Physics Education
At the beginning of academic year 2007-08, staff in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Glasgow started to implement a number of substantial changes to the administration of the level 1 physics undergraduate class.…
Three emerging technologies in physics education are evaluated from the interdisciplinary perspective of cognitive science and physics education research. The technologies - Physlet Physics, the Andes Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), and…
Magnetic braking is a long-established application of Lenz's law. A rigorous analysis of the laws governing this problem involves solving Maxwell's equations in a time-dependent situation. Approximate models have been developed to describe…
We describe an initiative at the University of Bonn, where the students develop and perform a 2 hour physics show for school classes and the general public. The show is entertaining and educational and is aimed at children aged 10 and…
Experiments concerning the physics of cosmic rays offer to high-school teachers and students a relatively easy approach to the field of research in high energy physics. The detection of cosmic rays does not necessarily require the use of…
A set of examples is provided that illustrate the use of work as applied to simple machines. The ramp, pulley, lever and hydraulic press are common experiences in the life of a student and their theoretical analysis therefore makes the…
The dynamics of a liquid dielectric attracted by a vertical cylindrical capacitor is studied. Contrary to what might be expected from the standard calculation of the force exerted by the capacitor, the motion of the dielectric is different…
Physics Education Research (PER) practitioners have engaged in substantial curriculum development and dissemination work in recent years. Yet, it appears that this work has had minimal influence on the fundamental teaching practices of…
We have reformed a large lecture modern physics course for engineering majors by radically changing both the content and the learning techniques implemented in lecture and homework. Traditionally this course has been taught in a manner…
The Modeling Instruction program at Arizona State University has developed a representational tool, called a system schema, to help students make a first level of abstraction of an actual physical situation [1]. A system schema consists of…
Mathematics can serve many functions in physics. It can provide a computational system, reflect a physical idea, conveniently encode a rule, and so forth. A physics student thus has many different options for using mathematics in his…
I consider two identical quantum particles in two boxes. We can split each box, and thereby the wavefunction of each particle, into two parts. When two half boxes are interchanged and combined with the other halves, where do the two…
A clinical study was performed comparing the efficacy of multimedia learning modules with traditional textbooks for the first few topics of a calculus based introductory electricity and magnetism course. Students were randomly assigned to…
While it is well known which curricular practices can improve student performance on measures of conceptual understanding, the sustaining of these practices and the role of faculty members in implementing these practices are less well…
Suppose a projectile collides perpendicularly with a stationary rigid rod on a smooth horizontal table. We show that, contrary to what one naturally expects, it is not always the case that the rod acquires maximum angular velocity when…
We discuss several ways of illustrating fundamental concepts in statistical and thermal physics by considering various models and algorithms. We emphasize the importance of replacing students' incomplete mental images by models that are…
We present an inexpensive apparatus for measuring the speed of sound, with a time of flight method, using a computer with a stereo sound board. Students measure the speed of sound by timing the delay between the arrivals of a pulse to two…
Symbolic calculators like Mathematica are becoming more commonplace among upper level physics students. The presence of such a powerful calculator can couple strongly to the type of mathematical reasoning students employ. It does not merely…
Systematic observations of student gestures can not only fill in gaps in students' verbal expressions, but can also offer valuable information about student ideas, including their source, their novelty to the speaker, and their construction…
Suggestion of physics laboratory exercises and discussion of the physics laboratory curricula for engineering majors where the properties of light and electromagnetic waves are studied in parallel. It is shown that one of the important…