The Impact and Promise of Open-Source Computational Material for Physics Teaching

Groupe International de Recherche sur l’Enseignement de la Physique (GIREP) Event
August 30, 2016 - September 3, 2017 in Kraków, Poland

A computer-based modeling approach to teaching must be flexible because students and teachers have different skills and varying levels of preparation. Learning how to run the "software du jour" is not the objective for integrating computational physics material into the curriculum.  Learning computational thinking, how to use computation and computer-based visualization to communicate ideas, how to design and build models, and how to use ready-to-run models to foster critical thinking is the objective.  The computational modeling approach to teaching is a research-proven pedagogy that predates computers. It attempts to enhance student achievement through the Modeling Cycle.  This talk describes a no-cost open-source computational approach aligned with a Modeling Cycle pedagogy. Our tools, curricular material, and ready-to-run examples are available from the Open Source Physics Collection of the National Science Foundation funded AAPT-ComPADRE digital library.

http://www.girep2016.confer.uj.edu.pl