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The cyclic format of the undergraduate physics curriculum depends on students' ability to recall and utilize material covered in prior courses in order to reliably build on that knowledge in later courses. However, there is evidence to…
Every physical theory has (at least) two different forms of mathematical equations to represent its target systems: the dynamical (equations of motion) and the kinematical (kinematical constraints). Kinematical constraints are…
Students of visualization come to formal education with an abundance of personal experience. However, one's exposure to graphics through media and education may not be sufficiently diverse to appreciate the nuance and complexity required to…
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…
Physics-based simulation of mesh based domains remains a challenging task. State-of-the-art techniques can produce realistic results but require expert knowledge. A major bottleneck in many approaches is the step of integrating a potential…
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…
Physics students can encounter difficulties in physics problem solving as a result of failing to use knowledge that they have but do not perceive as relevant or appropriate. In previous work the authors have demonstrated that some of these…
We discuss how a class of difficult kinematic problems can play an important role in an introductory course in stimulating students' reasoning on more complex physical situations. The problems presented here have an elementary analysis once…
We describe a study on the conceptual difficulties faced by college students in understanding hydrodynamics of ideal fluids. This study was based on responses obtained in hundreds of written exams and oral interviews, which were held with…
Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the…
Integrating computation into physics teaching is a curricular move that, at present, has been predominately studied for its cognitive impacts. However, if this modality of instruction shifts how students engage with physics, we argue there…
Instruction in quantum mechanics is becoming increasingly important as the field is not only a key part of modern physics research, but is also important for emerging technologies. However, many students regard quantum mechanics as a…
Influence theory is a foundational theory of physics that is not based on traditional empirically defined concepts, such as positions in space and time, mass, energy, or momentum. Instead, the aim is to derive these concepts, and their…
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…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this…
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…
We present a method for incorporating a stochastic point of view into physics exercises of mathematics education. The core of our method is the randomization of some inputs, the system model used does not differ from what we would use in…
While dry Coulombic friction is an elementary topic in any standard introductory course in mechanics, the critical distinction between the kinetic and static friction forces is something that is both hard to teach and to learn. In this…
Training students in basic concepts of physics, such as the ones related to mass, volume, or density, is much more complicated than just stating the underlying definitions and laws. One of the reasons for this is that most students have…
In order to describe natural phenomena, science develops sophisticated models that use mathematical and formal languages which seem, and often are, very far from common experience. When a phenomenon is not accessible to our senses, its…