In the past few decades, educators and physics education researchers have been developing and evaluating instructional approaches designed to improve students' conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills in physics for students with different prior preparation and backgrounds. These instructional approaches often require students to be…

Even among the sciences, physics stands out as an unusually White- and male-dominated field. The American Institute of Physics (AIP) reports that only 19% of physics faculty are women, and less than 6% of physics faculty are African American or Hispanic. Particularly for female students, the transition from high school to a college major in…

Thinking in Physics (TIP) is a new curriculum that is more effective than commonly used interactive engagement methods for students who have the greatest difficulty learning physics. Research has shown a correlation between learning in physics and other factors, including scientific reasoning ability. The TIP curriculum addresses those factors.…

It's always hard to know what to expect when bringing computers into an educational setting, as things are always changing. Student skills with computers are different today than they were 10 years ago, and 20 years ago almost counts as an alien world. Still, one hopes that some of these changes result in positive trends, such as student attitudes…