Greg Salvesen

Teaching

My teaching philosophy is to inspire students to get excited about science by appealing to its inherent creativity. This approach is especially well-suited to astrophysics, whose study requires one to venture into the realm of extreme unfamiliarity and use clever techniques to reveal physical insights into our Universe.

In the summer of 2018, I electively paused my research efforts for the opportunity to teach an intensive summer session at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The 4-credit course, PHYS 2: Basic Physics, covered introductory (calculus-based) mechanics and thermodynamics. I taught 53 students, who evaluated my teaching with a median score of "Excellent" across all fields. In my teaching, I use active-learning techniques, such as think-pair-share, clicker questions, and physics demons with student participation. I am happy to provide my course syllabus, and my course materials are available on request.

In addition to my experience as instructor of record, I have given guest lectures in astronomy topics at the undergraduate and community education levels. I also enjoy communicating science to a diverse audience through public talks and data sonifications, like the one on this page that shows supernova discoveries over time.








Explanation: This shows the chronological discovery of all supernovae since the year 1950 up until the start of 2018, played on the xylophone and crammed into seven minutes. With each whole note in the song, half of a year passes by. The more notes you hear and the wider their range, the more supernovae there are being discovered.