TNT is both toxic and explosive, and therefore, the detection of TNT represents an environmental concern and a security concern. Dogs are often used for detection, but other methods are needed. This laboratory investigates a ruthenium bipyridine ([Ru(bpy)[subscript 3]][superscript 2+]) luminescence-based trinitrotoluene (TNT) sensor. Students will…

Background: The first day of class helps students learn about what to expect from their instructors and courses. Messaging used by instructors, which varies in content and approach on the first day, shapes classroom social dynamics and can affect subsequent learning in a course. Prior work established the non-content Instructor Talk Framework to…

Using as a case study the experience of teaching Jane DeLynn's "Leash" (2002), a "pornosophical" novel about a sadomasochistic lesbian relationship, I argue in this essay for the pedagogical value of shock. I argue that shocking works of pornography can unsettle not only students' comfortable understandings of sexuality, but…

Given prior work identifying sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization as key strategies needed to learn from multiple texts, this study examines students' multiple text processing and written response composition under three different heuristic conditions. In particular, students were asked to engage in sourcing, corroboration, or…

In our first-semester introductory physics laboratory, we have an exercise on rotational dynamics. We have recently upgraded the equipment that we use in that exercise without changing the actual exercise. The new equipment has performed well so far, and we wanted to share what we did with others who may be looking for a relatively inexpensive way…

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released the "94 Calls to Action," which asked educational and memory institutions to address their relationship with the Indigenous Peoples in what is now known as Canada. One of many steps toward repairing past injustice and moving toward reconciliation was the creation of a…

The authors discuss the status of college algebra and related offerings and their relationship to introductory statistics education. They also describe an innovative approach to college algebra that integrates a significant amount of statistical reasoning and concepts and statistical methods as natural applications of basic ideas that are part of…

This article defines deep learning and describes how four technology-based activities can be used to promote deep learning in the online environment. The rationale for their use along with benefits, limitations, and alternatives are explored.

When learning science, students must often make sense of complex and counterintuitive ideas. However, this process of sensemaking is difficult, and consequently students risk emerging from science courses with highly fragmented understandings. In this study, I examine the ways in which students create conceptual connections to resolve such…

Exciting examples of physics principles illuminate the power and scope of our discipline. In this paper, we discuss a conservation of energy example for an introductory course. Energy conservation is applied to bird and dinosaur eggs to derive a method to predict the incubation period and the embryonic metabolism solely from the egg geometry. The…

Team-based Learning (TBL) has sound conceptual and empirical backing and is seeing growing partial and full adoption in economics. However, perceived implementation costs and risk remain high for many instructors wary of fully implementing TBL. Additionally, common economics problems are often ill-suited for TBL application exercise criteria. The…

The net force and net torque exerted by a uniform magnetic field on a rigid current-carrying loop are discussed in all introductory physics textbooks. A notable omission, however, is the discussion of the equilibrium of a deformable current-carrying loop in a uniform magnetic field. In the article, we present such an analysis for the simplest case…

A thematic evaluation of data journalism courses resulted in a typology that parses the field and offers guidance to educators. At the center is pattern detection, preceded by data acquisition and cleaning, and followed by data representation. The typology advances academic understanding by offering a precise conceptualization that distinguishes…

The calculation of the magnetic field produced by a loop current using the Biot-Savart law is a very typical exercise in introductory university physics. However, the cases studied are limited, in most textbooks, only the circular arrangement is treated. In this article, we calculate the magnetic field of an elliptical loop current along an axis…

In the classroom, we traditionally visualize inferential concepts using static graphics or interactive apps. For example, there is a long history of using apps to visualize sampling distributions. The lineup protocol for visual inference is a recent development in statistical graphics that has created an opportunity to build student understanding.…