What do Seniors Remember From Freshman Physics?

We have given a group of 56 MIT seniors who took mechanics as freshmen a written test similar to the final exam they took in their freshman course, plus the Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT) and Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (C‐LASS) standard instruments. Students in majors unrelated to physics scored 60% lower on the written analytic part of the final than they did as freshmen. The mean score of all students on conceptual multiple choice questions included on the final also declined by about 60% relative to the scores of freshmen. The mean score of all participants on the MBT was insignificantly changed from the posttest taken as freshmen. More specifically, however, the students’ performance on 9 of the 26 MBT items (with 6 of the 9 involving graphical kinematics) represents a gain over their freshman pretest score (a normalized gain of about 70%, double the gain achieved in the freshman course alone), while their performance on the remaining 17 questions is best characterized as a loss of approximately 50% of the material learned in the freshman course. Attitudinal survey results indicate that almost half the seniors feel the specific mechanics course content is unlikely to be useful to them, a significant majority (75–85%) feel that physics does teach valuable skills, and an overwhelming majority believe that mechanics should remain a required course at MIT.National Science Foundation (U.S.

Modeling applied to problem solving

We describe a modeling approach to help students learn expert problem solving. Models are used to present and hierarchically organize the syllabus content and apply it to problem solving, but students do not develop and validate their own Models through guided discovery. Instead, students classify problems under the appropriate instructor‐generated Model by selecting a system to consider and describing the interactions that are relevant to that system. We believe that this explicit System, Interactions and Model (S.I.M.) problem modeling strategy represents a key simplification and clarification of the widely disseminated modeling approach originated by Hestenes and collaborators. Our narrower focus allows modeling physics to be integrated into (as opposed to replacing) a typical introductory college mechanics course, while preserving the emphasis on understanding systems and interactions that is the essence of modeling. We have employed the approach in a three‐week review course for MIT freshmen who received a D in the fall mechanics course with very encouraging results.National Science Foundation (U.S.

What Else (Besides the Syllabus) Should Students Learn in Introductory Physics?

We have surveyed what various groups of instructors and students think students should learn in introductory physics. We started with a Delphi Study based on interviews with experts, then developed orthogonal responses to “what should we teach non‐physics majors besides the current syllabus topics?” AAPT attendees, atomic researchers, and PERC08 attendees were asked for their selections. All instructors rated “sense‐making of the answer” very highly and expert problem solving highly. PERers favored epistemology over problem solving, and atomic researchers “physics comes from a few principles.” Students at three colleges had preferences anti‐aligned with their teachers, preferring more modern topics, and the relationship of physics to everyday life and also to society (the only choice with instructor agreement), but not problem solving or sense‐making. Conclusion #1: we must show students how old physics is relevant to their world. Conclusion #2: significant course reform must start by reaching consensus on what to teach and how to hold students’ interest (then discuss techniques to teach it).National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant PHY-0757931

Implementing Tutorials in Introductory Physics at an Inner-City University in Chicago

Tutorials in Introductory Physics are widely used and have proven to be effective in promoting student understanding for many students in introductory physics. Despite this, there are currently few research results that document their effectiveness at inner-city schools in which students may have weak preparation in mathematics and reading. This paper discusses preliminary efforts in implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of these materials for students at an inner-city university located on the south side of Chicago

Quantum interpretations in modern physics instruction

Just as expert physicists vary in their personal stances on interpretation in quantum mechanics, instructors hold different views on teaching interpretations of quantum phenomena in introductory modern physics courses. There has been relatively little research in the physics education community on the variation in instructional approaches with respect to quantum interpretation, and how instructional choices impact student thinking. We compare two modern physics courses taught at the University of Colorado with similar learning environments, but where the instructors held different views on how to teach students about interpretations of quantum processes. We find significant differences in how students from these two courses responded to a survey on their beliefs about quantum mechanics; findings also suggest that instructors who choose to address student ontologies should do so across a range of topics.Postprin

Student perspectives in quantum physics

Introductory courses in classical physics are promoting in students a realist perspective, made up in part by the belief that all physical properties of a system can be simultaneously specified, and thus determined at all future times. Such a perspective can be problematic for introductory quantum physics students, who must develop new framings of epistemic and ontological resources in order to properly interpret what it means to have knowledge of quantum systems. We document this evolution in student thinking in part through pre/post instruction evaluations using the CLASS attitude survey. We further characterize variations in student epistemic and ontological commitments by examining responses to an essay question, coupled with responses to supplemental quantum attitude statements. We find that, after instruction in modern physics, many students are still exhibiting a realist perspective in contexts where a quantum perspective is needed. We also find that this effect can be significantly influenced by instruction, where we observe variations for courses with differing learning goals.Postprin