117th Convocation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIt turns out that failure is not the obstacle of success,\u201d he said during his Convocation address. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hester was honoured during the ceremony with the 2025 Faculty of Mathematics and Science Excellence in Teaching Award.<\/p>\n
Originally from the United States, he arrived at Brock in 2023 just days before teaching his first class. While it was a whirlwind start, the opportunity felt right and Hester was ready for something new.<\/p>\n
His own academic path wasn\u2019t straightforward. He considered business and engineering before learning more about the field of physics while touring universities, finding himself drawn to the pursuit of fundamental truths.<\/p>\n
This path built on his love for figuring out how things worked, inspired by his curious uncles who often fixed things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you understand why something works, you can understand how to fix it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hester has embraced this concept while working in physics, which he said is about more than mathematical calculations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMath is just the language you need to do physics,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat matters is the kind of thinking physics teaches: How to reduce a problem and see what\u2019s actually important.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an educator, he reminds students that problem-solving may not get easier, but practice makes it possible to get better at doing hard things.<\/p>\n
But teaching isn\u2019t without its challenges. Hester said today\u2019s students face shorter attention spans and often lack hands-on experience. He sees the shift from physical to digital as a barrier to intuitive understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a kid, I learned physics by helping to fix things,” he said. “You can use a longer lever when a bolt won\u2019t turn. That\u2019s torque. You don\u2019t need to know the word to get the concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last fall, Hester helped launch a foundational physics course, now called Essential Skills for Modern Scientists. The course goes beyond equations to include programming, error analysis, scientific ethics and case studies that help them see the bigger picture by connecting science to real-world issues.<\/p>\n
To support learning, Hester has also flipped his classroom. One lecture each week is now a tutorial session where students solve problems, ask questions and learn through failure.<\/p>\n
\u201cFailure is where real learning happens. You learn far more from mistakes than from getting it right the first time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also experimenting with tools that allow students to receive instant feedback and try again.<\/p>\n
While he said that seeing students have that \u201ceureka moment\u201d and grasp concepts is incredibly satisfying, he\u2019s also learned from his own experience that \u201cnot knowing the answer is part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s hard to teach in a course,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in the lab, students start to see that even the professor doesn\u2019t always know. And that\u2019s when real scientific thinking begins.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cTry. Fail. Learn again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":102451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,41,1],"tags":[156,2156,389,6716,348,3328,7416,81,3325,1759,14608,5408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102420"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102495,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102420\/revisions\/102495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}