This article describes and illustrates a physics course for first-year college students whose only knowledge of physics is that they do not like the subject. The physics content is driven entirely by what appears in the daily newspapers and generally covers most physics topics in a semester. This course was structured as a learning community that…

Understanding measurement uncertainty is crucial in experimental physics, as it enables accurate and reliable measurements, facilitates comparison between measurements, and aids in designing experiments. Consequently, measurement uncertainty has emerged as a critical learning goal for many introductory physics labs. Here, we explore the impact of…

This article describes the design and initial implementation of a multidisciplinary, integrative learning course on the art and science of virtual worlds. The course combines complementary disciplines -- Computing, Physics, and Narrative Art -- in a single general education course for first-year students. The course attempts to incorporate…

A goal of introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) curricula is to prepare students to effectively use physical models and quantitative reasoning in biological and medical settings. To assess whether this goal is being met, we conducted a longitudinal study of the impact of IPLS on student work in later biology and chemistry courses. We…

This study aimed to develop teacher guide material for students who are uninterested in physics lessons in high schools. In this context, activities in which measurements are made with Logger Pro sensors, which are computer-applied with the innovative technology in 10th-grade optics subjects, have been developed. The study was carried out with 134…

This project produced an online astronomy course based on the free, online OpenStax textbook. When this project was conceived, about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors had no idea that in a short period of time, most college and university classes would be online. This abrupt change in modalities of courses, from traditional,…

This work reports a classroom experience of a general physics course designed to foster also the initiation of preservice mathematics and biology teachers to physics pedagogical content knowledge. To modify the conceptions that these students have about teaching and learning, the course was taught using different active learning instructional…

Encouraged by positive clinical results at the University of Illinois, mastery-style homework was integrated into a large semester-long preparatory physics course via an online homework system that used narrated animated video solutions as correctives. This paper discusses the impact and evolution of the homework in its first two years. The first…

Interdisciplinary education offers a collaborative approach to multifaceted topics, such as environmental sustainability. In this article, we present the conceptual framework and lessons learned from a team-taught course, entitled Sustainability, Energy, and the Green Economy (SEGE). Faculty from the departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology…

Quantitative reasoning and interdisciplinary skills are central to real-world environmental problem solving. Enhancing those skills for students in environmental programs will help them succeed as future environmental professionals. This paper describes an approach that uses an applied geophysical imaging course to enhance quantitative reasoning…

This study is an initial exploration of students' abilities to analyze critically authenticity of physics problems, carried out with Spanish translation of the eight Edition of popular physics textbook "Fundamentals of Physics", written by Halliday, Resnick and Walker. Students (N = 34) involved in the study were those of applied physics…

The paper discusses how a teaching approach, "interdisciplinary design and invention pedagogy," affected primary school student teachers' learning outcomes through the craft design process in pre-service teacher education. This study applies developmental work research (Engeström in J Educ Work 14(1):133-156, 2001; Engeström in…

We argue, based on a multi-year collaboration to develop a pedagogy course for physics majors by experts in physics, education, and the science of learning, that the process of teaching science majors about education and the science of learning, and evidence-based teaching methods in particular, requires conceptual change analogous to that…

Post-secondary educators are increasingly experimenting with the possibility of blending or replacing traditional lecture-based instruction with student-centered instruction. Although some studies have been completed, much remains to be learned about when and why student-centered instruction works and the effectiveness of specific approaches. The…

In recent decades, the literature paid attention to students' conceptions of the nature of disciplines. This study aimed to investigate how students' cohesive and fragment conceptions of physics changed with a major change in senior high school physics syllabus. We obtained measures of conceptions of physics by utilizing a 20-item questionnaire…