Related papers: Kinesthetic activities in physics instruction: Ima…

There is some evidence that conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab curricula, such as RealTime Physics, may improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Thus, these curricula may be attractive for instructors who seek to…

Physics teaching in engineering programmes poses discipline-specific demands that intertwine conceptual modelling, experimental inquiry, and computational analysis. This study examines nine teaching competences for physics instruction…

We are investigating cognitive issues in learning quantum mechanics in order to develop effective teaching and learning tools. The analysis of cognitive issues is particularly important for bridging the gap between the quantitative and…

Modern physics is now a regular course for non-physics majors who do not have to take the accompanying laboratory. This lack of an experimental component puts the engineering students at a disadvantage. A possible solution is the use of…

Physical learning is an emerging paradigm in science and engineering whereby (meta)materials acquire desired macroscopic behaviors by exposure to examples. So far, it has been applied to static properties such as elastic moduli and…

Learning to create, use, and evaluate models is a central element of becoming a scientist. In physics, we often begin an analysis of a complex system with highly simplified or toy models. In introductory physics classes, we tend to use them…

We describe a method for deepening a student's understanding of basic physics by asking the student to express physical ideas in a functional programming language. The method is implemented in a second-year course in computational physics…

Perceptual learning enables humans to recognize and represent stimuli invariant to various transformations and build a consistent representation of the self and physical world. Such representations preserve the invariant physical relations…

The method of images (MoI) is a valuable technique for solving certain electrostatic boundary value problems consisting of charge density near conductor(s). We developed and validated an inquiry-based tutorial on MoI to help students learn…

We investigate the dynamics of student behaviors (posture, gesture, vocal register, visual focus) and the substance of their reasoning during collaborative work on inquiry-based physics tutorials. Scherr has characterized student activity…

The study guide (textbook) is part of a set of materials designed to support high-quality practical training in physics. It includes a collection of tasks for organizing both in-class and independent work. The guide serves as a foundation…

Given a visual scene, humans have strong intuitions about how a scene can evolve over time under given actions. The intuition, often termed visual intuitive physics, is a critical ability that allows us to make effective plans to manipulate…

Graphs are essential representations in the professions and education concerning the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Beyond their academic relevance, graphs find extensive utility in everyday scenarios,…

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…

Presenting systems of differential equations in the form of diagrams has become common in certain parts of physics, especially electromagnetism and computational physics. In this work, we aim to put such use of diagrams on a firm…

The physics teaching particularly the optics teaching always have faced motivational problems, mostly due to the loss of the link between the social practice and the daily life of the student. Moreover, the laboratory practices have lost…

One of the main activities in science teaching, and in particular in Physics teaching, is not only the discussion of both modern problems and problems which solution is an urgent matter. It means that the picture of an active and alive…

Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing,…

The ability to accurately predict the surrounding environment is a foundational principle of intelligence in biological and artificial agents. In recent years, a variety of approaches have been proposed for learning to predict the physical…

Upper-division physics students spend much of their time solving problems. In addition to their basic skills and background, their epistemic framing can form an important part of their ability to learn physics from these problems.…