Related papers: Optics experiments as a tool for developing critic…
The ability to emotionally or intellectually understand another person's thoughts and feelings-empathy-can foster critical connections that facilitate learning and collaboration. We present a case study of physics faculty that examines…
This article describes an exemplary robot exercise which was conducted in a class for mechatronics students. The goal of this exercise was to engage students in scientific thinking and reasoning, activities which do not always play an…
Implementing a laboratory activity involves a complex interplay among learning goals, available resources, feedback about the existing course, best practices for teaching, and an overall philosophy about teaching labs. Building on our…
As AI systems shape individual and societal decisions, fostering critical AI literacy is essential. Traditional approaches, such as blog articles, static lessons, and social media discussions, often fail to support deep conceptual…
Science education at all levels is currently undergoing dramatic changes to its curricula and developing assessments for these new curricula is paramount. We have used the basis of many of these new changes (scientific practices,…
Optomechanics, the study of the mechanical interaction of light with matter, has proven to be a fruitful area of research that has yielded many notable achievements, including the direct detection of gravitational waves in kilometer-scale…
These are the lecture notes for a course that I am teaching at Zhiyuan College of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (available at https://www.youtube.com/derekkorg), though the first draft was created for a previous course I taught at the…
Adaptive optics workbenches are fully functional optical systems that can be used to illustrate and teach a variety of concepts and cognitive processes. Four systems have been funded, designed and constructed by various institutions and…
In this article we present and discuss a didactic activity that combines epistemic aspects of the nature of science (NOS) and a simple, relatively low-cost experiment on electromagnetic induction. The aim of the activity is for students to…
We believe that economists have much to learn from educational research practices and related pedagogical innovations in other disciplines, in particular physics education. In this paper we identify three key features of physics education…
Throughout all years of study, students of physics are confronted with the question 'what exactly is light?' - a question that is impossible to answer correctly and, therefore, continuously discussed within the framework of models. Numerous…
Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and…
Writing and argumentation are critical to both professional physics and physics education. However, the skill of making an extended argument in writing is often overlooked in physics classrooms, apart from certain practices like lab…
Computational thinking has been a recent focus of education research within the sciences. However, there is a dearth of scholarly literature on how best to teach and to assess this topic, especially in disciplinary science courses. Physics…
Drawing on the Data and Predictions strand of the Indicazioni Nazionali per il curricolo 2012, this study proposes a problem based instructional approach to the teaching of probability. More specifically, the study adopts a design based…
Computation is becoming an increasingly important part of physics education. However, there are currently few theories of learning that can be used to help explain and predict the unique challenges and affordances associated with…
The rapid advancement of technology and science education demands innovative approaches to develop students' critical and creative thinking skills. However, there is limited systematic evidence about the effectiveness of different physics…
The amount of published research in Physics Education Research (PER) shows, on one hand, an increasing interest in the design and development of high performance physics teaching strategies, and, on the other hand, it tries to understand…
Students must learn effective problem solving strategies in order to develop expertise in physics. Effective problem solving strategies include a conceptual analysis of the problem followed by planning of the solution, and then…
There is general agreement that creativity and innovation are desirable traits in the toolbox of 21\textsuperscript{st} century engineers, as well as in the future workforce in general. However, there is a dearth of exemplars, pedagogical…