By now it is hard to imagine an instructor who has not heard the call to “teach with technology,” as it has resounded through educational institutions and government agencies alike over the past several years. However, teaching with technology has often resulted in the use of technology for technology’s sake and has often resulted in the development of tools that are not pedagogically sound. For example, consider PowerPoint lectures which are a popular response to the “teach with technology” push. While PowerPoint lectures are more colorful, they are generally no more interactive than chalkboard lectures. The physics community has, to its credit, worked to use technology in a variety of highly interactive and effective ways including wireless classroom response systems that allow for in-class quizzing of students and MBLs (microcomputer-based laboratories) that free students from the drudgery of data collection so that they can spend more time understanding the underlying physical concepts. Into this we offer Physlet Physics, a collection of ready-to-run interactive computer simulations designed with a sound use of pedagogy in mind. The aim of Physlet Physics is to provide a resource for teaching that enhances student learning and interactive engagement. At the same time, Physlet Physics is a resource flexible enough to be adapted to a variety of pedagogical strategies and local environments.
Physlet Physics contains a collection of exercises spanning the
introductory physics sequence. These exercises use computer animations generated
in Java applets to show physics content. We call these Java applets Physlets (Physics
content simulated with Java applets). Every chapter of Physlet Physics
contains three quite different Physlet-based exercises: Illustrations,
Explorations and Problems.
Illustrations are designed to demonstrate physical concepts. Students
need to interact with the Physlet, but the answers to the questions posed in the
Illustration are given or are easily determined from interacting with it. Many
Illustrations provide examples of physics applications. Other Illustrations are
designed to introduce a particular concept or analytical tool. Typical uses of
Illustrations would include “reading” assignments prior to class and classroom
demonstrations.
Explorations are tutorial in nature. They provide some hints or suggest
problem-solving strategies to students in working problems or understanding
concepts. Some Explorations ask students to make a prediction and then check
their predictions, explaining any differences between predictions and
observations. Other Explorations ask students to change parameters and observe
the effect, asking students to develop, for themselves, certain physics
relationships (equations). Typical uses of Explorations would be in group
problem solving and homework or pre-laboratory assignments. Explorations are
also often useful as Just-In-Time Teaching exercises. To aid in the
assignment of the Explorations, Exploration Worksheets are included on the
Physlet Physics CD. The Worksheets provide students with extra
structure to aid in the completion of the Exploration and provide instructors
with an easy way to assign Explorations.
Problems are interactive versions of the kind of exercises typically
assigned for homework. They require the students to demonstrate their
understanding without as much guidance as is given in the Explorations. They
vary widely in difficulty, from exercises appropriate for high school physics
students to exercises appropriate for calculus-based university physics
students. Some Problems ask conceptual questions, while others require detailed
calculations. Typical uses for the Problems would be for homework assignments,
in-class concept questions, and group problem-solving sessions.
Instructors may not post the exercises from Physlet Physics on the Web
without express written permission from the Publisher for the English language
and from Wolfgang Christian and Mario Belloni for all other languages.
As stated on the Physlets website, Physlets (that is, the applets themselves)
are free for noncommercial use. Instructors are encouraged to author and post
their own Physlet-based exercises. In doing so, the text and script of
Physlets-based exercises must be placed in the public domain for noncommercial
use. Please share your work!
Authors who have written Physlet exercises and posted them on the Internet are
encouraged to send us short e-mail with a link to their exercises. Links
will be posted on the Physlets page:
http://webphysics.davidson.edu/applets/Applets.html.
More details can be found on the Conditions of Use page on the CD.
In addition to the interactive curricular material in this book and CD,
instructors may also wish to view the Physlet Physics Instructor’s Guide
by Anne J. Cox and Melissa H. Dancy. The Physlet Physics Instructor’s
Guide as well as the Exploration Worksheets by Thomas M. Colbert are available
for download from Prentice Hall’s Teaching Innovations in Physics, TiP,
website.
Instructors can access the official Prentice Hall Web page for Physlet
Physics by visiting the TiP website at
http://www.prenhall.com/tiponline, then click on the Physlet Physics
link.
Assigning Physlet Physics material without properly preparing the class can
lead to frustration. Although Physlet problems often appear to be simple, they
are usually more challenging than traditional problems because novice solution
strategies are often ineffective. In addition, small technical problems are
bound to occur without testing. We use Physlets extensively in our introductory
courses at Davidson College, but we always start the semester with a short
laboratory whose sole purpose is to solve a Physlet problem in the way a
physicist solves a problem; that is, to consider the problem conceptually, to
decide what method is required and what data to collect, and finally to solve
the problem. As a follow-up, we then assign a simple Physlet-based exercise that
must be completed in one of the College’s public computer clusters. This minimal
preparation allows us to identify potential problems before Physlet-based
material is assigned on a regular basis.
In response to these possible difficulties, we have written Chapter 1:
Introduction to Physlets. This chapter provides students and instructors with a
guided tutorial through the basic functionality of Physlets. After completing
the exercises in Chapter 1, students and instructors alike should be in a
position to complete the exercises in the rest of the book.
Before you begin, or assign material to students, you should also read the
section on Browser Tests and System Requirements.
There are a great many people and institutions that have contributed to our efforts, and we take great pleasure in acknowledging their support and their interest.
We thank our colleague Larry Cain for the many hours he spent reading the
manuscript and for providing many insightful comments and suggestions. We also
thank our colleagues and our students at Davidson College for testing of
Physlet-based material in the classroom and the laboratory. Mur Muchane and the
Davidson ITS staff have provided excellent technical support. We would also like
to thank the Davidson College Faculty Study and Research Committee and Dean
Clark Ross for providing seed grants for the development of Physlet-based
curricular material. We also thank Nancy Maydole and Beverly Winecoff for
guiding us through the grant application process.
The Physlets project has benefited tremendously from collaborations with non-U.S.
universities. In particular, special thanks and recognition go to Francisco Esquembre and Ernesto Martin at the University of Murcia (Spain), to Sasa Divjak
at the Universtiy of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and to Frank Schweickert at the
University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) for translating Physlet-based material
into their respective languages and for maintaining non-English language
Physlets websites.
W.C. would like to thank the numerous students who have worked with him over the
years developing programs for use in undergraduate physics education. Some of
our best Physlets are the result of collaborative efforts with student
coworkers. In particular, we would like to single out Mike Lee, Cabel Fisher,
and Jim Nolen.
M.B. would like to thank Mario Capitolo, Anne J. Cox, Edward Deveney, Harry
Ellis, Kurt Haller, Bill Junkin, Ken Krebs, and Steve Weppner for many useful
and stimulating discussions regarding teaching and the incorporation of Physlets
with existing curricular material.
Some people have been such frequent contributors of time and ideas that we have
brought them in as contributing authors of this book. We would like to thank
Anne J. Cox, Melissa Dancy, and Aaron Titus (whose work was supported in part by
NSF DUE-9952323), both for their writing and for the
many valuable ideas we have gained during our associations with each of them. In
addition we would like to thank Thomas M. Colbert for his work creating
Worksheets for the Explorations in this book.
Special thanks to Chuck Bennett, Scott Bonham, Morten Brydensholt, Anne J. Cox,
Melissa Dancy, Dwain Damian, Andrew Duffy, Fu-Kwun Hwang, William Junkin, Steve
Mellema, Chuck Niederriter, Evelyn Patterson, Peter Sheldon, Aaron Titus, and
Toon Van Hoecke for their contributions of curricular material to this book. In
addition we thank Harry Broeders, the CoLoS consortium, Fu-Kwun Hwang, Ernesto Martin, Toon Van
Hoecke, and Vojko Valencic for the use of their applets in this book.
We would like to thank all those who reviewed material for this book. During the
initial writing we received feedback from Rhett Allain (Southeastern Louisiana
University), Cornelius Bennhold (George Washington University), Thomas. M.
Colbert (Augusta State University), Edward F. Deveney (Bridgewater State
College), Kevin M Lee (University of Nebraska), and Steve Mellema (Gustavus
Adolphus College). We also would like to thank Harry Ellis, Eduardo Fernandez,
and Steve Weppner of Eckerd College for the feedback we received from their
class testing of the exercises in this book.
Ranking tasks in this book are inspired by the ranking tasks in Ranking Task
Exercises in Physics, T. O' Kuma, D. Maloney, and C. Hieggelke. Their Two-Year
College (TYC) Workshops have been an especially fruitful arena for the
give-and-take of ideas with fellow faculty. The Physlet strategy could not have
grown and matured without these opportunities and the exchange of ideas that
they afforded.
Both of us express our thanks to Erik Fahlgren, Christian Botting, Mark
Pfaltzgraff, and their coworkers at Prentice Hall for supporting the development
of Physlets Physics and for all of their hard work getting this book to press on
an accelerated schedule. In addition, we thank Ruth Saavedra for her copyediting of the manuscript and Michael Drew and his coworkers at nSight for their
work formatting and typesetting this book.
We also wish to express our sincerest thanks to those who have encouraged us the
most: our spouses, Barbara and Nancy, and our children, Beth, Charlie, and Rudy
and Emmy.
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under
contracts DUE-9752365 and DUE-0126439.