Related papers: Intelligent Design in the Physics Classroom?
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…
A brief account of some recent controversies about the teaching and learning of physics is presented. A shorter version of this outcome was accepted by The Physics Teacher, but publication is still pending.
Invited contribution to the inaugural issue of {\em Physics Educator.}
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…
A recent high school graduate addresses the salient question: Should individualism or collectivism be encouraged in physics students? (Physics Today, Points of View, October 2013)
This is an entry for Physics Today's recent essay contest, written as a "Search and Discovery" news story, imagining what major breakthroughs might be shaking the physics world one hundred years from now.
New thinking needs to emerge about how to reform publishing along lines that best meet two perennial needs of scientific communication. This paper discusses a model that addresses these two needs with respect to physics. Given the…
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
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…
Writing is an integral part of the process of science. In the undergraduate physics curriculum, the most common place that students engage with scientific writing is in lab classes, typically through lab notebooks, reports, and proposals.…
Research framed around issues of diversity and representation is often controversial. The question of what constitutes a valid critique of such research, or the appropriate manner of airing such a critique, thus has a heavy ideological and…
The Hopfield model, originally inspired by spin-glass physics, occupies a central place at the intersection of statistical mechanics, neural networks, and modern artificial intelligence. Despite its conceptual simplicity and broad…
Summary talk at ICHEP 2002, Amsterdam, July 2002. I have kept very close to the content and style of the talk as it was delivered. You may access the associated PowerPoint presentation through a link at…
In the current era of AI transforming the research-education environment of physics, variety of issues and concerns arise. The KITP program "Generative AI for High and Low Energy Physics'' offered a discussion session on this, and here…
This report describes the development and use of an online teaching tool giving students exercises in logical modelling, or \emph{formalisation} as it is called in the older literature. The original version of the site, `Logic for Fun',…
Even though there has been a tremendous amount of research done in how to help students learn physics, students are still coming away missing a crucial piece of the puzzle: why bother with physics? Students learn fundamental laws and how to…
It is a fact of our existence, that no matter where we are, we most often find ourselves either hearing, seeing, talking, or even engaged in design related activities. Despite this reality, the notion of 'design', and in particular…
Teaching about measurements and showing examples of instruments' non-ideal behaviour are important in physics education. Digital multimeter input impedance analysis is perfect for this, since these instruments are easily available, precise…
Computation holds great potential for introducing new opportunities for creativity and exploration into the physics curriculum. At the University of Oslo we have begun development of a new class of assignment called computational essays to…
The modeling theory of instruction is widely applied and highly successful in high-school instruction, and seldom in university physics. One reason is lack of familiarity with models in the physics classroom. Ongoing curriculum development…