New PSRC collection resources

Paradigms in Physics: E&M Activities

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:50:30 EST

This web page provides a list of learning activities for Junior level Electricity and Magnetism classes. Each activity includes a description and learning goals, guides for instructors, handouts or worksheets, and reflections of instructors who have used the activity when available. Among the topics included are charge and current density, fields, Gauss' and Ampere's laws, Maxwell's equations, and electromagnetic waves. Links to related mathematical concepts are also provided. This material is part of the Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University. This work promotes the use of active student learning in upper division physics courses. Both learning materials and learning strategies are provided to help both students and instructors.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:24:39 EST

This presentation from the North Carolina PTEC Mini-Conference outlines the need for teachers to understand the overlap between pedagogy and their discipline-specific content. The presentation outlines a program designed to develop this understanding in new teachers and the results of this program.

Paradigms in Physics Quantum: Projection Operators

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:25:55 EST

This student activity is designed to help upper division undergraduate students work with the mathematics of projection operators in quantum mechanics. Students will find normalized orthogonal vectors, take outer products of vectors with themselves, and explore the resulting projection operators. This material includes a student worksheet and instructor's guide. This material is part of the Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University. This work promotes the use of active student learning in upper division physics courses. Both learning materials and learning strategies are provided to help both students and instructors. Instructors using these materials are encouraged to add comments on their experiences to the wiki.

Northern Illinois University Department of Physics: Outreach

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:27:08 EST

Northern Illinois University's outreach program teaches area students about physics. Topics included are forces and Newtonian mechanics, light & colors, and basic thermodynamics involving liquid Nitrogen.

An Instructor's Guide to the Effective Use of Personal Response Systems (Clickers) in Teaching

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:22:49 EST

This resource is a comprehensive guide to the effective use of hand-held personal response devices known as "clickers," which allow students in large lecture classes to respond interactively to a problem. The resource offers tips on how to implement clickers appropriately, how to select questions or problems, and how to use responses to aid students in concept formation. This educational guide was developed by the staff of the Science Education Initiative at the University of Colorado and the University of British Columbia.

Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) Wiki

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:16:54 EST

This wiki is a growing resource collection of information and resources for teaching physics for life sciences. It is a community collaboration developed by the faculty community working to reform introductory physics for the life sciences courses (IPLS) to better prepare students for careers in medicine and the life sciences. This wiki includes sample courses and curricula, laboratories, assessments, and other teaching and learning resources with life science applications in physics.

AAAS-ComPADRE Benchmarks Workshop

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:40:07 EST

This workshop will bring together teachers and faculty members to advance the ComPADRE Educational Standards alignment efforts.

Building a Course in ComPADRE

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:05:08 EST

These notes are from the ComPADRE Workshop, Building Your Physics Course with ComPADRE, given at the Winter 2010 AAPT meeting. The notes provide an overview of the resources and services of ComPADRE and an introduction to the File Cabinet.

Paradigms in Physics E&M: Acting Out Charge Densities

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:34:39 EST

This student activity is designed to help upper division undergraduate students build conceptual understanding of linear, surface and volume charge densities. Students are required to "act out" both uniform and non-uniform densities by forming groups appropriate for uniform and non-uniform densities. An instructor's guide is available to help guide the activity along with comments about instructors who have used this activity in class. This material is part of the Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University. This work promotes the use of active student learning in upper division physics courses. Both learning materials and learning strategies are provided to help both students and instructors.

Roller Coaster

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:52:53 EST

The EJS Roller Coaster model explores the relationship between kinetic, potential, and total energy as a cart travels along a roller coaster. Users can create their own roller coaster curve and observe the resulting motion. The Roller Coaster model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

Paradigms in Physics E&M: Total Charge

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:50:12 EST

This student activity is designed to help upper division undergraduate students work with non-constant charge distributions in electrostatics. Students are given various functional charge densities in spherical and cylindrical geometries and must determine the total charge. This activity requires them to work with various volume elements and integrating by substitution. An instructor's guide is available to help guide the activity along with the student handout. This material is part of the Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University. This work promotes the use of active student learning in upper division physics courses. Both learning materials and learning strategies are provided to help both students and instructors.

Paradigms in Physics: Quantum Activities

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:35:21 EST

This web page provides a list of learning activities for Quantum Mechanics classes. Each activity includes a description and learning goals, guides for instructors, handouts or worksheets, and reflections of instructors who have used the activity when available. Included are activities for Operators, Eigenstates, Probability Densities, Stern-Gerlach Simulations, Schrödinger's Equation, and Time Evolution. This material is part of the Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University. This work promotes the use of active student learning in upper division physics courses. Both learning materials and learning strategies are provided to help both students and instructors.

Intermediate Mechanics Tutorials: Simple Harmonic Motion in 2D

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:44:44 EST

This set of tutorial materials covers the topic of simple harmonic motion in two dimensions. Students examine qualitatively and quantitatively the motion of a 2D harmonic oscillator, as exemplified by a mass attached to an ideal spring. There are two interactive spreadsheets to allow students to manipulate values and graphically see the results. Students alter phase angles and material constants to develop an understanding of the physical parameters in the problem. This material also includes a pretest, example homework, and test questions. This is part of a large collection of similar tutorial materials in intermediate classical mechanics.

Upper-Division Quantum Mechanics I Transformed Course Materials

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:11:20 EST

This web site provides research-based materials for junior-level quantum mechanics I courses on quantum mechanics. Topics covered include the Schroedinger equation, bound state problems, Hilbert space and operators, the hydrogen atom, and spin. The course archives include documented student difficulties, learning goals, ConcepTests (clicker questions), class activities, homework, tutorials, and a conceptual assessment tool. All may be downloaded, although the assessment tools require permission from the authors for access.

WIKISKY.ORG

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:58:25 EST

This web site provides a star map of the Earth's sky, with links to information and images available on a number of different astronomical databases. The user can zoom in on objects and click on them to see detailed images and more information. Available databases include the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Infrared Sky Survey (IRAS), H-Alpha Sky Survey, X-Ray Sky Survey (RASS3), and the Ultraviolet Sky Survey (GALEX). A large number of recommended objects are available on the web site. Objects in the Solar System are not included.

FCI-based Multiple Choice Test for Investigating Students' Representational Coherence

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:53:41 EST

We present the Representation Test derived from the FCI for evaluating students' representational coherence on some aspects of gravitation and Newton's third law. The test consists of 23 questions addressing verbal, graphical, bar chart, and vectorial representations. Matched high school student data (n = 54) on the pre- and post-test are analyzed in terms of representational coherence and scientific correctness.

Student Understanding Of The Physics And Mathematics Of Process Variables In P-V Diagrams

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:51:49 EST

Students in an upper-level thermal physics course were asked to compare quantities related to the First Law of Thermodynamics along with similar mathematical questions devoid of all physical context. We report on a comparison of student responses to physics questions involving interpretation of ideal gas processes on P-V diagrams and to analogous mathematical qualitative questions about the signs of and comparisons between the magnitudes of various integrals. Student performance on individual questions combined with performance on the paired questions shows evidence of isolated understanding of physics and mathematics. Some difficulties are addressed by instruction.

Kicked Rotor Dynamics Model

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:49:57 EST

The Kicked Rotor model shows the dynamics of a rotating bar (rotor) that is kicked periodically. This model is also known as the standard map or the Chirikov-Taylor map. Each impulsive kick changes the angular momentum of the rotor instantaneously and the bar rotates uniformly between kicks. Clicking in the Poincare section sets the initial conditions of the rotor. You can examine and modify this simulation if you have EJS installed by right-clicking within the plot and selecting “Open EJS Model” from the pop-up menu item. The Kicked Rotor Dynamics model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the ejs_chaos_KickedRotorDynamics.jar file will run the program if Java is installed. EJS is a part of the Open Source Physics Project and is designed to make it easier to access, modify, and generate computer models.

Imagine the Universe Lesson Plan: Roy G. Biv: The Relationship between Frequency and Wavelength

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:04:45 EST

This item is a middle school lesson plan on the electromagnetic spectrum, developed by the Imagine the Universe project through NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Students use colored pencils, adding machine tape, and and file folders to create their own spectra and analyze how wavelength and frequency are related. Printable student worksheets and a closing assessment are also included. This item is part of a larger collection of K-12 resources created by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center for NASA. See Related items on this page for links to other lessons/tutorials.

A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Curriculum on Conceptual Understanding in E&M

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:23:43 EST

We have collected extensive data on upper-division Electricity and Magnetism (E&M) student performance at CU Boulder since we introduced the University of Washington's Tutorials in Introductory Physics in 2004 as part of our freshman curriculum. In the earliest semesters, all upper-division students had themselves taken a non-Tutorial introductory Physics, providing a baseline at this upper-division level surprisingly close to post-scores in our reformed introductory course. More recently, the population in the upper-division is mixed with respect to freshman experience, with over half having been taught with Tutorials as freshmen. We track those students and find that on average, their individual BEMA scores do not change significantly over time. However, we do find a significantly stronger performance at the upper division level for students who went through Tutorials compared to those who had other introductory experiences, and stronger scores still for students who taught in the introductory sequence as Learning Assistants, indicating a long-term positive impact of Tutorials on conceptual understanding.