相关论文: "The Physics of Life," an undergraduate general ed…
Physics has a reputation among majority of life sciences students for being very complicated and tough. If we leave students with this impression, it is likely that students see physics class as useless and irrelevant to life sciences.…
Recruiting and retaining highly qualified physics and physical science teachers is critical for maintaining America's global competitiveness. Unfortunately, only one third of the high school teachers in physics have a degree in physics and…
In response to increasing calls for the reform of the undergraduate science curriculum for life science majors and pre-medical students (Bio2010, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, Vision & Change), an interdisciplinary team has…
We present an investigation into the interdisciplinary role of physics in a physics-for-non-physicists course at Pomona College. This work is guided by prior research into introductory physics for life-science (IPLS) courses, but attends to…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
We offer second year students the opportunity to explore Current Topics in Biophysics in a course co-taught by a physicist and a biologist. The interdisciplinary course allows university students to engage in analytical thinking that…
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…
It has been reported that students often leave the introductory physics classroom believing that physics is less connected to the real world than when they entered. In this paper we aim to complicate that narrative by considering students'…
Teaching physics to biologists requires far more than making the course for engineers mathematically less rigorous and adding in a few superficial biological problems. What is needed is for physicists to work closely with biologists to…
We discuss the development, implementation, and assessment of a course for science undergraduates designed to help them develop an awareness and a deeper appreciation of the intellectual demands of physics teaching. The course focused on…
At many physics departments a significant fraction of teaching is in support of engineers and scientists in other majors. These service courses are thus an automatic crucible of interdisciplinary interaction, and at times, strife. For…
The University of Maryland (UMD) Biology Education and Physics Education Research Groups are investigating students' views on the role of physics in introductory biology courses. This paper presents data from an introductory course that…
For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only opportunity in their formal higher education to be exposed to science, shaping their view of the subject, their scientific literacy, and their attitudes towards…
We present outcomes from curricular changes made to an introductory calculus-based physics course whose audience is primarily life science majors, the majority of whom plan to pursue post-baccalaureate studies in medical and scientific…
If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated…
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that U.S. institutions of higher education provide "reasonable accommodations" to students with disabilities to ensure equal educational opportunities. However, despite the key role of…
The physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects…
Laboratory courses represent a unique and potentially important component of the undergraduate physics curriculum, which can be designed to allow students to authentically engage with the process of experimental physics. Among other…
Improving students' understanding of the nature of experimental physics is often an explicit or implicit goal of undergraduate laboratory physics courses. However, lab activities in traditional lab courses are typically characterized by…
A central goal of Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS) is to prepare students to use physics to model and analyze biological situations, a skill of increasing importance for their future studies and careers. Here we report our…