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This paper is a pedagogical yet critical introduction to the quantum description of unstable systems, mostly at the level of a graduate quantum mechanics course. Quantum decays appear in many different fields of physics, and their…
Physics graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading. Physics education research suggests that grading practices that place the burden of proof for explicating the problem solving process on students can help them…
Given a physics scenario, different problem types presenting that scenario in various ways can emphasize different instructional goals. In this investigation, we examined the views of physics graduate teaching assistants (TAs) about the…
A survey was developed to probe student understanding of quantum mechanics at the beginning of graduate instruction. The survey was administered to 202 physics graduate students enrolled in first-year quantum mechanics courses from seven…
In the rapidly growing area of quantum information, the Deutsch algorithm is ubiquitous and, in most cases, the first one to be introduced to any student of this relatively new field of research. The reason for this historical relevance…
The "principle of the fermionic projector" provides a new mathematical framework for the formulation of physical theories and is a promising approach for physics beyond the standard model. The book begins with a brief review of relativity,…
Educators and policy-makers have advocated for reform of undergraduate biology education, calling for greater integration of mathematics and physics in the biology curriculum. While these calls reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary…
Framing affects how students interpret, approach, and accomplish tasks. Little is known, however, about how students frame tasks in physics labs. During the first lab of a sequence designed to teach students about modeling and critical…
Research has shown that it is challenging to change departmental culture to support the adoption of transformed teaching practices. Michigan State University is working to transform its introductory physics courses by engaging faculty in…
It is becoming common to hear teaching advice about spending more time on the "physics of the problem" so that students will get more physical insight and develop a stronger intuition that can be very helpful when thinking about physics…
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…
Professional development workshops are commonly used to promote the adoption of research-based instructional strategies among physics and astronomy faculty. After learning about such strategies, faculty are often motivated to modify and…
This is an informal introduction to the ideas of decoherence and emergent classicality, including a simple account of the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory. It is aimed at undergraduates with a basic appreciation of quantum…
Formally investigating the sources of students' difficulties around specific subjects is crucial for developing appropriate strategies to help students. We have been studying difficulties in understanding magnetism encountered by students…
One goal of physics instruction is to have students learn to make physical meaning of specific mathematical ideas, concepts, and procedures in different physical settings. As part of research investigating student learning in statistical…
We suggest a somewhat non-standard view on a set of curious, paradoxical from the standpoint of simple classical physics and everyday experience phenomena. There are the quantisation (discrete set of values) of the observables (e.g.,…
Deep learning has generated diverse perspectives in astronomy, with ongoing discussions between proponents and skeptics motivating this review. We examine how neural networks complement classical statistics, extending our data analytical…
Machine learning has rapidly become a tool of choice for the astronomical community. It is being applied across a wide range of wavelengths and problems, from the classification of transients to neural network emulators of cosmological…
During the past several years the authors have developed a new approach to the teaching of Physical Science, a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. This approach, called `Physics…
Second part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the real shape of the Earth, the gravitational interactions between our planet and other celestial bodies, and the resulting movement of the…