Friday, October 2, 2009

COMPUTER IN PHYSICS TEACHING

Learnt It consists a 'library' of fifteen or twenty 'user-friendly' graphical animation programs. Some of these are described in a feature article in Computers in Physics. They have been used as classroom demonstrations by instructors and laboratory projects for students in a wide range of classes at a number of universities and colleges in the U.S. and Europe. They contain powerful and intriguing lecture demonstrations but they minimize arcane aspects of computer which would otherwise interfere with teaching or learning.
Code It consists of 'trees' of different programming shell projects each with a multitude of powerful simulation tools in the form of C++ source code. They provide students with an 'industrial strength' development environment equal or better than any they will encounter in academic research labs or high tech workplaces. Some of the better results of the CodeIt project become part of the LearnIt library, but the main idea is to let students learn by doing both the physics and the programming.
Using computers as calculating machines has been described above. This is a natural transfer from research experience into the teaching arena. Another instance of this kind is using computers in the laboratory for automatic experimental data processing. As soon as relatively inexpensive desktop computers became available, around 1980, we started using computers in undergraduate laboratories for automatic data processing.Now, computers are being used widely for computer-assisted learning purposes. The department was a pioneer on this campus in this area. Soon after the arrival of the Macintosh computer in 1984, a fairly powerful machine with excellent graphics capabilities, software was created in the department using animated graphics to teach the detection of radioactive radiation.

Objective:
Upon completion of this course students will be familiar with different aspects of using computers in physics teaching and be able to use computer as a tool in their own everyday teacher’s work.

Assessment:
During laboratory lessons students work on the list of problems prepared by the lecturer. Student’s work assessment and final grade is based on individual portfolio (i.e., collection of student’s works done during laboratory lessons) and the resultof one supervised exercise provided at the end of the semester.

Prerequisites:
Elementary ability to operate a computer. Basic skills in using spreadsheet programs should be helpful.

Contents:
Numerical modelling as an alternative approach to the description and solving physical problems. Elementary methods of numerical integration: simple and improved Euler's methods, mid-point rule, trapezium rule and Monte Carlo methods. Methods with varying-step of integration. Effectiveness, accuracy and stability of the methods. Application to dynamical modelling: motion with air resistance, motion in gravitational field, heating and cooling, charging and discharging capacitors, radioactive decay. Statistical analysis of data, statistical analysis of tests and exams, facility index, discrimination index. The Fourier analysis. Internet as a source of information for physics teachers. The role of applets in physics teaching.The content of the lecture is the base for solving physical problems during the corresponding laboratory lessons. Basic tool: spreadsheet.

MODELING IN PHYSICS

In typical high school and BS Physics courses, students study the results of physics rather than the process of doing physics. Even most laboratory work are verification of known results of physics, rather than doing physics with yet unknown results. Students are
rarely exposed to a core activity of physicists:
modeling. The availability of computer-video
interfacing and analysis software, such as Videopoint
and Coach, has greatly expanded the possibilities of
doing real modeling in physics education at the high
school and college levels. In this paper, we present and
work out a simple modeling problem on the free fall
of paper baskets. Our purpose is to illustrate the
possibilities of modeling in the classroom.

THE PROBLEM
When leaves of trees or sheets of paper fall, they fall in a very irregular way. The paper zigzags slowly to the ground in an unpredictable way. However, if we fold the edges of the paper and make it into a little “basket”, the fall is much more regular. The paper basket moves slowly, but nearly straight to the ground. This is not free fall; air resistance plays a big role. How can we describe this motion mathematically? Is it possible to make a model so that we will be able to
predict what influence different factors have, such as the mass of the paper, the area of the bottom of the basket, etc.?



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