Related papers: A project-based course about outreach in a physics…
The authors investigate how teaching art and astronomy together has the potential to inspire new art forms, enhance scientific public outreach, and promote art and science education. The authors teach an astro-animation class at the…
Teaching electromagnetism by demonstrating a practical application associated with learning content is an important teaching technique. Demonstrations are often performed through video-assisted procedures, and are usually limited to a…
These reports present the results of the 2013 Community Summer Study of the APS Division of Particles and Fields ("Snowmass 2013") on the future program of particle physics in the U.S. Chapter 10, on Communication, Education, and Outreach,…
Computational physics is a key part of what it means to do physics in the twenty-first century. However, upper division computational physics remains a largely understudied area. We set out to understand the experiences of students in an…
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) increase students' access to research. This lesson plan describes an interdisciplinary CURE developed to be able to involve over 60 students per semester in original research using…
Physics Education Research frequently investigates what students studying physics do on small time scales (e.g. single courses, observations within single courses), or post-education time scales (e.g., what jobs do physics majors get?) but…
Science communication skills are considered essential learning objectives for undergraduate physics students. However, high enrollment and limited class resources present significant barriers to providing students ample opportunities to…
A self-training scheme geared at inducing students to improve their skills through independent homework is presented. The motivation is to identify an inexpensive, yet effective tool for raising the competence level of students in the…
I believe that most teachers develop a belief in a set of pedagogical practices. As we teach, we try different ways to teach topics and then judge how successful the methods were. After several years, we have a compilation of techniques in…
Problem solving is central to physics instruction. Results from Physics Education Research (PER), however, demonstrate that traditional ways of teaching with problem solving are inefficient and ineffective for promoting true physics…
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…
We describe an extracurricular learning path on waves focused on energy transfer. The advantages of introducing mechanical waves by using the Shive wave machine and laboratory activities are presented. Laboratories are realized by inquiry,…
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…
To prepare students for upcoming trends and challenges, it is important to teach them about the helpful and important aspects of modern technologies, such as robotics. However, classic study programs often fail to prepare students for…
In the spirit of the International Year of Physics 2005 the author advices the replacement of the teaching methods based on verbal explanations and to perform a number of tasks following a given recipe by procedures that actively involve…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
We present outcomes from curricular changes made to an introductory calculus-based physics course whose audience is primarily life science majors, the majority of whom plan to pursue post-baccalaureate studies in medical and scientific…
Multiweek projects in physics labs can engage students in authentic experimentation practices, and it is important to understand student experiences during projects along multiple dimensions. To this end, we conducted an exploratory…
This article addresses the logistics of implementing projects in an undergraduate mathematics class and is intended both for new instructors and for instructors who have had negative experiences implementing projects in the past. Project…
Improving students' understanding of the nature of experimental physics is often an explicit or implicit goal of undergraduate laboratory physics courses. However, lab activities in traditional lab courses are typically characterized by…