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Traditional approaches to undergraduate-level quantum mechanics require extensive mathematical preparation, preventing most students from enrolling in a quantum mechanics course until the third year of a physics major. Here we describe an…
Compared with introductory physics, relatively little is known about the development of expertise in advanced physics courses, especially in the case of quantum mechanics. Here, we describe a framework for understanding the patterns of…
To learn quantum mechanics, one must become adept in the use of various mathematical structures that make up the theory; one must also become familiar with some basic laboratory experiments that the theory is designed to explain. The…
Quantum technology is seeing a remarkable explosion in interest due to a wave of successful commercial technology. As a wider array of engineers and scientists are needed, it is time we rethink quantum educational paradigms. Current…
We present a practical course targeting graduate students with prior knowledge of the basics of quantum computing. The practical aims to deepen students' understanding of fundamental concepts in quantum computing by implementing quantum…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
The revolutionary new field of Quantum Computing (QC) continues to gain attention in industry, academia, and government in both research and education. At educational institutions, there is a proliferation of introductory courses at various…
Since the introduction of quantum mechanics, it has been taught mostly as a theoretical subject. It is also viewed as a theory that provides a best understanding of the nature, but which does not have much practical applications in our day…
Contribution: In this study, an alternative educational approach for introducing quantum computing to a wider audience is highlighted. The proposed methodology considers quantum computing as a generalized probability theory rather than a…
Learning about physical systems from quantum-enhanced experiments, relying on a quantum memory and quantum processing, can outperform learning from experiments in which only classical memory and processing are available. Whereas quantum…
Understanding instructor attitudes and approaches to teaching quantum mechanics can be helpful in developing research-based learning tools. Here we discuss the findings from a survey in which 13 instructors reflected on issues related to…
The research presented in this thesis was motivated by the need to improve introductory physics courses. Introductory physics courses are generally the first courses in which students learn to create models to solve complex problems.…
The expectation value of an observable is an important concept in quantum mechanics. However, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in physics have both conceptual and procedural difficulties when determining the expectation value…
Quantum mechanics is challenging even for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Dirac notation is a convenient notation used extensively in quantum mechanics. We have been investigating the difficulties that the advanced…
Just as expert physicists vary in their personal stances on interpretation in quantum mechanics, instructors vary on whether and how to teach interpretations of quantum phenomena in introductory modern physics courses. In this paper, we…
The objective of this paper is to describe a development of an innovative approach to enable students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to apply the concepts learned in physics and mathematics to engineering…
Many of the conceptual problems students have in understanding quantum mechanics arise from the way probabilities are introduced in standard (textbook) quantum theory through the use of measurements. Introducing consistent microscopic…
An assumed attribute of expert physicists is that they learn readily from their own mistakes. Experts are unlikely to make the same mistakes when asked to solve a problem a second time, especially if they have had access to a correct…
We investigated the difficulties that physics students in upper-level undergraduate quantum mechanics and graduate students after quantum and statistical mechanics core courses have with the Fermi energy, the Fermi-Dirac distribution and…
At the University of Colorado Boulder, as part of our broader efforts to transform middle- and upper-division physics courses, we research students' difficulties with particular concepts, methods, and tools in classical mechanics,…