This study explored the effectiveness of online instructional modules for providing supplementary instruction in basic mathematics and physics concepts. The modules were developed in accordance with a cognitive apprenticeship model. Participants (N = 47) were students enrolled in a required Statics course at a midwestern university. Participants…

We explore the sources of student engagement with curricular content in an Introductory Physics for Life Science (IPLS) course at Swarthmore College. Do IPLS students find some life-science contexts more interesting than others, and, if so, what are the sources of these differences? We draw on three sources of student data to answer this question:…

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which the making and use of improvised experiment materials contribute to students' achievement in Physics. The study used experimental research design and involved students from two Teacher Training Colleges in Rwanda. To conduct this study, a pre-test was given to students. Then, two groups…

Stratified teaching is an effective method and means to implement teaching students per their aptitude. Domestic and foreign scholars have carried out many experimental and quasiexperimental studies to observe the impact of stratified teaching on students' academic performance, but the results are quite different. So, can stratified teaching…

According to General Statistics Office of Vietnam on 30th September, 2017, Vietnam has 858,800 teachers, and among those, 615,720 people were female (occupied 71.7%). It can be seen that female teachers made up a big percentage in the education sector. Besides, STEM education is soaring as a new approach in training with prominent advantages, such…

We investigated how new ideas become accepted for Nobel laureates in science. Archival data were collected for 204 Nobel laureates from 1980 to 2009 in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology. Acceptance was evaluated for Nobel laureates by Prize area and three key publications in the Nobel laureates' publishing careers: (a) first…

The famous motto of the Lucky Luke comics series and its accompanying drawing are analyzed from a physicist's viewpoint. They provide useful pedagogical tools to discuss such aspects of relativity as causality, the equivalence principle, gravitational blue shift, and the tachyonic antitelephone. [This article was first published in Hungarian in…

If a person has "a problem" to solve and knows the solution and just has to apply it (retrieve it from memory and re-act), it is not a problem--it is a task; if a person does not know the solution and has to create it--this is a problem. Using this language, there are only two situations: (a) one has to perform a task; or (b) one has to…

More than 53,000 citations from 609 dissertations published at The Ohio State University between 1998-2012 representing four science disciplines--civil engineering, computer science, mathematics and physics--were examined to determine what, if any, preferences or trends exist. This case study seeks to identify whether or not researcher preferences…

This study examined the incorporation of generative strategies for the guided discovery of physics principles in a simulation. Participants who either paraphrased or predicted and self-explained guided discovery assignments exhibited improved performance on an achievement test as compared to a control group. Calibration accuracy (the…

This response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement" explores the ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy and critical literacy to examine some implications for culturally responsive science instruction implicit in the original manuscript. [For "Influence of…

We present experiments giving new insights into the classical light-emitting pickle experiment. In particular, measurements of the spectra and temperatures, as well as high-speed recordings, reveal that light emission is connected to the polarity of the electrodes and the presence of hydrogen.

The 1884 book "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions," written by Edwin Abbott, has captured the interest of numerous generations, and has also been used in schools to help students learn and think about the concept of dimension in a creative, fun way. In 2007, a film was released called "Flatland: The Movie," and over one…

Let us consider a classical high school exercise concerning two weights on a pulley and a string, illustrated in Fig. 1(a). A system like this is called an Atwood's machine and was invented by George Atwood in 1784 as a laboratory experiment to verify the mechanical laws of motion with constant acceleration. Nowadays, Atwood's machine is used for…

Color addition and subtraction apps in HTML5 have been developed for students as an online hands-on experience so that they can more easily master principles introduced through traditional classroom demonstrations. The evolution of the additive RGB color model is traced through the early IBM color adapters so that students can proceed step by step…