Research-tested Resources for Large Lectures

Much of the research on physics education points to the importance of moving the students from a passive state to active engagement. The resources in this section have been developed to accomplish just that in the large lecture.

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, developed by David Sokoloff at the University of Oregon and Ronald Thornton at Tufts University. Demonstrations are done using an eight step procedure designed to engage students in the learning process and so convert the commonly passive lecture environment to a more active one. They report significant gains in student conceptual understanding over traditional instruction. We will provide their book on long term loan upon request to our instructors. It has a 13 page general introduction and a collection of ILDs covering a broad range of topics, most of which we should be able to provide. We may need more advance notice than usual as some of these will be new to us.

Phet - A collection of research-based web simulations from the Physics Education Technology project at the University of Colorado. A paper on teaching physics with Phet is found here.

iClicker - Clickers is the common term for Student Response Systems (SRS), a technology used to promote active learning. ASU has an enterprise agreement with iClicker, making the application available to all faculty and students at no cost. More information can be found here.

Other Resources

• AIP Center for History of Physics
• ASU Modeling Instruction Program
• Just-In-Time-Teaching
• Interactive Lecture Demonstrations from the University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group
• Lecture-Based Methods – Chapter 7 from Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite by Edward Redish, University of Maryland – Valuable information on large lecture techniques
• MERLOT Physics Portal – Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
• Music Acoustics from the University of New South Wales
• Open Source Physics
• Physics of Sports Bibliography by Richard Berg, University of Maryland
• Research-Based Reform of University Physics -  reviews in PER
• Why having a theory of learning changes what I do in class on Monday: Helping students build physical intuition – Edward Redish presentation

Textbook Publisher Resources

• Addison Wesley Instructor Resource Center – Instructors Register for access to text specific resources
• College Physics, 2/e; Giambattista, Richardson, Richardson, c 2007, McGraw-Hill – online site
• University Physics with Modern Physics, 11th Ed, Young & Freedman, Addison Wesley-online site

Questions

• Assessing-to-Learn Questions Database
• Canadian In-Class Question Database
• Context Rich Problems for group problem solving – discussion from Univ. of Minnesota, link to archive
• The Physics Question of the Week  from Richard Berg at the University of Maryland
• Thermal Physics Questions from the University of Sydney

Simulation Applets & Videos

• AcitvPhysics OnLine – Addison Wesley
• Cool Cosmos[Infrared]
• Demo video’s from Harvey Mudd Math Demo lab
• Dmoz open directory project
• EINSTEIN LIGHT multimedia from the University of New South Wales
• First Semester Physlets from Boston University
• Flash Physics
• Football Physics from the University of Nebraska (video)
• Iona Physics Demonstrations – Applets & videos
• The Light Cone: an illuminating introduction to relativity
• LTU Physlets site
• Minds on Physics Simulations – John Clement
• MIT TEAL visualizations – Electricity & Magnetism
• Molecular Expressions E & M
• Molecular Expressions Optics
• Phet
• PHYSCLIPS multimedia from the University of New South Wales
• Physics 2000 – Modern Physics
• Physics Instructional Software from R.Tarara, St. Mary’s College
• Physlets (Java1.1) from Davidson College
• Prelab Physlets from Boston University
• Reference Frame Applet – Where to Where  (might have to click the begin window twice)
• Science Simulations - John Clements useful list
• Tools for Scientific Thinking Motion Applets – John Clement
• University of Oregon Physics Applets – has elemental spectra periodic table
• Visual Quantum Mechanics (not the original which is only on commercial CD ROM)