July 05, 2011

Contact:   Bill Giduz

Boye works with Chinese students.

Though he couldn't read a word on street signs, nor order a meal in a restaurant, Dan Boye had little trouble communicating about quantum mechanics with academicians in China.

"Physics is a universal language," said the Davidson College professor of physics, who recently spent three weeks advising Chinese college students and faculty members about American approaches to physics education. "Physics for everyone everywhere is expressed as mathematical symbols that are identical in all cultures," he said. "Tied to this mathematical language is conceptual understanding that starts in one's native language. At the professional level, the current standard for physics is English."

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interaction of matter and energy.

Boye's visit to Shaanxi Normal University in the ancient city of Xi'an came at the invitation of physicist Professor Hairong Zheng and was financed through a grant she received from the Chinese national government. Boye and Zheng were both mentored in graduate studies by American physicist Richard Meltzer at the University of Georgia, and were reacquainted at a conference last year.

Zheng's grant was aimed at promoting bilingual physics education in China. She asked Boye to visit and help with that initiative through three projects. Boye presented American-style lectures to several classes of physics students to demonstrate American pedagogy, and he conducted discussions of pedagogy with Chinese professors. Finally, he helped write and edit a new quantum mechanics textbook in English.

Boye returned to Davidson with a first-hand appreciation for the already impressive level of bilingual education in the Chinese educational system. He noted that Chinese physics professors already deliver a part of each of their lectures in English, that all material they write on the board is in English, and that many of their textbooks are English language.

That working knowledge of English is developed through hard work from the very beginning of a Chinese child's school career. Boye said children attend school from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week, plus a short session on Sunday.

Boye and his host, Prof. Hairong Zheng, with a poster advertising one of his public lectures.

The Chinese national educational system sends about 350 of their best physics students to American graduate schools every year, by far the largest segment of the international student population. But they have been educated in a highly regimented and authoritarian teaching style. Chinese teachers start at the front of the textbook and lecture about it page by page to the end. Teachers rarely quiz students during lectures, and students don't ask questions.

"Teachers are masters at covering huge amounts of material to fully prepare students for coursework in graduate school," Boye observed. "But they aren't prepared when it comes to working in upper levels of grad school where success in research requires turning ill-defined problems into manageable ones through a sequence of creative and logical steps."

Realizing that the existing rote method of education muffles creativity and initiative, his Chinese hosts wanted Boye to show them the way he conducts his Davidson classes. "My purpose was to demonstrate that it's more interesting, exciting and engaging when there is conversation in a class," Boye said. "Lecturing may be the most efficient way of presenting knowledge, but it's not the most effective way of communicating and transferring that knowledge."

Boye worked with the quantum mechanics class at Shaanxi Normal University, which consisted of five sections of 50 third-year physics majors. He conducted several lectures for individual sections and the class as a whole while Chinese faculty members observed his methods. Boye taught as he does at Davidson, posing questions to students and inviting their questions. "I was there to help break through the barrier between student and professor, and to inject some interaction," he said. "Students learn and retain best through active engagement with the subject matter."

In a public lecture and other meetings with faculty members he discussed American educational pedagogy. He encouraged them to step back from their strict adherence to textbooks and work toward synthesizing material from multiple sources.

Boye lectures to a class of Chinese physics students.

He also talked with them about the American emphasis on undergraduate research, and how he tries to nurture creativity in all his classes. While they seemed appreciative and impressed, Boye isn't sure they can follow his advice. "It's working against thousands of years of educational tradition in China," he said. "I think they recognize the advantages of this aspect of our system but it's going to be difficult for them to change quickly."

Boye also worked with faculty members on a new quantum mechanics textbook that fits the Chinese curriculum. He helped ensure the grammar was proper English, and suggested pedagogical enhancements, such as inclusion of some of the open source online physics exercises developed by his Davidson departmental colleagues Wolfgang Christian and Mario Belloni. The book will be used at Shaanxi Normal University, and might become the nationwide standard text.

Boye also got out of the classroom for some sightseeing. Xi'an was China's first capital city, and the area is rich in historical treasures, such as the buried terra cotta warriors and stone tablets carved with the writings of Confucius and the first mention of Christianity in China. He was guided throughout his stay by students, and enjoyed fielding their questions about "Osama and Obama." He played Ping-Pong with Chinese colleagues who personally remembered their country's opening to the West through President Richard Nixon's Ping-Pong diplomacy. "My hosts were gracious, generous and worked very hard to make sure my stay was enjoyable," Boye said.

The final week of Boye's visit were in the Manchurian area of China. He was hosted by Dr. Zaicheng Sun of the Changchun Institute for Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, a colleague from Boye's recent sabbatical leave in Albuquerque. In Changchun, Boye gave two optical materials research lectures and ventured out to see the palace of the Last Emperor and a volcano on the Chinese-North Korean border.

"The trip will influence everything I do from now on," said Boye. "I have a greater understanding of one-fifth of the world's population, and personal impressions of the importance of personal and cultural freedom in the classroom."

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,900 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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