passion for it. I have some students who know it isn't going to be their future, but they were captured at some point in the past, maybe by astronomy or some other aspect of physics, and they want to keep that going. And then I have students who have fear of it. So my audience really runs the gamut. In terms of making it accessible, the first thing I try to do in all my classes is address the stereotype that a physics class is going to be weeding out people who don't have the ability to do physics, and remove the assumption that there's some innate ability that you either have or you don't. I try to make sure everybody knows that anyone can be a physicist, anyone can think like a physicist, if you just put in the work. I can hopefully increase people's confidence in themselves. The other thing I really try to address is connecting it to the real world, moving it from the textbook. There's nothing better than a good demonstration to pull somebody in to see what they're learning in action. Beyond that, getting hands-on experience is also really crucial. I have a research lab at Willamette that I use as a teaching space, because I often find that students, even if they like what's happening in the classroom, really get an authentic view of what physics is about as a growing body of knowledge by getting that hands-on work and starting to ask and answer their own questions. Does that make sense?
Dellenback: Yes, it does. Long ago, I went to school at Indiana University briefly, and I was in a dorm with a lot of education majors. They were elementary ed majors, and as one of their required classes, they took physics for elementary ed teachers. It was basically preparing them to teach young kids about apples falling, about paper folding, about the various things that happen in our world that are physics-related. I was very jealous because I wasn't allowed to take the class. Do you have a situation or accessibility that way for people who are not physics majors? I'm sure it's hard to extract the math completely, but is there a way to go there, whether it's a book, or people, or discussions about how to explain physics at a very elementary level?
Altman: I do have opportunities to teach physics to people who are math-averse. Sometimes people have fears, sometimes they've had bad experiences with math and physics, and math especially. It's a challenge when you have somebody who's like, I really love physics, but I don't like math. That's a real challenge because they're so intertwined with each other. One thing that's been helpful is that I've had a chance to teach an astronomy course, which is very much for a general education audience with no prerequisite knowledge. It fulfills a general education requirement, so it gets a very broad audience. The thing that really made the class work for me was devoting the first 15 to 20 minutes of a big chunk of the class at the beginning to just letting students ask all the questions they had, no matter how off the wall, even if very tangential to what we're doing. I really like to cultivate the idea that even if you do have fear about what you can achieve, you always have questions. You always have this fascination about the world around you. I guess I tried to cultivate that. It doesn't totally answer your question about how you get the physics across, especially with less exposure to math. I'm very fortunate to have small classes, which is pretty crucial for supporting my students and guiding them through that. The majority of my effort goes to helping them with the problem solving and the math required to answer the questions we're asking. I'm still working on the best way to support students in that way.
Dellenback: One of the ways that I discovered the work you're doing, as you know, but explain to the audience: Willamette has a colloquium system, which you can talk a little about. But during one of those experiences, you chose to bring the physics of knitting and fiber arts into that discussion. As a knitter, I find it fascinating. I am one of these math-averse people, but I now wish there were math classes built around things like the math of knitting, which I'm having to teach myself. I'd love for you to talk about how that came about. I don't think people think about physics and knitting together, and I'd love for you to talk about that, partly the project you did as a class, but also the way it changed you and what you learned from it.
Altman: Sure. The colloquium classes have a goal of being an introduction to college: to reading, writing, discussion and critical analysis. Because it's focused on those broad skills, faculty are allowed to choose what they want to teach. It's less focused on specific content and more on those general skills. When I started the class, it wasn't even about the physics of knitting. It was just about knitting culture. It's a really nice way to teach something very different for me, out of my wheelhouse, but something I was very passionate about. I really enjoy knitting. The interesting thing is, it's only recently that I've been able to really tie it back to physics, which has been so exciting, because it turns out there are some really amazing people studying knitting as code, and the material properties of knit fabrics, and how that can be understood and taken advantage of to develop objects that you could put on your wrist, for example, that would give you specific support based on the different patterns you use to create forces at different points along your arm. It started as a situation where I had my physics here and my knitting here, very different things, and watching them merge has been one of the most fun experiences I've had. And to your point about being math-averse but being a knitter, I would be shocked if you didn't have developed math skills that I think all knitters need to understand a pattern. It's a very good example of how we can develop intuitions in our applications of math, because you really do need certain math skills to understand a pattern and make sense of it.
Dellenback: Yeah, absolutely. I've always wanted there to be a class in, let's balance checkbooks, let's do the math of how to build a shelf, let's do the math of making change. When I think about math, it's much more approachable and accessible if I know it as a real-life thing, instead of sitting in abstract math classes. I'd like to talk a little about the idea of critical thinking, specifically what you were talking about with introducing people to college and to this whole way of academia and thinking, and how maybe that's changed in your observation. We hear that critical thinking is a skill that is being lost, but you're in the midst of the academic world, so I'd love to get your insights on that.
Altman: It's a good question about how students have evolved since I've been at Willamette. I've been here since 2009. Honestly, I'm going through a period right now where I'm feeling very inspired. I've always been inspired by my students, but right now I feel like we're having this interesting moment. We've been through very challenging times with COVID that I feel has had a very long tail in its impact on our education and our sense of community. Especially these last few years, I've just found this sort of bounce-back where I have students who are excited to be together and engaged and working together. I don't know if this totally answers your question. I would just say that right now, I'm feeling rather inspired by my students' ability to think creatively and critically in the classroom, in part because I just see this real excitement of being back together, if that makes sense.
Dellenback: Yes and no. I mean, the questions are pretty open-ended, so whatever you say answers the question. Do you think it's an unusual idea to have this colloquium class, partly allowing the professor to be creative and do interesting things with his or her thinking? I don't know that that's a usual offering of a school.
Altman: I do feel like it is unique for us to have free reign on our topics in this way, though I honestly can't speak too well to how frequently this occurs at other schools. I will say I appreciate this, especially because if we are teaching students to think critically and engage with material at a deeper level than they might have in their high school experiences, one thing I really do appreciate about having this freedom is that when I'm teaching about knitting, when I'm teaching about political activism and knitting, I'm very much learning with them. This is not something I was trained in, and so it gives them a nice opportunity to really be collaborative with me in the exploration of the topic. It really breaks down the idea of me standing up and just talking down to them, if that makes sense. So I think it is a unique experience. And I think in particular, by going in this direction, I had this unique opportunity to say, listen, this is something I'm passionate about. I hope I can convince you that it's exciting. Let's learn about this together.
Dellenback: I think also, from what I'm hearing in conversations, there's a much more open process and acceptance of interdisciplinary education, whether it's you as a physicist also engaging with astronomers and chemists and other hard sciences, but also just the more general conversation about literature and politics and history and science. How does that work in your life?
Altman: Starting with the sciences: I do engage in research that crosses biology, chemistry and physics, and in my lab I'm able to pull in students from those departments, from math, from computer science. It's multidisciplinary work, which I really value. Especially at a small school like this, it's just amazing the opportunities to bring people together who have different ways of seeing the world. Now, granted, that's just in the sciences. I appreciate your point about broadening to think about even outside of the sciences. I definitely feel like I'm in an environment where I can take advantage of that. The colloquium class has given me a unique opportunity to engage with other departments in a way that I have a feeling would otherwise be easy to silo myself from. I'm grateful to have had this opportunity to engage a little more broadly through this class. It's really taken me out of my comfort zone, and I really value that. Just as I value multidisciplinarity within the sciences, I think running it to include all disciplines is valuable for me and my students together.
Dellenback: I took very little science, very little math. But is there a common language of science, or when you're talking to someone who's as much into chemistry as you are into physics, or into biology, is there language that's similar, or is the language different? Do you need to have conversations across those disciplines to try to make sense to each other?
Altman: It totally makes sense. When things are working well in my research lab, we have people from different disciplines coming together. The more we come together, the more I realize there are these different languages. On one hand, it's very valuable to have people with different perspectives and a different mindset that can really shine light on our projects and bring new ideas. It is also kind of frustrating that we don't have more of a shared language sometimes. We really do have to work to make sure we understand when we're talking about the same thing and when we're talking about different things, because our disciplinary languages are not always the same. What I like about it in the end is that in my lab and in my classes, people are moving in and out of their comfort zones. Depending on where you're coming from, your comfort zones are different from your neighbor's. I think it fosters the ability for people to work and collaborate more effectively, even with those barriers and different disciplinary languages and assumptions. We can all come together and use our unique mindsets to collaborate more effectively.
Dellenback: How did you become a physics person and a physics professor? What's your path to where you are now?
Altman: It started in college. What really captured me was the research. As an undergraduate, I really enjoyed the classes and I always found physics to be really captivating and elegant. But it was when I got the hands-on experience in a research lab that things clicked. When you get to push against the boundaries of our knowledge, when you get to see where you can contribute to new ideas, it's a humbling thing, because you're just contributing a little, pushing against the boundaries of one specific field and one specific question. But it's still new knowledge. That really captivated me, this idea of new questions and new knowledge and being able to contribute to that. When I went to graduate school for physics, having more of a chance to really immerse myself in research again just bolstered that passion. That was when I discovered an opportunity to work in a lab focused on biological systems: proteins and cells that move things around, these molecular motors that I still study today, these microscopic, amazingly efficient, remarkable engines that are shoving things around the cell. That was when I discovered that beyond just being excited about physics, I also found the questions of life were just too exciting. I was all in on engaging with questions related to the cell. I had mentors who really taught me that there's a lot that can be done when you take a physics mindset to biological questions. That's when I kind of entered the trajectory I'm on now as a biophysics researcher.
Dellenback: And what inspires you to keep going and do what you're doing? Do you have an inspirational feeling and understanding?
Altman: I'm still constantly excited by the idea that sometimes you're in the lab and you know something that nobody else knows, even if it's small, even if it's minutiae. You see something that is new knowledge, which is always humbling and exciting. But really, the inspiring thing is when you see that in the students I'm working with. When they get a sense of what it means to be a scientist, I get excited myself. I always feel passionate about it. But without a doubt, the inspiration for me will always be that moment when students, even some who aren't as strong in the classroom, just open up in the lab. They get excited and they really find this energy and excitement for science there. That's where my passion is coming from these days especially.
Dellenback: I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you what you're knitting.
Altman: I actually don't knit as much these days as I would like to. I'm finding it hard to find the time. But there was this project in Salem associated with the state hospital, for the 50th anniversary, I think, of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the movie that was filmed there. They were doing a fundraiser where one of the members of the Salem knitting guild made a pattern based on the watch cap that Jack Nicholson wears in the movie. I think the fundraiser itself is over, but I'm still knitting that pattern. It's a really fun pattern to make these hats. I have little projects here and there, but that's the main thing I've been focusing on right now. I also always have a stash of yarn, yes. And the other goal I have right now is that I'm trying to strengthen my crocheting skills. I have too many amigurumi creatures I'd like to make. So it's at least aspirational to add a bit more crocheting skill to my repertoire.
Dellenback: Best of luck. Do you crochet at all?
Altman: Thank you. And do you crochet?
Dellenback: I do not. I'm not a crocheter at all. I can chain a chain stitch if I have to, but that's it. I'm just a knitter. Thank you so much, Professor David Altman, for talking to me about physics and knitting and for doing what you're doing, and kind of explaining that it isn't all just siloed, it's connected. Thanks so much for being on The Oregon Grapevine.
Altman: Thank you very much. This was really fun to talk with you.
Dellenback: You've been listening to KLCC Media's The Oregon Grapevine: fresh-pressed conversations with people who are actively and passionately creating the present and future in which they wish to live.
