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Most students do not enroll in introductory astronomy as part of their major; for many, it is the last science course they will ever take. Thus, it has great potential to shape students' attitudes toward STEM fields for the rest of their…
Acquiring the mathematical, conceptual, and problem-solving skills required in university-level physics courses is hard work, and the average student often lacks the knowledge and study skills they need to succeed in the introductory…
This study evaluates the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) as an Artificial Intelligence-based tutor for a university course. In particular, different advanced techniques are utilized, such as prompt engineering,…
Homework in introductory physics represents an important part of a student's learning experience; therefore choosing the manner in which homework is presented merits investigation. We performed three rounds of clinical trials comparing the…
Physics lab courses are integral parts of an undergraduate physics education, and offer a variety of opportunities for learning. Many of these opportunities center around a common learning goal in introductory physics lab courses:…
Training models to effectively use test-time compute is crucial for improving the reasoning performance of LLMs. Current methods mostly do so via fine-tuning on search traces or running RL with 0/1 outcome reward, but do these approaches…
The time it takes a student to graduate with a university degree is mitigated by a variety of factors such as their background, the academic performance at university, and their integration into the social communities of the university they…
This review presents an overview and analysis of the body of research on special relativity theory (SRT) education at the secondary and lower undergraduate level. There is currently a growing international interest in implementing SRT in…
Large language models (LLMs) have recently gained popularity. However, the impact of their general availability through ChatGPT on sensitive areas of everyday life, such as education, remains unclear. Nevertheless, the societal impact on…
Analysis of institutional data for physics majors showing predictive relationships between required mathematics and physics courses in various years is important for contemplating how the courses build on each other and whether there is…
Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) improves final-answer accuracy on reasoning tasks, but it does not reliably improve reasoning quality. Because outcome rewards only assess final answers, they also reward spurious…
Mathematical reasoning remains a challenging area for large language models (LLMs), prompting the development of math-specific LLMs such as LLEMMA, DeepSeekMath, and Qwen2-Math, among others. These models typically follow a two-stage…
This study examines the feasibility and potential advantages of using large language models, in particular GPT-4o, to perform partial credit grading of large numbers of student written responses to introductory level physics problems.…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
A typical problem in MOOCs is the missing opportunity for course conductors to individually support students in overcoming their problems and misconceptions. This paper presents the results of automatically intervening on struggling…
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a constructivist learner-centered instructional approach based on the analysis, resolution and discussion of a given problem. It can be applied to any subject, indeed it is especially useful for the teaching…
Proof Blocks is a software tool that provides students with a scaffolded proof-writing experience, allowing them to drag and drop prewritten proof lines into the correct order instead of starting from scratch. In this paper we describe a…
To protect his teaching evaluations, an economics professor uses the following exam curve: if the class average falls below a known target, $m$, then all students will receive an equal number of free points so as to bring the mean up to…
The birth of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has had an undeniable effect on how teaching is being delivered. It seems that traditional in class teaching is becoming less popular with the young generation, the generation that wants to…
One attribute of experts is that they are likely to learn from their own mistakes. Experts are unlikely to make the same mistakes when asked to solve a problem a second time, especially if they had access to a correct solution. Here, we…