Discusses the use of logarithm and reciprocal graphs in the college physics classroom. Provides examples, such as electrical conductivity, reliability function in the Weibull model, and the Clausius-Clapeyron equation for latent heat of vaporation. Shows graphs with weighting of points. (YP)

Describes a teaching assistant (TA) training program to improve quality of a college physics course. Presents the goals and structures of the physics course and the TA training program. Describes the formative evaluation procedure and its role in developing the training model. Concludes that students in the physics class valued the recitation and…

This article is the first of a two-part review of research on children's and adults understanding of gravity and on how best to teach gravity concepts to students and teachers. This first article concerns free fall--how and why objects fall when they are dropped. The review begins with a brief historical sketch of how these ideas were developed in…

Describes how to create good physics programs in small colleges. (PR)

This collection of essays by college and high school faculty represents a variety of practical approaches that can be used in composition classes. The essays and their authors are as follows (1) "Undercover Preparation" (Judy Anderson); (2) "Paragraph Development from Visualization: 'a paragraph ain't nothing but a sandwich!'"…

Essays on the use of journal writing in the classroom are presented in four sections: the language of speculation, journals in the teaching of English, the arts and humanities, and the quantitative disciplines. Titles and authors are as follows: (1) "Dialectical Notebooks and the Audit of Meaning" (A. E. Berthoff); (2) "Desert…

This document contains descriptions of adult education courses in remediation, general education, and technical mathematics. They are part of a program developed by the Machine Tool Advanced Skills Technology Educational Resources (MASTER) program to help workers become competent in the skills needed to be productive workers in the machine tools…

This book is intended to offer college faculty members the insights of the development of reasoning movement that enlighten physics educators in the late 1970s and led to a variety of college programs directed at improving the reasoning patterns used by college students. While the original materials were directed at physics concepts, they quickly…

Describes a community-college curriculum that incorporates Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) laboratories into a new calculus-based preengineering physics sequence. SDI allows for group discussion labs that emphasize the concepts being taught in the lectures. (ZWH)

On entry to university, high-achieving physics students from all across Australia struggle to identify Newton's third law force pairs. In particular, less than one in ten can correctly identify the Newton's third law reaction pair to the weight of (gravitational force acting on) an object. Most students incorrectly identify the normal force on the…

In our science for non-science majors course "21st Century Physics," we investigate modern "Hubble plots" (plots of velocity versus distance for deep space objects) in order to discuss the Big Bang, dark matter, and dark energy. There are two potential challenges that our students face when encountering these topics for the…

We report a school project which equips students with both theoretical and practical knowledge in material physics. We construct dumpling skins from a mixture of flour and water. A series of experiments is then conducted to quantify the toughness, hardness, and tensile strength of the skins, and how they are affected by adding other materials into…

Described is an experiment in which four college professors volunteered to participate as students in a university-level physics course from the perspective of one of the professor participants. Suggestions for improving physics instruction are included. (CW)

Described is an experiment in which four college professors volunteered to participate as students in a university-level physics course. The procedures of the investigation and the results of this experience are discussed. Suggestions for improving physics teaching are included. (CW)

Uses a Galilean thought experiment to enhance learning in a college-level physical science course. Presents both modern and historical perspectives of Galileo's work. As a final project, students explored Galileo's thought experiment in the laboratory using modern detectors with satisfying results. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/ASK)