相关论文: Cinema, Fermi Problems, & General Education

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…

To effectively prepare engineering students requires of formation of a system of fundamental physical knowledge together with the ability to apply them in specific productive activities, both on fundamental and on the profiled-oriented…

Learning to use math in physics involves combining (blending) our everyday experiences and the conceptual ideas of physics with symbolic mathematical representations. Graphs are one of the best ways to learn to build the blend. They are a…

We argue that most advances in science and technology during the past and the present centuries rely on modern physics concepts developed in the early $20$th century. The reliance is so profound that any improvement of literacy of science…

The study guide (textbook) is part of a set of materials designed to support high-quality practical training in physics. It includes a collection of tasks for organizing both in-class and independent work. The guide serves as a foundation…

We investigated the effects of student-generated problems on exams. The process was gradual with some training throughout the semester. Initial results were highly positive with the students involved performing significantly better, and…

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,…

We discuss how a class of difficult kinematic problems can play an important role in an introductory course in stimulating students' reasoning on more complex physical situations. The problems presented here have an elementary analysis once…

Training students in basic concepts of physics, such as the ones related to mass, volume, or density, is much more complicated than just stating the underlying definitions and laws. One of the reasons for this is that most students have…

Helping students become proficient problem solvers is a major goal of many physics courses from introductory to advanced levels. In fact, physics has often been used by cognitive scientists to investigate the differences between the…

The reform of the upper secondary school in Italy has recently introduced physics in the curricula of professional schools, in realities where it was previously absent. Many teachers, often with a temporary position, are obliged to teaching…

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…

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…

Physics community is generally concerned about the decrease in Physics enrollment. Due to the deficiency of specially qualified Physics teachers, high school Physics is sometimes taught by general science teachers who may not be trained to…

Our main goal is to develop plans to increase physics enrollment. Once again we thoroughly analyze the problem from the beginning and reach the conclusion that the most appropriate starting point in this direction should be to look into…

Pencasts are videos of problem solving with narration by the problem solver. Pedagogically, students can create pencasts to illustrate their own problem solving to the instructor or to their peers. Pencasts have implications for teaching at…

We developed a two-day physics class that uses a nearby forest as a teaching location. Using low-cost material, students design and carry out physics projects outside of the usual controlled environment that is a classroom. In this way they…

Effective physics learning, especially in complex topics, requires balancing mathematical formalism with conceptual understanding. Conceptual problem-solving involves connecting math to physical reality, and using an epistemological…

We describe a course designed to help future educators build an integrated understanding of the different elements of physics education research (PER), including: research into student learning, content knowledge from the perspective of how…

Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend…