Related papers: A cross-context look at upper-division student dif…
Student diversity, like academic background, learning styles, career and life goals, ethnicity, age, social and emotional characteristics, course load and work schedule, offers unique opportunities in education, like learning new skills,…
During the last decade we have witnessed an impressive development in so-called interpreted languages and computational environments such as Maple, Mathematica, IDL, Matlab etc. Problems which until recently were typically solved on…
We review and extend existing frameworks on modeling to develop a new framework that describes model-based reasoning in upper-division physics labs. Constructing and using models are core scientific practices that have gained significant…
Boundary conditions (BCs) are considered as an important topic that advanced physics under- graduates are expected to understand and apply. We report findings from an investigation of student difficulties using boundary conditions (BCs) in…
We investigate student comfort with the material in an upper-division spins-first quantum mechanics course. Pre-lecture surveys probing students' comfort were administered weekly, in which students assigned themselves a "discomfort level"…
Successful implementation of active learning strategies in the engineering classroom -- and in particular in certain subjects which are highly technological in nature such as, for instance, rocket engines and space propulsion -- means…
In this companion paper, we explore the use of isomorphic problem pairs (IPPs) to assess introductory physics students' ability to solve and successfully transfer problem-solving knowledge from one context to another in mechanics. We call…
The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic is an exam developed as part of the curriculum reform at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). It was designed to assess conceptual learning within upper-division electricity…
The ability of a model to learn continually can be empirically assessed in different continual learning scenarios. Each scenario defines the constraints and the opportunities of the learning environment. Here, we challenge the current trend…
Curriculum learning techniques are a viable solution for improving the accuracy of automatic models, by replacing the traditional random training with an easy-to-hard strategy. However, the standard curriculum methodology does not…
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of complex systems as a field, students studying complex systems at University level have diverse disciplinary backgrounds. This brings challenges (e.g. wide range of computer programming skills) but also…
Concept inventories are standardized assessments that evaluate student understanding of key concepts within academic disciplines. While prevalent across STEM fields, their development lags for advanced computer science topics like dynamic…
This paper proposes a novel curriculum for the microprocessors and microcontrollers laboratory course. The proposed curriculum blends structured laboratory experiments with an open-ended project phase, addressing complex engineering…
Contribution: We demonstrate that it is feasible to include field specific problems in introductory mathematics courses to motivate engineering students. This is done in a way that still allows large parts of the course to be common to all…
We consider the problem of teaching via demonstrations in sequential decision-making settings. In particular, we study how to design a personalized curriculum over demonstrations to speed up the learner's convergence. We provide a unified…
High-stakes exams play a large role in determining an introductory physics student's final grade. These exams have been shown to be inequitable, often to the detriment of students identifying with groups historically marginalized in…
Developing expertise in physics requires appropriate integration and assimilation of physics and mathematics. Instructors and students often describe physics courses in terms of their emphasis on conceptual and quantitative problem-solving.…
This article discusses the process of creating, implementing and experiencing Flipped Learning in a Multivariable Calculus course for second year engineering students. We describe the construction of the teaching material, consisting of…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than contexts, is considered a hallmark of expertise in physics problem solving. With inspiration from a classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we compared…
Mastering problem solving requires students to not only understand and apply physics concepts but also employ mathematics and mathematical representations (sketches, diagrams, graphs, gestures, equations and spoken language) skillfully. As…