Where Can Physics Teachers Find Valuable Teaching Resources?

[ZapperZ]

Please post in this thread links and other resources for Physics Teachers and the teaching of physics. The links that I have listed below will be updated and added whenever I have new resources.

http://arxiv.org/list/physics.ed-ph/recent"
https://journals.aps.org/prper/
http://physics.uark.edu/hobson/papers.html"

Zz.

 

[Doc Al]

http://www.iop.org/activity/education/Teaching_Resources/index.html"

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The AAPT website has some great info
http://www.aapt.org/Resources/

PF Insights Blog
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/postindex/

 

[Gokul43201]

Demos:

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/demobook/intro.htm
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/demo/
http://phydemos.princeton.edu/%7Eyema/Index.htm
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/scenario/demos.htm

 

[Q2C]

From Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics - free teacher resources
www.einsteinplus.ca
www.perimeterexplorations.ca[/URL]
[PLAIN]http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Public_Lectures/View_Past_Public_Lectures/

 

[enc]

The University of Colorado has a series of great Java applets at http://phet.colorado.edu/. As a teacher with minimal lab equipment, these have been great for demos and virtual labs.

e

 

[ZapperZ]

"Physics education research: Resources for middle school science teachers"

http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3183

There's a wealth of resources here, in various forms. And despite the title, I think it is quite useful for almost all level of pre-college education.

Zz.

 

[nicholls.phys]

I and my collaborators are preparing movie clips for use in the physics classroom. These clips have activities and lesson plans at this website:

http://www.nicholls.edu/phsc/movies/

You can download the clips from the website, or, if you're interested in getting the DVD, just enter your e-mail on the front page of the above site.

Thanks,
Chad

 

[Astronuc]

UK/IoP - STEM program

The National STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Programme is a £22 million HEFCE/HEFCW funded initiative based at the University of Birmingham

http://www.iop.org/education/higher_education/stem/page_43325.html

US - STEM
http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/stem/

http://www.education.purdue.edu/pdf/07magFall.pdf

Australia - STEM
http://stem.ed.qut.edu.au/

These are just some that I could readily find

 

[AdobeBrad]

Hey,

My name is Brad, I am new to this forum but think I might be able to help. I do some work with Adobe and the new Adobe Education Exchanges has tons of resources for teachers. Here's the link to the science resource section: http://edexchange.adobe.com/groups/639534dd65/summary hope this helps!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here is a nice list of sites with physics resources
http://www.csun.edu/science/physics/

 

[W. Brian Lane]

I've started a YouTube channel (Let's Code Physics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWBTKIyw-zX-2k63cB6qciQ) modeled after Let's Play videos that demonstrates studying physics problems using programming. (Updates are also posted to Twitter: http://twitter.com/LetsCodePhysics and Facebook: http://facebook.com/LetsCodePhysics) I hope it's of interest to physics students, programming students, or informal learners.

Enjoy!

Brian

 

[ZapperZ]

I've started a YouTube channel (Let's Code Physics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWBTKIyw-zX-2k63cB6qciQ) modeled after Let's Play videos that demonstrates studying physics problems using programming. (Updates are also posted to Twitter: http://twitter.com/LetsCodePhysics and Facebook: http://facebook.com/LetsCodePhysics) I hope it's of interest to physics students, programming students, or informal learners.

Enjoy!

Brian

Did you read the very first post in this thread?

Zz.

 

[W. Brian Lane]

Did you read the very first post in this thread?

Zz.

Yes... Did I miss something? If my post was inappropriate for this board, my apologies; do you have a suggestion for another?

 

[ZapperZ]

Yes... Did I miss something? If my post was inappropriate for this board, my apologies; do you have a suggestion for another?

Then I'm not sure what you understood.

You indicated in your post that your video is "... of interest to physics students, programming students, or informal learners". Yet, (i) this is a forum for physics teachers and educators, and (ii) this particular thread is for people to post links for physics teachers and the teaching of physics, i.e. techniques, pedagogy, etc.

Or was this not very clear from the very first post? Do you still think it belongs here? The Mentors can easily move it to the appropriate forum.

Zz.

 

[W. Brian Lane]

Then I'm not sure what you understood.

You indicated in your post that your video is "... of interest to physics students, programming students, or informal learners". Yet, (i) this is a forum for physics teachers and educators, and (ii) this particular thread is for people to post links for physics teachers and the teaching of physics, i.e. techniques, pedagogy, etc.

Or was this not very clear from the very first post? Do you still think it belongs here? The Mentors can easily move it to the appropriate forum.

Zz.

My apologies. I thought the resource might be useful for teachers to share with their students. If there's a more appropriate forum, I'd be glad for it to be moved. Thanks.

 

[echaniot]

You can also find many ICT-based educational resources and participate in relevant communities here: www.inspiringscience.eu
as well as here: portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu

 

[Heather Peck]

You can find hundreds of questions at isaacphysics.org, suitable for 16-19 year old students, covering topics including mechanics, waves, circuits, fields, and thermal physics. The questions on the homepage aim to develop students problem solving skills: the questions are typically a chunk of text with no diagram - students have to understand and digest the question, and find their own way through multiple steps to the solution.

Go to isaacphysics.org/teacher_features to request your account be upgraded to a teachers account. You will then be able to create class groups, set assignments, view the results and download the mark sheets for free!

Go to isaacphysics.org/book and you will find lots of short answer questions that aim to develop 'mastery' in a topic.

Enjoy!

 

[Will Flannery]

If you check out the physics curriculum at the Univ. of South Florida at this link ..

http://physics.usf.edu/data/babscurriculum-2016.pdf

you'll see that in the 1st two years the students takes 3 calculus courses, MAC 2281, 2282, and 2283. You can google the syllabuses for these courses and you'll discover that there is no coverage of differential equations at all.

Yet modern physics began with the differential equation F=MA, and since that time differential equations have been the language of physics. If you'll check this web page you'll see how the physics of point dynamics, electrical circuits, rigid body dynamics, heat transfer, the wave equation, stress and strain in materials, fluid dynamics, and electromagnet radiation, all start with differential equations, and depend on differential equation models.

http://berkeleyscience.com/physics1.htm

Then you can see a series of videos where each of these topics is covered using Euler's method and the finite difference method, that is calculus based on the single formula distance equals velocity times time that is teachable in high school, here.



My conclusion is that we are teaching the wrong calculus first. By starting with computational calculus, in its simple forms Euler's method and the finite difference method which is Euler's method applied to partial differential equations, the student can start doing mathematical physics in high school, not as a junior in college. So, these are a resource for totally rewriting physics education, starting in high school.

 

[PhysicsMarco]

Something teachers always can use are tools that help them to find good explanations. Some that I personally use frequently are

• Learn Anything; which gives quite good recommendations on big topics like quantum mechanics etc. Especially nice is that the connections between different topics are visualized. The mindmaps that are generated this way can be quite useful in classes.
• The Physics Travel Guide; is a physics specific Wiki with many nice book, paper and video recommendations on many topics. Especially nice are the FAQ sections on some pages and that the resources are sorted by their "level", i.e. if they are suited for laymen, students or researchers.
  
• Metacademy; is quite useful for many math topics and sorts resources depending on if they are free or paid.

 

[alantheastronomer]

I'd just like to share with everyone that there are some amazing youtube animations that provide clear, concise, and understandable tutorials of complex topics in physics by Eugene Khutoryansky. They have been up for several years, but I just came across them recently. They are really excellent. I urge everyone to please check them out! You can access them by searching for "Videos by Eugene".

 

[LuisFelipe]

An update:
PHET from University of Colorado has made several of its applets HTML5.

Another noteworthy resource for High School listed at The Physics Front from AAPT:
The Physics Classroom

 

[Freixas]

I wrote a program called Gamma targeted mostly for physics teachers and students. Gamma draws Minkwoski spacetime diagrams. These diagrams can be static (but with zoom/pan), animated, or interactive. It even contains a slideshow capability (sort of a PowerPoint meets spacetime diagrams).

It is available at https://github.com/freixas/gamma and runs on PCs, Macs, and Linux.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Computer lab for basic quantum mechanics.
Edit: removed due to heavy critisicm about notation.
I will try to download the files, edit them, and upload somewhere my self at some point so it meets the approriate standards of this forum!

 

[vanhees71]

Argh! The notation $|\psi(x) \rangle$ is a nogo! Either you use "wave mechanics", i.e., quantum mechanics of a particle in the position representation. Then the right notation is $\psi(x)$ for the "wave function". Or you use the representation free Dirac bra-ket formalism (clearly preferred in the 21st century). Then it's simply $|\psi \rangle$. The relation between both formulations is that $\psi(x)=\langle x|\psi \rangle$.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Argh! The notation |ψ(x)⟩ is a nogo!

Hence everything else is wrong? :)

 

[vanhees71]

It doesn't even make sense! Quantum theory is mind boggling enough without using a non-sensical notation!

 

[malawi_glenn]

It doesn't even make sense! Quantum theory is mind boggling enough without using a non-sensical notation!

The main thing were the calculations and graphs. I removed my post. Will download the jupyter files, and fix the notation, upload, and make a new post here.

In case it was not clear, I did not make that web-page or its content. It was https://kleiman.chem.ufl.edu/people/dr-kleiman/ and some members of her research group. Chemists you see, so what could you expect? ;)

 

[Orodruin]

Chemists you see, so what could you expect? ;)

I mean, I have seen physicists ask the question ”how far does the muon travel in its rest frame?” and expect an answer different from zero so …

 

[malawi_glenn]

”how far does the muon travel in its rest frame?”

I am so going to ask this question next time I conduct a test on relativity :)