This classroom technology pilot explored the ways in which three different tools yielded insights into instructors' and students' use of physical classroom space in a higher education environment. The tools of interest were a ceiling heatmap camera from Panasonic, small ultrawideband movement trackers from Pozyx, and an audio sensor from TSI. The…

This elaboration of an ecopedagogy in movementscapes aims to present an empirically informed account of the concept of "ecomotricity" as manifested in the living body interacting in/with nature (human-and-other-than-human). This interaction is ludic (where pleasure or joy/happiness gives meaning to the lived experience) and ecological…

There is a growing trend to rely on part-time instructors including both adjunct faculty and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in higher education (Eney & Davidson, 2012). Most kinesiology departments depend on part-time instructors to teach instructional physical activity programs (IPAPs) to the general student population; this is…

An introductory physics experiment has been developed to address the issues seen in conventional physics lab classes including assumption verification, technological dependencies, and real world motivation for the experiment. The experiment has little technology dependence and compares the acceleration due to gravity by using position versus time…

This paper presents instructive interdisciplinary applications of constrained mechanics calculus in economics on a level appropriate for undergraduate physics education. The aim of the paper is (i) to meet the demand for illustrative examples suitable for presenting the background of the highly expanding research field of econophysics even at the…

Group discussions were introduced in an introductory physics course at the National University of Laos. About 200 students discussed two qualitative questions in groups of 3-4 students. This was followed by whole class discussions. We examined this new method and identified problems and possibilities with it. Seven groups were recorded and…

We developed an instrument to systematically investigate student conceptual understanding of the relationships between the directions of net force, velocity, and acceleration in one dimension and report on data collected on the final version of the instrument from over 650 students. Unlike previous work, we simultaneously studied all six possible…

The speed of sound is a physical property that can be measured easily in the lab. However, finding an inexpensive and intuitive way for students to determine this speed has been more involved. The introduction of affordable consumer-grade high-speed cameras (such as the Exilim EX-FC100) makes conceptually simple experiments feasible. Since the…

This work tries to elicit the "meanings" that undergraduate physics students attach to the term "relativity". The domain of investigation is restricted to Galilean relativity of Newtonian mechanics. Our methodology is primarily qualitative: we first obtain students' responses through a questionnaire, follow it up by a 3h…

Proceeding like Newton with a discrete time approach of motion and a geometrical representation of velocity and acceleration, we obtain Kepler's laws without solving differential equations. The difficult part of Newton's work, when it calls for non-trivial properties of ellipses, is avoided by the introduction of polar coordinates. Then a simple…

For most of the 20th century, innovators promoted the use of technology to improve learning in schools. As Larry Cuban noted in "Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920" (1986), there has been no end to promises of how motion pictures, radio, and television would transform the learning process. In each case,…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

Provides a physical description of motion resulting when force is applied perpendicular to the axis of rotation on a gyroscope. (SL)

Describes a laboratory exercise to supplement or replace more traditional force table experiments, and adds real-world examples to this part of the introductory physics course. (CCM)

Explains the origin and significance of harmonic motion which is an important topic that has wide application in the world. Describes the phenomenon by using an auxiliary circle to help illustrate the key relationships between acceleration, displacement, time, velocity, and phase. (Contains 16 references.) (Author/YDS)