Student understanding of light as an electromagnetic wave: Relating the formalism to physical phenomena

Ambrose, Bradley S.; Heron, Paula R. L.; Vokos, Stamatis; McDermott, Lillian C.

doi:10.1119/1.19144

Cited by 76 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Hake found that students in the latter courses averaged gains that were twice as large as those in the traditional classes (Hake, 1998(Hake, , 2002. Results consistent with these have since been obtained by numerous other physics research groups (Ambrose et al, 1999;Redish, 2003;Heron et al, 2003;Loverude et al, 2003). Interactive engagement of students in their own learning measurably enhanced the conceptual development and problem-solving abilities of the learners.…”

Section: Classroom Studiessupporting

confidence: 70%

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

2005

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There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e. teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab classes. But widespread acceptance by university faculty of new pedagogies and curricular materials still lies in the future. In this essay we review recent literature that sheds light on the following questions:• What has evidence from education research and the cognitive sciences told us about undergraduate instruction and student learning in the sciences? • What role can undergraduate student research play in a science curriculum?• What benefits does information technology have to offer?• What changes are needed in institutions of higher learning to improve science teaching? We conclude that widespread promotion and adoption of the elements of scientific teaching by university science departments could have profound effects in promoting a scientifically literate society and a reinvigorated research enterprise.

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Section: Classroom Studiessupporting

confidence: 70%

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

2005

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“…This theoretical article is about the teaching and learning challenges that arise from students experiencing this partiality of representations, where important physics aspects are not initially discernible. These issues are educationally important because what creates a powerful communicative system for physics at the same time manifests in the difficulties students experience in terms of becoming "fluent" [2] (p. 28) in the disciplinary-specific representations [2,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Theoretical details from the literature, together with the concept of disciplinary affordance [11,12], are used to underpin a case that physics representations need to be "unpacked" for students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance

Fredlund

Linder

Airey

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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This theoretical article problematizes the access to disciplinary knowledge that different physics representations have the possibility to provide; that is, their disciplinary affordances. It is argued that historically such access has become increasingly constrained for students as physics representations have been rationalized over time. Thus, the case is made that such rationalized representations, while powerful for communication from a disciplinary point of view, manifest as learning challenges for students. The proposal is illustrated using a vignette from a student discussion in the physics laboratory about circuit connections for an experimental investigation of the charging and discharging of a capacitor. It is concluded that in order for students to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordances of representations, more attention needs to be paid to their "unpacking." Building on this conclusion, two questions are proposed that teachers can ask themselves in order to begin to unpack the representations that they use in their teaching. The paper ends by proposing directions for future research in this area.

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“…1(b)] has likely contributed to the formation of certain misconceptions, such as the belief that the fields only exist in the regions formed by the field vectors and the sine curve [ Fig. 1(b)] [6][7][8]. It is also well known that introductory physics students often have great difficulty correctly interpreting the canonical velocity vs time and acceleration vs time diagram [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make a good animation: A grounded cognition model of how visual representation design affects the construction of abstract physics knowledge

Chen

Gladding

2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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Visual representations play a critical role in teaching physics. However, since we do not have a satisfactory understanding of how visual perception impacts the construction of abstract knowledge, most visual representations used in instructions are either created based on existing conventions or designed according to the instructor's intuition, which leads to a significant variance in their effectiveness. In this paper we propose a cognitive mechanism based on grounded cognition, suggesting that visual perception affects understanding by activating "perceptual symbols": the basic cognitive unit used by the brain to construct a concept. A good visual representation activates perceptual symbols that are essential for the construction of the represented concept, whereas a bad representation does the opposite. As a proof of concept, we conducted a clinical experiment in which participants received three different versions of a multimedia tutorial teaching the integral expression of electric potential. The three versions were only different by the details of the visual representation design, only one of which contained perceptual features that activate perceptual symbols essential for constructing the idea of "accumulation." On a following post-test, participants receiving this version of tutorial significantly outperformed those who received the other two versions of tutorials designed to mimic conventional visual representations used in classrooms.

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Student understanding of light as an electromagnetic wave: Relating the formalism to physical phenomena

Cited by 76 publications

References 14 publications

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance

How to make a good animation: A grounded cognition model of how visual representation design affects the construction of abstract physics knowledge

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