Related papers: Teaching Physics to Life Sciences Students in the …
We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and…
The paper describes methodology of math education for students interested in chemistry. Suppose we have mathematical circle 2 hours per week. What can be done? We can not provide any systematic study, but we can choose one subject and show…
Increasing numbers of physicists engage in research activities that address biological questions from physics perspectives or strive to develop physics insights from active biological processes. The on-going development and success of such…
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…
We describe a course designed to help future educators build an integrated understanding of the different elements of physics education research (PER), including: research into student learning, content knowledge from the perspective of how…
Recent years have seen a growing interest in modernizing physics and science curricula around the world. While many science educators and curriculum developers design instructional resources to successfully introduce topics of Einsteinian…
Physics students can encounter difficulties in physics problem solving as a result of failing to use knowledge that they have but do not perceive as relevant or appropriate. In previous work the authors have demonstrated that some of these…
We developed a two-day physics class that uses a nearby forest as a teaching location. Using low-cost material, students design and carry out physics projects outside of the usual controlled environment that is a classroom. In this way they…
In this article, we reflect upon our positive experiences incorporating or working on extra credit projects in algebra-based introductory physics that asked students to connect physics with humanities, social sciences, and everyday life. We…
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…
Despite the large body of research showing that students in STEM classes at all levels learn better via active learning than they do via lecture, post-secondary physics and astronomy (P&A) faculty members continue to primarily use…
The large number of published articles in physics journals under the title "Comments on ..." and "Reply to ..." is indicative that the conceptual understanding of physical phenomena is very elusive and hard to grasp even to experts, but it…
This paper reviews research results obtained from Einsteinian physics programs run by different instructors with Years 6, 9, 10 and 11 students using the models and analogies described in Parts 1 and 2. The research aimed to determine…
Light Polarization has many technological applications and its discovery was crucial to reveal the transverse nature of the electromagnetic waves. However, despite its fundamental and practical importance, in high school this property of…
In 2016, the Department of Physics at Oregon State University began a process to revise our Paradigms in Physics curriculum for physics majors. We began with a colloquium to inform the department of our plans and request their assistance,…
We present an educational proposal which aims to illustrate the elegant, refined and coherent physics contained in Thermodynamics, through a path which assigns to the microscopic description of the physical systems a constantly privileged…
The job of a physicist is to describe Nature. General features, hypotheses and theories help to describe physics phenomena at a more abstract, fundamental level, and are sometimes tacitly assigned some sort of real existence; doing so…
This paper describes our large reformed introductory physics course at UC Davis, which bioscience students have been taking since 1996. The central feature of this course is a focus on sense-making by the students during the five hours per…
We have developed a set of laboratories and hands on activities to accompany a new two-semester interdisciplinary physics course that has been successfully developed and tested in two small test classes of students at the University of…
High Energy Particle Physics (HEP) faces challenges over the coming decades with a need to attract young people to the field and STEM careers, as well as a need to recognize, promote and sustain those in the field who are making important…