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Human creativity is a multifaceted phenomenon with cognitive, attitudinal, intrapersonal interpersonal, practical, socio-cultural, economic, and environmental aspects. It can be challenging to incorporate creativity in classrooms. Teachers…
This article proposes and discusses qualitatively the use of a didactic board game in Science Education for high school students. The game contemplates in an interdisciplinary way the areas of Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Astronomy and…
This paper introduces Reflective Empiricism, an extension of empirical science that incorporates subjective perception and consciousness processes as equally valid sources of knowledge. It views reality as an interplay of subjective…
This article describes some collaborative activities of the authors, aimed at improving science education in elementary schools. These include curriculum enhancement, development of new apparatus (a wind tunnel), science-education web site…
Assessment tasks provide opportunities for students to make sense of novel contexts in light of their existing ideas. Consequently, investigations in physics education research have extensively developed and analyzed assessments that…
Thought experiments are considered valuable tools in science, enabling the exploration of hypotheses and the examination of complex ideas in a conceptual, non-empirical framework. These thought experiments can be useful in design fiction…
The increasing availability of digital tools for education offers significant opportunities to enhance teaching practices and student engagement. This study presents a structured categorization of online educational tools based on their…
Science communication skills are considered essential learning objectives for undergraduate physics students. However, high enrollment and limited class resources present significant barriers to providing students ample opportunities to…
The quantum mechanical commutation relations, which are directly related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, have a crucial importance for understanding the quantum mechanics of students. During undergraduate level courses, the…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
Although an important goal of introductory physics labs is to train students in scientific reasoning and critical thinking, currently there are no standard tests in physics designed to assess such skills. We are in the process of developing…
Optics is a core field in the curricula of secondary physics education. In this study, we present the development and validation of a test instrument in the field of optics, the Converging Lenses Concept Inventory (CLCI). It can be used as…
Traditionally, scholars in physics education research pay attention to students solving well-structured learning activities, which provide restricted room for collaboration and idea-generation due to their close-ended nature. In order to…
The proper choice of a measurement technique that minimizes systematic and random uncertainty is an essential part of experimental physics. These issues are difficult to teach in the introductory laboratory, though: because most experiments…
In this paper I describe an in-class discussion activity aimed at helping elementary education majors in a physical science course think about issues surrounding the inclusion of "Intelligent Design" in public school science standards. I…
One of the oft-cited qualities sought after in a potential future engineering employee is an analytical mind that is "continually examining things." In one sense this examination is discouraged in an instructional laboratory employing…
The objective of physics laboratory training is to develop, in students, a variety of important cognitive and psycho-motor abilities related to experimental physics. These include conceptual understanding, procedural understanding,…
There has been a resurgence of interest in optical computing over the past decade, both in academia and in industry, with much of the excitement centered around special-purpose optical computers for neural-network processing. Optical…
Physlets are scriptable Java applets that can be used for physics instruction. In this article we discuss the pedagogical foundations of Physlet use and provide a sample of Physlet-based exercises that could be used to teach optics.
The paper presents a teaching module about liquid crystals. Since liquid crystals are linked to everyday student experiences and are also a topic of a current scientific research, they are an excellent candidate of a modern topic to be…