Donro University AU (wip)

Donro University AU (wip)

A late submission for Day 6: AU of @donro-week

It's only half-finished and not beta-read but, well, it's a University AU with a little bit of a spin on Donald and Gyro's personalities.

Gyro Gearloose prided himself on his ability to solve nearly any problem. He was the self-proclaimed inventor of almost anything. Throughout school, he made little gadgets for his classmates; some of his favourites were a device that perfectly steadied a compass, a machine that restored soggy lunchbox food to a fresh state, and a hyper-accurate paper ball flinger to get back at an irritating bully. In academia, he excelled, and people came to him for help working out a puzzling formula. 

In his pursuit of heightening the limits of his inventions, he found an enriching opportunity in engineering research at Duckburg University. Prominent minds such as Professor Ludwig von Drake would be amongst his co-workers if he researched there, so in a short matter of time he created a research proposal that they couldn't refuse.

Under one condition. He had to teach a class.

He had never taught before, but he was good at helping people. Surely, teaching was simply an extended version of that. He would craft the parts and tinker with the variables necessary to create a functional, informative curriculum.

He covered every detail the textbook required of him, and more. He stayed up watching the lectures of Professor Ludwig von Drake and took notes on how to improve upon his lessons.

Yet, in spite of overwhelming evidence, a good scientist knew to qualify his statements carefully: Gyro Gearloose, the inventor of almost anything. 

He read the emails from his students and, he wouldn’t admit it, a review on an anonymous professor rating website. They could be summarised into two types of feedback:

“Lectures confusing” “Professor Gearloose is a brilliant inventor, but cannot teach to save his life.”

Gyro Gearloose’s tall, lanky figure slunk into his chair. His body sagged down like a sack of potatoes.  

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"... So if you just report the results of your test in this format,  you can use the data to formulate your own hypothesis."

The young moorhen sitting across from him stroked her red beak. "Oh, I see now. I guess I misunderstood the instructions. But… how do I know which theories to apply?"

"You have to think about it on your own! If you run the tests again, it will make sense."

"Hm, alright. I have to go, Professor. Thanks for your time."

"Of course, if you need help again, just use my office hours." Gyro sighed. Milly was a hard-worker who did well in most courses, but she was the worst performing student in his class. Her understanding of math wasn't bad, so Gyro did not know how to help her. All of his students had potential to be clever thinkers, but they were befuddled in his classroom.

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Gyro’s mind worked at high speed. They possessed his hands. Out tumbled the numbers and theorems through furious scratching of chalk. The board was all his to fill. 

Knock-knock. 

The chalk came to a halt. A synapse was snapped. Gyro bemoaned the lost train of thought, but he hollered, “Come in!”

“Sorry, is now a good time?” That voice belonged to the receptionist of student services.

“What do you need?” Gyro set down the chalk.

A familiar duck’s face peered through the crack of the door. He had white fluffy feathers, and stray ones curled on his forehead and tail. He wore his usual outfit, a sweater vest and a puffy red bowtie. Donald stepped into his room, slow and deliberate. 

"Well, I have another request from one of your students. They said this new lecture covered content not in the textbook, so they want you to share some additional reading on that topic."

"Yeah, I received about twenty emails this morning telling me the same." Gyro sighed. 

"Right. And I wanted to ask for your permission to form an official study support session for your class. If that's ok, I'll go ahead and organise it."

Gyro clutched onto the edge of the desk and frowned. Then, he took a deep breath. "No. That's not quite what I had in mind. No, I ought to be in charge of this problem." He tapped a finger on his chin. "I know they find it confusing, but it's my job as their professor to guide them. Maybe I just need to invent a device that simplifies my speech, or I could make a script generator that factors in what students need in a lesson… "

Donald stepped backwards. He took out a notebook from his pocket and flipped through a few pages. "Well… if you're sure you can help them before midterm, I suppose..."

Gyro nodded. "I'm sure I can solve this. You'll see."

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Two weeks later, time allocated to his office hours dwarfed his research progress. A barrage of emails from confused students flooded his inbox. The negative reviews on that website only increased. 

"I just don't understand. I tried to use a script with simplified language instead of improvising on the spot, but they are still confused." Gyro bit into his sandwich.

Sitting across from him, Ludwig von Drake scratched his head. "Hm, sounds like a tricky class. Have you tried to give quizzes? See what they do and don't know."

"Of course I have, and I reviewed the problem areas they had trouble with. But then when it comes to new content, the problem arises again! I just can't figure out what is causing it. It takes too much time away from my research to create a new review session every week."

"Well, perhaps you could get some advice from my nephew. You know, he could probably find you since good resources."

Gyro blinked. "Nephew? How can he help?"

"Why, he's a whiz at finding information on just about any topic. You've seen it for yourself, surely."

"Just to be clear, your nephew is–"

“Oh, hiya Gyro! And Uncle Ludwig!” Donald pranced over to their table, using a single hand to carry a tray above his head.

Gyro grimaced as some soup splashed on his wrist when Donald slammed the tray down.

"Ah, there he is!" Ludwig beamed at Donald, who was now scraping a nearby chair across the floor to make a table for three.

"Hope it's fine if I join you!" Donald picked up a spoon.

"You've already made yourself welcome," Gyro commented.

Ludwig turned to his nephew and directed his attention to Gyro with a flat palm. "Say, Donald. Gyro here has a problem with making clear lectures. Do you know of anything he can use to improve?"

He tapped his beak with the spoon. "Well, there's a website I like to refer to for teaching methods. And I must have an old textbook in my office on basic pedagogy." Donald looked at Gyro. "What are you teaching right now?"

“Newtonian mechanics!” Gyro grumbled. “The textbook teaches it even though it is an outdated system!”

Donald hummed. “Well… most subjects are like that. The introductory level is simplified for a reason, you know.”

Gyro shook his head. “But I’m sure these students will be able to learn much better if they start with the concepts that account for our modern understanding the best.”

“Surely that's not how you started learning engineering?”

"I didn't need the school system to teach me that."

"I see… well, in any case I can find a resource to help you teach. If you apply these concepts to your class, I'm sure their testing scores will improve."

"Oh, that's not necessary."

Donald held up a hand to silence him. "I insist! My main work is student support, but I've been known to help staff too."

Gyro tapped his fingers against the table. "You don't understand. I'm trying to set these students up to have an investigative approach to inventing. Build important research skills, figure out how systems interact through observation. I don't need help teaching the material or upping test scores. It's about getting them to think more critically."

Donald shrunk into the seat. "I can still send you some resources."

Ludwig looked between the two of them. "Goodness, I’ll leave you two to sort this out.”

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Gyro looked at the results of the tests. They were lower than he expected, and the most commonly missed questions were from material he had covered in his lectures twice. Then he came across Milly’s test. Apprehensively, he graded it, checking through the questions. There was a marked increase in depth and comprehension to her short form responses. She had compared the similarities and overlap between two different principles and speculated on the potential ways these could be applied in practice. Pleased, Gyro wrote her grade down. It still wasn't at the level he'd expect, but for this student, it was a great improvement. 

Though, as one who made a living of research and experiments, a question tugged at his curiosity. Why did she perform well on this test? He hadn’t changed anything in his teaching for the previous lectures. The test itself was formatted and questions selected exactly as the mock exam was, so it couldn't be that, either. 

Gyro decided to ask her. He could use that knowledge to help the other students succeed.

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 “Professor, thanks again for explaining this to me.” Milly slid the textbook in her backpack.

“Of course. Seems like you’re getting a better grasp of things!”

“I figured out a study method that works for me,” she said.

This was what he wanted to know. “Could you tell me what you changed in your studying approach?”

Milly zipped her bag as she spoke, “It wasn’t really me, but I went to the student support services and they showed me different studying tips and methods.”

That had his attention. “...I see. Well, it seems to be working for you, so you’re on the right path. I’ll see you next week.” 

“See you, Professor.” She exited his office.

Gyro turned around to his computer and stared at the emails from Donald he had left unopened.

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What was Donald doing right that he couldn’t grasp? The thought drove him mad. It also drove him to be sitting as an observer for “Research Literacy,” watching Donald Duck give a presentation.

“Good afternoon! Now, raise your hand if you’ve written an essay with sources mostly taken from Wikipedia’s citations…”

The workshop had him floored. He was drawn in by Donald’s simple, yet engaging language. Gyro knew how to research, he had made a living of it, after all, but Donald managed to keep his interest throughout the entire workshop with a unique analogy or a silly joke.

Plus, it was just as interactive as he’d like to make his classes. Donald had asked the students to form groups and put the concepts to practice by giving them a random topic that they had to find five sources for. They were presented hypothetical, believable problems of when the literature for a topic was lacking or when a potential source was inaccessible, and he had guided the students to their own original solutions. Gyro was merely an observer, but he wished he could have partaken in the class activities and discussions. He was confined to the back, but he imagined the responses he would give in the group discussions, and the personal experiences he could share.

What wealth of knowledge did that duck have? He knew now that this was an opportunity he had once made the mistake of rejecting. When the students chattering faded dispersed from the class and joined the hallway, he made his move. Donald was still unplugging his laptop from the socket.

Gyro bolted towards Donald with a wild urgency. “You!"

"Me!" Donald exclaimed, pointing at himself.

 Why didn’t you tell me before?!” he gasped between pants.

Donald tilted his head ever so slightly. “Tell you what?”

Gyro frowned. Did he have to spell it out to him? “You are good at teaching! Tell me your ways!”

At that, Donald’s bubbly demeanor dropped into something more serious. “Look, Gyro… I’m not a teacher. And the kind of content you teach in your lectures is leagues beyond what I can help you with.”

“B-but– I..”

With a guarded attitude, Donald picked up his planner and leafed through a few pages. “I’m sure there’s a workshop I can find for you to help you with your problem,” he spoke with an unusual air of distant professionalism.

"No, can't you see? It has to be you," Gyro said desperately. “I… am sorry for ignoring your advice earlier.”

Donald was moved by that. "You're sure you want me?"

Gyro nodded fiercely.

"Well, okay. Fine. Let's meet during lunch?"

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Amidst the cafeteria’s droning conversations composed of students and staff alike, Gyro and his coach sat in a high-seated table for two by the windows across the salad bar. 

Donald was reading his lecture notes in silence. With nothing else to do, Gyro noticed how the dust particles floating in the air took up the appearance of sparkles in the sunlight. They drifted around Donald, whose feathers shone a golden trim around his silhouette. It was because of the waterproof oil, he knew, but the sight was serene.

Then, their gazes connected. Gyro inhaled sharply, and he thought he saw Donald’s eyes widen. In a blink, the lecture papers were returned to his possession. 

“The first thing that stood out to me is the timing of these activities. I’m not sure they will be finished as quickly as you think.”

“But I need them. If I lengthened one, there wouldn’t be enough time for the others,” Gyro argued.

Donald crossed his arms. “Right, ok. Do you need to cover all this material?”

“Of course I do. I am not cutting anything out.”

He sighed. “Then, we still need to make modifications. Let’s go back to the basics. What do you want your students to accomplish by the end of the lecture? It’s really important to set a learning objective.”

“On that thought, I should have the students write down these learning objectives at the end of my presentation.” Gyro noted his idea down, then he addressed him. “I see your point. Instead of disparate activities on each individual concept, perhaps I can have them analyse an experiment through guided discussions. This allows them to see it in application and discover them independently.”

“It’s not a bad idea, actually. That’s an inductive learning approach.” Donald looked him up and down. “Now that I think about it, it really suits your style.”

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The second time they met, they shared lunch in Gyro's office.

Gyro paced back and forth, hand on his forehead. “I've tried everything I thought of! Prepared notes, giving examples, slowing my pace… but they still think my lectures are confusing.”

Donald, who had been eating and watching him pace, set down his sandwich. “I watched your lecture recordings last night. Here's what I think. First, you are trying to define an inertial frame using concepts they don’t understand yet. They don’t need to know about how it relates to absolute space-time and the Theory of Relativity at this stage. This is an introductory level class.”

“Right… so you're saying I should simplify even more. But how?” He pulled out the chair and sat down.

“Let me try. This is on Newtonian mechanics?” Donald cleared his throat. “Newtonian mechanics applies Newton’s Laws of Motion to a system of objects. Raise your hand if you know of Newton’s Laws of Motion.” 

Gyro reluctantly raised his hand after a long stare from Donald.

“Good! Now, does anybody remember the three laws?” He paused, then spoke in a more casual voice, “Then you go through them, one by one. Including the formulae.” 

He mimed a screen projector by outlining a rectangle in the air and pointed at imaginary examples within it. Continuing the demonstration, his voice picked up in volume and authority once again. “Let’s look at the formulae. As long as no force is acting on it, what do you notice about the velocity?”

“And here, you use the formulae to show that velocity is absolute, just as the law of inertia states. The students should be able to work it out themselves without you telling them directly. Then, ta-da! This is called an inertial frame of reference.”

“After that, you define ‘frame of reference,’” Donald spoke in his normal voice. “You can use an example, such as… if you’re standing on a high-speed train, then from your frame of reference, you aren’t moving. But to someone on the ground, you are moving quite fast,” he said. “Something like that. My high school physics knowledge is failing me right now.”

Gyro stared at him in awe. “That was… simple. It's exactly what I need.”

Donald combed a hand through his head feathers, tickled pink by the praise. "It's about accommodating for your audience," he said, "Not everyone thinks the same way. Some people have a harder time understanding complex, abstract concepts, so they need a more concrete base to work from."

Gyro nodded, and scribbled his words into a notepad.

Donald pointed a finger at him. "You are the expert. It's your job to know how to simplify it for these beginners."

"I thought I was simplifying. But I never thought to do it this way." He looked at Donald. “I never had an interest in teaching, I suppose. Did you take it as a degree?”

"Well, I've never completed university myself."

That grabbed Gyro's attention. "You didn't? Then how do you know about teaching?"

Donald shifted in his seat. "Ah, well. It was one of the many odd jobs I took back then. Tutor, substitute teacher, that thing." 

"And you just picked all of this up from experience?"

Donald shrugged. "Mostly. I studied a little bit, but that kind of stuff is not my strong suit."

Gyro looked at him with surprise. "Then, perhaps, we have more in common than I thought."