Computer tools ond kinesthetic apparatus play key roles in a novel approach to introductory physics that takes into account both time-honored ideas about learning and findings from recent educational research. Priscilla W. Laws Priscilla Laws, a professor of physics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has directed the Workshop Physics project since 1986. Every fall several hundred thousand students enroll in calculus-based "engineering" physics courses throughout the United States. Informal statistics tell us that over half of them will fail to complete the sequence of introductory courses. These students complain that physics is hard and boring. The most compelling student critique of traditional introductory physics and chemistry courses comes from college graduates in the humanities who were engaged by Sheila Tobias to take introductory science for credit. 1 These students paint a devastating portrait of introductory courses as uninteresting, time consuming, narrowly fixated on the procedures of textbook problem solving, devoid of peer cooperation, lacking in student involvement during lectures, crammed with too much material, and biased away from conceptual understanding. Why aren't students who take introductory science doing better? Why are they turning away? It is tempting for frustrated introductory physics instructors to seek simple answers such as "High schools are no longer doing their job" or "If students were only smarter and willing to work harder, we could teach them successfully." There are probably many reasons for the apparent decline in performance of introductory physics students: A larger percentage of 18-year-olds are enrolling in colleges; many state universities have open-admissions policies; there is a shortage of properly trained high school teachers; collegebound high school students spend less than one hour a day studying; they come to physics with little experience working with their hands; there are more extracurricular activities and campus jobs to distract college students from academics; and so on. Whatever the reasons, most instructors agree that at present many introductory physics students seem unprepared and unmotivated. Workshop Physics philosophy At Dickinson College we have attempted to analyze the problems associated with the teaching of calculus-based courses, to set new goals and to achieve these goals by changing the way we teach. After receiving a three-year grant from the Department of Education's Fund for the
Computer-based tools that enable students to collect, display and analyse data in real time have catalysed the design of a laboratory curriculum that allows students to master a coherent body of physics concepts while acquiring traditional laboratory skills. This paper describes RealTime Physics, a sequenced introductory laboratory curriculum that is based on the results of physics education research, and uses computer-based tools to facilitate student learning.
Early in his career Robert Millikan experimented with a laboratory-based method of teaching introductory physics that bears close resemblance to Workshop Physics.® In this talk, key elements of Workshop Physics are summarized. Some Workshop Physics activities are described which involve apparati that are used for rapid observations of conceptual aspects of physical phenomena as well as for equation verification experiments. Challenges are discussed that must be faced if recently developed activity-based approaches to teaching based on the outcomes of physics education research are to provide a foundation for a major paradigm shift in physics teaching.
During the first semester of our calculus-based introductory physics course sequence, students work in small groups on mechanics projects. Many teams choose digital video analysis for projects involving mechanics. We discuss the management of collaborative projects and schemes for critiquing collaborative papers and assigning individual grades. We also describe some of the more interesting projects. Finally, we offer some advice on how to find the information needed to create good digital video movies.
We report on measurements of group delay distortions introduced into electroacoustical transmission by the fact that earphones and loudspeakers are not necessarily minimum phase systems. Psychoacoustical tests show further that the measured distortions can approach the magnitude of the threshold of perceptibility, but in most cases will be well below this value.
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