Physics Education
Since October 2010, the Chemistry-Biology Combined Major Program (CBCMP), an international course taught in English at Osaka University, has been teaching small classes (no more than 20 in size). We present data from the Force Concept…
We examine the relationship between homework completion and exam performance for students having different physics aptitudes for five different semesters of an introductory electricity and magnetism course. In our analysis, we plot exam…
Instilling good laboratory working attitudes in students is a difficult but very important task, especially in the first level courses. The introduction of a grade, based on the observation of work practices during laboratory sessions, can…
In an introductory course on dynamical systems or Hamiltonian mechanics, vector field diagrams are a central tool to show a system's qualitative behaviour in a certain domain. Because of their low sampling rates and the involved issues of…
Item Response Theory (IRT) was originally developed in traditional exam settings, and it has been shown that the model does not readily transfer to formative assessment in the form of online homework. We investigate if this is mostly due to…
These notes were taken by Brian Hill during Sidney Coleman's lectures on Quantum Field Theory (Physics 253), given at Harvard University in Fall semester of the 1986-1987 academic year. They were recently typeset and edited by Yuan-Sen Ting…
We have developed a set of college level, table-top labs that can be performed with an interferometer using satellite TV electronics and compact fluorescent lamps as microwave signal sources. This interferometer, which was originally…
An application design is offered, which students of physics can use when authoring a solver for mechanical systems with constraints. A 'chainlist' concept is introduced to capture a constrained mechanical system configuration and to pass…
We describe an example of learning with multiple representations in an A-level revision lesson on mechanics. The context of the problem involved the motion of a ball thrown vertically upwards in air and studying how the associated physical…
We discuss an approach for developing a diagnostic e-module, which can easily identify the precise nature of deficiencies in conceptual understanding of a topic, using Symmetry and Gauss's Law as an example. The topic is divided into…
Lecture notes for an introductory course in elementary particles.
Shive wave machines have found their place in physics courses for many years now. They are used to demonstrate the propagation, interference and reflection of waves. Physical quantities like frequency, wavelength and phase speed are usually…
This is an editorial report on the outcomes of an international conference sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (REESE-1205273) to the School of Education at Boston University and the Center for Philosophy and…
This paper aims to share the use of Tracker a free open source video analysis and modeling tool that is increasingly used as a pedagogical tool for the effective learning and teaching of Physics for Grade 9 Secondary 3 students in Singapore…
We describe an interactive computer program that simulates Stern-Gerlach measurements on spin-1/2 and spin-1 particles. The user can design and run experiments involving successive spin measurements, illustrating incompatible observables,…
The basic notions of statistical mechanics (microstates, multiplicities) are quite simple, but understanding how the second law arises from these ideas requires working with cumbersomely large numbers. To avoid getting bogged down in…
Physics students now have access to interactive molecular dynamics simulations that can model and animate the motions of hundreds of particles, such as noble gas atoms, that attract each other weakly at short distances but repel strongly…
Research has documented a sharp decline in students' interest and persistence in science, starting in middle school, particularly among students from underrepresented populations. In working to address this problem, we can learn a great…
Responsive teaching, in which teachers adapt instruction based on close attention to the substance of students' ideas, is typically characterized along two dimensions: the level of detail at which teachers attend and respond to students'…
Too often, physics students are beset by feelings of failure and isolation rather than experiencing the creative joys of discovery that physics has to offer. This dissertation research was founded on the desire of a teacher to make physics…