From Memorising to Discovering: Making Physics Come Alive

Teaching Physics, especially topics such as rotational motion, can be challenging. Students often struggle to visualise the direction of vector quantities, get overwhelmed by lengthy derivations and numerical problems, and find it difficult to connect rotational motion with the linear motion they have already learned. For many students, differentiation and integration make an already abstract topic even more inaccessible, especially for non-math learners.

There is also a structural challenge. Students devote their time to building their portfolios, which limits the classroom time available for exploratory activities. As a result, practical periods often become limited to completing prescribed experiments from the lab manual, leaving little room for the imaginative, hands-on engagement that Physics actually needs.

Instead of relying only on textbook explanations and lab-manual practicals, I designed simple, original activities using everyday objects to make abstract concepts easier to visualise and reason through rather than simply memorise them.

While teaching rotational motion, I rolled two balls of different sizes but the same mass and asked students to predict which would win a race and why. I also compared a shot put and a medicine ball, asking students to predict which would spin faster or roll farther and explain their reasoning. These simple questions opened the doors to deeper discussions: Do we need energy for rolling? What helps an object roll? What role does static friction play? What happens to the individual particles of a rolling object in terms of velocity and direction? Does the surface matter?

I followed the same discovery-based approach while teaching free fall, projectile motion, and reaction time, using simple, reasoning-driven questions rather than giving direct explanations. In Class 12, I extended this approach to optics, using a strand of hair as an obstacle to demonstrate diffraction with a laser.

The common thread was simple: low-cost, self-designed experiments combined with open-ended questioning, allowing students to predict, observe, and reason before I formally explained the concept.

The biggest impact was engagement. Students genuinely enjoyed these sessions, and that enjoyment translated into deeper thinking. Instead of passively receiving information, they began imagining possibilities and reasoning through them aloud.

Some students answered immediately, while others took time to think. Many were visibly surprised when their predictions did not match reality but everyone participated. Even students who were usually disengaged or drowsy during regular lectures were eager to volunteer for the activities.

This experience showed me that activity-based learning can draw students into the learning process and encourage them to think, question, and explore. It may not replace regular teaching in every lesson, but even two or three meaningful activities in a chapter can make learning noticeably more interesting and engaging.

For me, the greatest lesson has been that when students are given an opportunity to discover rather than simply receive knowledge, Physics becomes not just a subject to learn, but an experience to explore.

Teacher360’s Celebrating the Teacher campaign invited educators across India to share innovative classroom ideas and practices that are making learning more meaningful for students. From the submissions received, 10 educators were shortlisted for their distinctive approaches to classroom practice, innovation and student development. The campaign celebrates educators who are rethinking how learning can connect with students’ lives and prepare them beyond the classroom.