Related papers: Preparing graduate students to be educators
Physics Education Research (PER) has made significant progress in developing knowledge about teaching and learning as well as effective instructional strategies based on this knowledge. Disseminating knowledge and strategies to other…
The role of student experiences in physics beyond the classroom which support their development has been the subject of exciting research in recent years. Results, typically from small studies at single institutions, have illustrated that…
Studying for physics exams can be difficult and stressful, especially during a student's introductory year in physics. For students who do not plan to major in physics, the desire to do well is based less on understanding concepts and more…
From a department being resistant to change to students not buying into the new computational activities, the challenges that are faced with integrating computation into the physics undergraduate curriculum are varied. The Partnership for…
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) increase students' access to research. This lesson plan describes an interdisciplinary CURE developed to be able to involve over 60 students per semester in original research using…
Instructors in introductory physics courses often use labs and demonstrations to reinforce that the physics equations introduced in lectures and textbooks describe what actually happens in the real world. The surface features and…
One fundamental goal of learning is preparation for future learning (PFL) and being able to extend acquired skills and problem-solving strategies to different domains and environments. While substantial research has shown that PFL can be…
Substantial research indicates that active learning methods improve student learning more than traditional lecturing. Accordingly, current studies aim to characterize and evaluate different instructors' implementations of active learning…
Physics and physics education in the United States suffer from severe (and, in some cases, worsening) underrepresentation of Black, Latina/o, and Native people of all genders and women of all races and ethnicities. This underrepresentation…
Research shows that expert-like approaches to problem-solving can be promoted by encouraging students to explicate their thought processes and follow a prescribed problem-solving strategy. Since grading communicates instructors'…
Physics education research has used quantitative modeling techniques to explore learning, affect, and other aspects of physics education. However, these studies have rarely examined the predictive output of the models, instead focusing on…
One way to foster a supportive culture in physics departments is for instructors to provide students with personal attention regarding their academic difficulties. To this end, we have developed the Guided Reflection Form (GRF), an online…
This Physics Today article discusses why the physics community needs to embrace the challenge of educating students with diverse educational backgrounds to meet future research and workforce demands and outlines some of the efforts…
We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's…
A simple model to help students see the connections between a physics course and their engineering major is described. "Bridging" had positive effects on performance, attitude, and motivation, as measured by grade analyses, surveys, and…
Initiatives to increase the number, persistence, and success of women in physics in the US reach pre-teen girls through senior women. Programs exist at both the local and national levels. In addition, researchers have investigated issues…
The authors use an action research (AR) approach in a collegiate studio physics class to investigate the power of partnerships via conferences as they relate to issues of establishing a student/mentor rapport, empowering students to reduce…
In this study, we adapt prior identity framework to investigate the effect of learning environment (including perceived recognition, peer interaction and sense of belonging) on students' physics self-efficacy, interest and identity by…
Physicists and physics students have been studied with respect to the variation in ways they expound on their topic of research and a physics problem, respectively. A phenomenographic approach has been employed; six fourth-year physics…
Since 2006, the Pigelleto's Summer School of Physics is an important appointment for orienting students toward physics. It is organized as a full immersion school on actual topics in physics or in fields rarely pursued in high school, i.e.…