Related papers: Using Physics to Learn Mathematica to Do Physics: …
Even though there has been a tremendous amount of research done in how to help students learn physics, students are still coming away missing a crucial piece of the puzzle: why bother with physics? Students learn fundamental laws and how to…
This paper re-centres the discussion of student learning in physics to focus on context. In order to do so, a theoretically-motivated understanding of context is developed. Given a well-defined notion of context, data from a novel…
In a first course to classical mechanics elementary physical processes like elastic two-body collisions, the mass-spring model, or the gravitational two-body problem are discussed in detail. The continuation to many-body systems, however,…
In this contribution we discuss how to develop a physics curriculum for undergraduate students that includes computing as a central element. Our contribution starts with a definition of computing and pertinent learning outcomes and…
This mini-course gives an introduction to the techniques used in experimental particle physics with an emphasis on the impact of technological advances. The basic detector types and particle accelerator facilities will be briefly covered…
Basic principles of mathematical modeling are reviewed in this book, with the focus on physics and its practical applications, and examples of selected mathematical methods are presented. Most of the models have been imported from physics…
We describe how graduate students categorize introductory mechanics problems based on the similarity of their solutions. Graduate students were asked at the end of a teaching assistant training class to categorize problems from their own…
The objective of this project is to compare the effectiveness of teaching styles used in high school physics classes and the methods used to assess them. We would like to determine those approaches to physics at the high schools that work…
Previous research has found that introductory physics students perform far better on numeric problems than on otherwise equivalent symbolic problems. This paper describes a framework to explain these differences developed by analyzing…
We describe an undergraduate course where physics students are asked to conceive an outreach project of their own. The course alternates between the project conception and teachings about pedagogy and outreach, and ends in a public show. We…
The design of a serious game is presented that served as an instrument to motivate and aid to Physics education using active and ludic learning, specifically the topic of free fall of objects, with diverse educational purposes, first to…
One finding of cognitive research is that people do not automatically acquire usable knowledge by spending lots of time on task. Because students' knowledge hierarchy is more fragmented, "knowledge chunks" are smaller than those of experts.…
This resource letter intends to provide physics instructors - particularly graduate student teaching assistants - at the introductory university level with a small but representative collection of resources to acquire a familiarity with…
The aim of this paper is to introduce a mathematical logic based approach investigating why-type questions in physics.
During the past several years the authors have developed a new approach to the teaching of Physical Science, a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. This approach, called `Physics…
Single particle models are sufficient for many topics in introductory physics courses, but become misleading when applied to situations involving changes in internal energy. This paper merges two parallel attempts to reform the teaching of…
The case-study teaching method has a long history (starting at least with Socrates), and wide current use in business schools, medical schools, law schools, and a variety of other disciplines. However, relatively little use is made of it in…
Symbolic equations are one of the many representations used in physics. Understanding these representations is important for students because they are how students access knowledge in physics. In this paper I build off of the work by Redish…
This article describes the successful revitalization of an undergraduate physics program. The areas of curriculum development, undergraduate research experiences and advising and retention, to name a few, are emphasized in this…
The physics learning is very important to techniques teaching and the engineers upbringing. However, there is evidence that science classes from elementary school through to university are generally failing to provide most students with an…