Related papers: How students blend conceptual and formal mathemati…
It is becoming common to hear teaching advice about spending more time on the "physics of the problem" so that students will get more physical insight and develop a stronger intuition that can be very helpful when thinking about physics…
The intersection of quantum computing and quantum chemistry represents a promising frontier for achieving quantum utility in domains of both scientific and societal relevance. Owing to the exponential growth of classical resource…
We describe the development of a course of quantum mechanics for secondary school designed to address the challenges related to the revision of classical knowledge, to the building of a well-organized knowledge structure on the discipline,…
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…
We regard explanations as a blending of the input sample and the model's output and offer a few definitions that capture various desired properties of the function that generates these explanations. We study the links between these…
Undergraduate physics education has greatly benefited from the introduction of computational activities. However, despite the benefits computation has delivered, we still lack a complete understanding of the computationally integrated…
Complex reasoning aims to draw a correct inference based on complex rules. As a hallmark of human intelligence, it involves a degree of explicit reading comprehension, interpretation of logical knowledge and complex rule application. In…
Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can profoundly influence their motivation to learn and development of expertise. We developed and validated an Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving survey by expanding…
The mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics has been successfully employed in the last years to model situations in which the use of classical structures gives rise to problematical situations, and where typically quantum effects, such…
If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated…
Classical planning asks for a sequence of operators reaching a given goal. While the most common case is to compute a plan, many scenarios require more than that. However, quantitative reasoning on the plan space remains mostly unexplored.…
In the rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field of quantum information science and technology, a major obstacle is the need to understand advanced mathematics to solve complex problems. Current findings in educational research suggest that…
Real-life conjectures do not come with instructions saying whether they they should be proven or, instead, refuted. Yet, as we now know, in either case the final argument produced had better be not just convincing but actually verifiable in…
The combined approach of the Qualitative Reasoning and Probabilistic Functions for the knowledge representation is proposed. The method aims at represent uncertain, qualitative knowledge that is essential for the moving blocks task's…
Blended mathematical sensemaking in science (blended MSS) involves deep conceptual understanding of quantitative relationships describing phenomena in science and has been studies in various disciplines. However, no unified characterization…
Doing mathematics implies three levels of manipulation: manipulating the abstract, manipulating symbols and manipulating logic. Teaching mathematics therefore involves the teacher proposing situations in which pupils can explore a small…
This tutorial introduces quantum computing with a focus on the applicability of formal methods in this relatively new domain. We describe quantum circuits and convey an understanding of their inherent combinatorial nature and the…
Computation has revolutionized science and is gradually making its way into science teaching and learning. However, we currently lack theoretical frameworks to make sense of how students learn to use computation as a disciplinary tool. In…
Epistemic reasoning requires agents to infer the state of the world from partial observations and information about other agents' knowledge. Prior work evaluating LLMs on canonical epistemic puzzles interpreted their behavior through a…
Writing and argumentation are critical to both professional physics and physics education. However, the skill of making an extended argument in writing is often overlooked in physics classrooms, apart from certain practices like lab…