Physics Education
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…
Research shows that community plays a central role in learning, and strong community engages students and aids in student persistence. Thus, understanding the function and structure of communities in learning environments is essential to…
The Learning Assistant (LA) model supports instructors in implementing research-based teaching practices in their own courses. In the LA model, undergraduate students are hired to help facilitate research-based collaborative-learning…
Many institutions are changing the focus of their introductory physics labs from verifying physics content towards teaching students about the skills and nature of science. As instruction shifts, so too will the ways students approach and…
Laboratory courses are key components of most undergraduate physics programs. Lab courses often aim to achieve the following learning outcomes: developing students' experimental skills, engaging students in authentic scientific practices,…
From a department being resistant to change to students not buying into the new computational activities, the challenges that are faced with integrating computation into the physics undergraduate curriculum are varied. The Partnership for…
Recently, there has been increased attention to improving laboratory instruction at all levels. At the introductory level, research results have shown differing levels of success based on the nature of the desired learning outcomes. In…
Projects and Practices in Physics (P$^3$) is an introductory physics class at Michigan State University that replaces lectures with a problem based learning environment. To promote the development of group based practices, students all…
In this work, we attempted to predict student performance on a suite of laboratory assessments using students' interactions with associated instructional videos. The students' performance is measured by a graded presentation for each of…
Multiweek projects in physics labs can engage students in authentic experimentation practices, and it is important to understand student experiences during projects along multiple dimensions. To this end, we conducted an exploratory…
Models of physical systems are used to explain and predict experimental results and observations. When students encounter discrepancies between the actual and expected behavior of a system, they revise their models to include the newly…
Keller's article entitled ``Good-bye teacher...'' [J. Appl. Behav. Anal. \textbf{1}, 79-89 (1968)] was fundamental for the development and dissemination of Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), which was one of the central…
Interdisciplinary introduction to quantum information science (QIS) courses are proliferating at universities across the US, but the experiences of instructors in these courses have remained largely unexplored in the discipline-based…
The aim of this thesis is to bridge the gap between the world of physics research and secondary education on contemporary quantum physics. We fostered the creation of a generative learning environment formed by quantum physics researchers,…
We calculate spin correlation functions using IBM quantum processors, accessed online. We demonstrate the rotational invariance of the singlet state, interesting properties of the triplet states, and surprising features of a state of three…
We analyze the current trends in higher education and discuss its impact on physics enrollment in US institutions. The pandemic, lockdowns, unemployment, and healthcare problems have led to unique social and economic conditions. These…
This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on teaching experimental physics using sensors in tablets, smartphones, and some specialized devices. After a general discussion of the hardware (sensors) and the software (apps), we…
Teaching the noncommutativity of the product of matrices to high school or college level students is a difficult task when approached from a purely formal perspective. The aim of this paper is to present a simple experimental activity for…
Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Yet, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions occur under conditions that favor commitment,…
Historically, the implementation of research-based assessments (RBAs) has been a driver of education change within physics and helped motivate adoption of interactive engagement pedagogies. Until recently, RBAs were given to students…