SEARCH · Searcharxiv

Results for “physics.ed-ph”

Search indexed arXiv papers on artificial intelligence, large language models, computer vision and robotics. Read source abstracts and follow links to arXiv.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Second Life Physics: Virtual, real, or surreal?

Science teaching detached itself from reality and became restricted to the classrooms and textbooks with their overreliance on standardized and repetitive exercises, while students keep their own alternative conceptions. Papert, displeased with this inefficient learning process, championed physics microworlds, where students could experience a variety of laws of motion, from Aristotle to Newton and Einstein or even new laws invented by the students themselves. While often mistakenly seen as a game, Second Life (SL), the online 3-D virtual world hosted by Linden Lab, imposes essentially no rules on the residents beyond reasonable restrictions on improper behavior and the physical rules that guarantee its similitude to the real world. As a consequence, SL qualifies itself as an environment for personal discovery and exploration as proposed by constructivist theories. The physical laws are implemented through the well-known physics engine Havok, whose design aims to provide game-players a consistent, realistic environment. The Havok User Guide (2008) explicitly encourages developers to use several tricks to cheat the simulator in order to make games funnier or easier to play. As it is shown in this study, SL physics is unexpectedly neither the Newtonian idealized physics nor a real world physics virtualization, intentionally diverging from reality in such a way that it could be called hyper-real. As a matter of fact, if some of its features make objects behave more realistically than real ones, certain quantities like energy have a totally different meaning in SL as compared to physics. Far from considering it as a problem, however, the author argues that its hyper-reality may be a golden teaching opportunity, allowing surreal physics simulations and epistemologically rich classroom discussions around the what is a physical law? issue, in accordance with Papert's never-implemented proposal.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Big Data as a Mediator in Science Teaching: A Proposal

We live in a digital world that, in 2010, crossed the mark of one zettabyte data. This huge amount of data processed on computers extremely fast with optimized techniques allows one to find insights in new and emerging types of data and content and to answer questions that were previously considered beyond reach. This is the idea of Big Data. Google now offers the Google Correlate analysis public tool that, from a search term or a series of temporal or regional data, provides a list of queries on Google whose frequencies follow patterns that best correlate with the data, according to the Pearson determination coefficient R2. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. We believe, however, that there is potential for these big data tools to find unexpected correlations that may serve as clues to interesting phenomena, from the pedagogical and even scientific point of view. As far as we know, this is the first proposal for the use of Big Data in Science Teaching, of constructionist character, taking as mediators the computer and the public and free tools such as Google Correlate. It also has an epistemological bias, not being merely a training in computational infrastructure or predictive analytics, but aiming at providing students a better understanding of physical concepts, such as phenomena, observation, measurement, physical laws, theory, and causality. With it, they would be able to become good Big Data specialists, the so needed 'data scientists' to solve the challenges of Big Data.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

TATI -- A Logo-like interface for microworlds and simulations for physics teaching in Second Life

Student difficulties in learning Physics have been thoroughly discussed in the scientific literature. Already in 1980, Papert complained that schools teach Newtonian motion by manipulating equations rather than by manipulating the Newtonian objects themselves, what would be possible in a 'physics microworld'. On the other hand, Second Life and its scripting language have a remarkable learning curve that discourages most teachers at using it as an environment for educational computer simulations and microworlds. The objective of this work is to describe TATI, a textual interface which, through TATILogo, an accessible Logo language extension, allows the generation of various physics microworlds in Second Life, containing different types of objects that follow different physical laws, providing a learning path into Newtonian Physics.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

How to Control a Decrease in Physics Enrollment?

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 motivate students to study Physics. These students will neither be inclined to register into Physics courses nor plan to teach Physics. They will be unable to find out the relevance of Physics with daily life, its application in different disciplines and even the job market. In this situation, we have to carefully make the existing Physics programs more attractive, instead of closing them down. We discuss teaching methodology and course requirements that will help to make Physics programs more attractive and preferable for incoming students. However, we emphasize to set our goals and plan to increase enrollment in parallel steps such as proper information about the program, help in developing a required mathematics background, offering scholarships, teaching assistantship or internships and involving them in research. Also we need to make Physics programs more interesting with the interdisciplinary courses and other electives which students may like. We will have to work on the retention rate to maintain enrollment without compromising on standards. However, we still have to develop a complete understanding of the problem and keep looking for a better solution.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Why are differential equations used for expressing the laws of physics?

Almost all theories of physics have expressed physical laws by means of differential equations. One can ask: why differential equations? What is special about them? This article addresses these questions and is presented as an inquiry-based lecture, where students and a teacher are engaged in discussion. It has two goals: (1) To help undergraduate students understand the rationale behind the use of differential equations in physics, (2) To show how meaningful and interactive presentation of mathematics can help students take pleasure in learning physics.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

A mobile web for enhancing statistics and mathematics education

A freely available educational application (a mobile website) is presented. This provides access to educational material and drilling on selected topics within mathematics and statistics with an emphasis on tablets and mobile phones. The application adapts to the student's performance, selecting from easy to difficult questions, or older material etc. These adaptations are based on statistical models and analyses of data from testing precursors of the system within several courses, from calculus and introductory statistics through multiple linear regression. The application can be used in both on-line and off-line modes. The behavior of the application is determined by parameters, the effects of which can be estimated statistically. Results presented include analyses of how the internal algorithms relate to passing a course and general incremental improvement in knowledge during a semester.

stat.OT↗

arXiv2014

An Empirical Study of the Effect of Granting Multiple Tries for Online Homework

When deploying online homework in physics courses, an important consideration is how many attempts should be allowed in order to solve numerical free-response problems. While on the one hand, the maximum number of attempts should be large enough to allow learners mastery of the concepts and disincentivize copying, on the other hand, too many allowed attempts encourage counter-productive problem-solving behavior. In a study of an introductory calculus-based physics course for scientists and engineers which had different numbers of allowed attempts in different semesters, it was found that except for the initial tries, students are not making productive use of later attempts, and that in fact higher numbers of allowed attempts lead to less successful homework completion.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Just Math: A new epistemic frame

A goal of PER is to understand how students use math in physics contexts. To investigate how students use math, we need to identify transitions between conceptual sense-making about physical systems and using mathematics to describe and to make predictions about those systems. We reviewed video of students solving a variety of physics problems in small groups through the lens of epistemic frames (e-frames). In this paper, we present a new e-frame, which we are calling "Just Math", that is similar to the Worksheet e-frame, but is characterized by brief, low-level, math-focused utterances between students. Future work will focus on analyzing the transitions into and out of this e-frame so that we may develop a more coherent understanding of students' use of math in physics.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Learning about the Energy of a Hurricane System through an Estimation Epistemic Game

As part of a study into students' problem solving behaviors, we asked upper-division physics students to solve estimation problems in clinical interviews. We use the Resources Framework and epistemic games to describe students' problem solving moves. We present a new epistemic game, the "estimation epistemic game". In the estimation epistemic game, students break the larger problem into a series of smaller, tractable problems. Within each sub-problem, they try to remember a method for solving the problem, and use estimation and reasoning abilities to justify their answers. We demonstrate how a single case study student plays the game to estimate the total energy in a hurricane. Finally, we discuss the implications of epistemic game analysis for other estimation problems.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Engaging Physics Faculty in Course Transformation

Research has shown that it is challenging to change departmental culture to support the adoption of transformed teaching practices. Michigan State University is working to transform its introductory physics courses by engaging faculty in discussions about the scientific practices and core ideas of the discipline, and to use those discussions to drive change to both assessments and classroom instruction. Here we discuss our model of change, its implementation in the Physics and Astronomy department, the challenges encountered along the way and how we've mitigated those challenges, and tools to measure the impact of this change.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Rubric Design for Separating the Roles of Open-Ended Assessments

End-of-course assessments play important roles in the ongoing attempt to improve instruction in physics courses. Comparison of students' performance on assessments before and after instruction gives a measure of student learning. In addition, analysis of students' answers to assessment items provides insight into students' difficulties with specific concepts and practices. While open-ended assessments scored with detailed rubrics provide useful information about student reasoning to researchers, end users need to score students' responses so that they may obtain meaningful feedback on their instruction. One solution that satisfies end users and researchers is a grading rubric that separates scoring student work and uncovering student difficulties. We have constructed a separable rubric for the Colorado Classical Mechanics/Math Methods Instrument that has been used by untrained graders to score the assessment reliably, and by researchers to unpack common student difficulties. Here we present rubric development, measures of inter-rater reliability, and some uncovered student difficulties.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Studying Expert Practices to Create Learning Goals for Electronics Labs

Laboratory courses for upper-division undergraduates often involve sophisticated equipment, relatively small class sizes, and extended hands-on projects. These courses present distinct challenges and opportunities for the physics education research community as these features are not often present in other undergraduate courses. Here, we focus on an upper-division lab-based electronics course. As a first step in establishing learning goals for upper-division electronics, we interviewed graduate students and faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder about the use of electronics in their own research labs. The content-specific nature of electronics courses parallels the hands-on experience of graduate student researchers, so focusing on the experiences of graduate students is ideal for informing lab course reform. From their interview responses, we developed a framework for classifying applications of electronics. We identify five types of use and four forms of interaction with electronics content that are consistently identified by faculty and graduate students. However, we see variations between faculty and graduate students regarding how electronics is learned.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Student Reasoning About the Divergence of a Vector Field

Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and responses to conceptual questions, we document specific resources employed by students when reasoning about the divergence of a vector field. One common student error, which persisted in our course despite explicit instruction, is to misinterpret any "spreading out" of field lines in a diagram as representing a place of non-zero divergence. Some of these student difficulties can likely be attributed to having first learned about the divergence in a mathematical context, where there was little emphasis on graphical representations of vector fields and connections to physical situations.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Peer Evaluation of Video Lab Reports in an Introductory Physics MOOC

Assessing student performance becomes challenging when course enrollment becomes very large (~10^4 students). As part of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in introductory physics offered by Georgia Tech in 2013, students submitted video reports on mechanics labs. Peer evaluation of these reports provided the primary method for evaluating student laboratory work. This paper describes the methods developed and used to guide students in evaluating each other's video lab reports. We also discuss how students' peer evaluation behavior changed with different interventions provided in the course.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Student Difficulties with the Dirac Delta Function

The Dirac delta function is a standard mathematical tool used in multiple topical areas in the undergraduate physics curriculum. While Dirac delta functions are usually introduced in order to simplify a problem mathematically, students often struggle to manipulate and interpret them. To better understand student difficulties with the delta function at the upper-division level, we examined responses to traditional exam questions and conducted think-aloud interviews. Our analysis was guided by an analytical framework that focuses on how students activate, construct, execute, and reflect on the Dirac delta function in physics. Here, we focus on student difficulties using the delta function to express charge distributions in the context of junior-level electrostatics. Challenges included: invoking the delta function spontaneously, constructing two- and three-dimensional delta functions, integrating novel delta function expressions, and recognizing that the delta function can have units.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2015

Measuring the Learning from Two-Stage Collaborative Group Exams

A two-stage collaborative exam is one in which students first complete the exam individually, and then complete the same or similar exam in collaborative groups immediately afterward. To quantify the learning effect from the group component of these two-stage exams in an introductory Physics course, a randomized crossover design was used where each student participated in both the treatment and control groups. For each of the two two-stage collaborative group midterm exams, questions were designed to form matched near-transfer pairs with questions on an end-of-term diagnostic which was used as a learning test. For diagnostic test questions paired with questions from the first midterm, which took place six to seven weeks before the diagnostic test, an analysis using a mixed-effects logistic regression found no significant differences in diagnostic-test performance between the control and treatment group. For diagnostic test questions paired with questions from the second midterm, which took place one to two weeks prior to the diagnostic test, the treatment group performed significantly higher on the diagnostic-test than control.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

Volume Integral of the Pressure Gradient and Archimedes' Principle

The theorems of vector analysis (divergence theorem, etc.) are typically first applied in the undergraduate physics curriculum in the context of the electromagnetic field and the differential forms of Maxwell's equations. However, these tools are analyzed in depth several courses later in the junior-senior level. I discuss here a "bridge" problem, using the language of vector calculus in a mechanics setting to understand Archimedes' principle as a consequence of hydrostatic equilibrium and the superposition of the external forces. It is my hope that this treatment will help students better integrate and understand understand these and similar vector analysis results in contexts beyond electromagnetism.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2014

A model for including Arduino microcontroller programming in the introductory physics lab

The paper describes a curricular framework for introducing microcontroller programming in the University Physics lab. The approach makes use of Modeling Instruction, an effective approach for teaching science at the secondary level in which student learn the standard material by developing and deploying models of the physical world. In our approach, students engage with a context-rich problem that can be solved with one or more sensors and a microcontroller. The solution path we describe then consists of developing a mathematical model for how the sensors' data can be mapped to a meaningful measurement, and further, developing an algorithmic model that will be implemented in the microcontroller. Once the system is developed and implemented, students are given an array of similar problems in which they can deploy their data collection system. Results from the implementation of this idea, in two University Physics sections, using Arduino microcontrollers, are also described.

physics.ed-ph↗