Related papers: Understanding How Students Use Physical Ideas in I…
The epistemology of science students, i.e., their beliefs about the nature of the knowledge they are learning, about what they have to do to learn it, and about how they will use that knowledge, often plays a powerful role in what they…
Integrative biological simulations have a varied and controversial history in the biological sciences. From computational models of organelles, cells, and simple organisms, to physiological models of tissues, organ systems, and ecosystems,…
An important step in learning to use math in science is learning to see physics equations as not just calculational tools, but as ways of expressing fundamental relationships among physical quantities, of coding conceptual information, and…
How students use mathematics in their physics classes has been studied extensively in the physics education literature. In addition to specific mathematical methods in specific physics contexts, possible effects of more general "cultural"…
We investigate studnets' use of words used in everyday language as well as in physics. We find students are more likely to identify and explain the meaning of the word as it is used in physics when they have become familiar with the…
We use the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long (STPFaSL-Long), a research-based survey instrument with 78 items at the level of introductory physics, to investigate introductory and advanced students'…
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…
Undergraduate physics students are known to have difficulties with understanding mathematical tools, and with applying their knowledge of mathematics to physical contexts. Using survey statements based on student interviews and written…
One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between the fundamental principles of classical physics and their personal experience. Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown…
In this article, we reflect upon our positive experiences incorporating or working on extra credit projects in algebra-based introductory physics that asked students to connect physics with humanities, social sciences, and everyday life. We…
At many physics departments a significant fraction of teaching is in support of engineers and scientists in other majors. These service courses are thus an automatic crucible of interdisciplinary interaction, and at times, strife. For…
Analysis of institutional data for physics majors showing predictive relationships between required mathematics and physics courses in various years is important for contemplating how the courses build on each other and whether there is…
Questions of participant understanding of the nature of an activity have been addressed in anthropology and sociolinguistics with the concepts of frames and framing. For example, a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for…
Thermodynamics could be seen as an expression of physics at a high epistemic level. As such, its potential as an inductive bias to help machine learning procedures attain accurate and credible predictions has been recently realized in many…
This paper tries to justify the relevance of an introductory course in Mathematical Logic in the Philosophy curriculum for analyzing philosophical arguments in natural language. It is argued that the representation of the structure of…
Scientific research involves mathematical modelling in the context of an interactive balance between theory, experiment and computation. However, computational methods and tools are still far from being appropriately integrated in the high…
A primary goal of physics is to create mathematical models that allow both predictions and explanations of physical phenomena. We weave maths extensively into our physics instruction beginning in high school, and the level and complexity of…
One of the major difficulties in learning physics is for students to develop a conceptual understanding of the core concepts of physics. Many authors have argued that student conceptions of basic physical phenomena are rooted in basic…
When we teach physics to prospective scientists and engineers we are teaching more than the "facts" of physics - more, even, than the methods and concepts of physics. We are introducing them to a complex culture - a mode of thinking and the…
Learning to use math in physics involves combining (blending) our everyday experiences and the conceptual ideas of physics with symbolic mathematical representations. Graphs are one of the best ways to learn to build the blend. They are a…