Massachusetts Professor of the Year and Physics Department Chairman Walter H. Johnson is an innovator, always tapping new technology to better reach his students, from streaming video to electronic writing tablets for distance learning.

“He makes learning exciting, and the students love him,” says Biology Department Chair Beatrice Snow. “He adapts every piece of technology and applies it to his classroom.”

Award Winning Professor

Johnson’s dedication and originality led to his being named 2005 Massachusetts Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Anne Bartlett, who graduated from Suffolk in 1995, and is now Director of Strategy Integration at Intel Corporation’s Dupont site near Tacoma, Washington, says, “It was difficult to imagine physics and engineering would ever cease to be fun, because of the environment Dr. Johnson created – both in and out of the classroom – encouraging learning beyond the textbook.  He helped not only to give me direction with my studies, but to motivate me to reach farther than I thought possible.”

Dedicated to Students

From the time he taught his first class at Suffolk in 1971 until today, Johnson’s passion for teaching has been his greatest satisfaction.

“What I’ve always enjoyed above everything else is interacting with the students,” he says. “I try to teach each student on an individual basis. ...  I explain things using language that is appropriate for that student at that time.  I encourage them to ask questions and for a dialogue to begin.  Once that happens, I’ve got them.”

Creative Learning Environment

To assist introductory physics students, Johnson supplements in-class material by breaking each topic into streaming video mini-lectures that he posts online.

Says Johnson, “The students can see and hear me talking in the upper left corner of the screen, while the remainder of the screen is a white board where they see the equations being written just as if they were in class.”

Johnson also made use of electronic writing tablets for Dakar, Senegal, students studying with him through distance education. The math and science students are able to write equations and diagrams using an electronic pen, and then post them into a “Digital Drop Box.” 

“I, too, have an electronic tablet, so when I see the homework in my digital mailbox, I grade it and write corrections with equations on their original papers, just as I would for my on-campus classes,” says Johnson.  “Then I post it to their mailbox, and they can see immediately how they did.”