This essay explains how research in Physics education by Eric Mazur, arguing from the pedagogic deficiencies of instruction through lectures, has been applied successfully in a thorough revision of two undergraduate courses in English, one on John Milton and another on William Shakespeare.

We implemented peer instruction in an introductory level conceptual physics course for nonscience majors on the basis of the success others reported with this method. We expected to see that learning from peer conversation, as evidenced by answering conceptual questions correctly following discussion, would correlate with course grade, but we did…

To determine whether teaching an introductory physics course with a traditional lecture style or with Just-in-Time teaching (a student-centered, interactive-engagement style) will help students to better understand Newtonian concepts, such as Newton's Third Law, 222 students in introductory physics courses taught by traditional lecture styles and…

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that advanced undergraduate students confuse the spiral structure of the interplanetary magnetic field with the flow of the solar wind. Though it is a small study, this paper documents this misconception and begins to investigate the underlying issues behind it. We present evidence that the traditional presentation…

Technology expands instructional options for faculty, and this study examines the differential learning effects of offering a lecture on physics to students in a traditional classroom versus internet video formats. Based on an experiment conducted in a natural educational context, results indicate enhanced transfer of lecture information in the…

Compared to Ernst Mach's influence on the conceptual development of physics, his efforts to popularize science and his reflections on science literacy are known to a much lesser degree. The approach and the impact of Mach's popular scientific lectures are discussed in view of today's problems of understanding science. The key issues…

The use of toys in physics teaching is common. This brief review of the physics of toys intends to show that they are not only very useful in lectures and demonstrations in order to motivate students but also very interesting from a scientific point of view. However, since their physics is sometimes too cumbersome, the effect can be the opposite.…

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study aimed to determine university students' expectations and beliefs in a problem-based introductory physics course, how those expectations compare to that of students in other universities, and change as a result of one semester of instruction. In total, 264 freshmen engineering students of Dokuz…

In this study, the effects of teacher-directed and self-directed problem-solving strategies on students' attitudes toward physics were explored. Problem-solving strategies were used with the experimental group, while the control group was instructed using traditional teaching methods. The study was conducted with 270 students at various high…

In this article we describe a case study of interactive lecture experiments in a large introductory physics course. The impact of this pedagogy on student learning and motivation is also discussed. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

At Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), a workshop approach to teaching introductory physics, in which students alternate hands-on experience and theoretical discussion, has been effective in improving student attitudes toward the subject, helping students master concepts considered difficult to teach, making students comfortable with laboratory…

College physics teachers describe their experience using a computer-based classroom communication system that facilitates presentation of questions for small-group work, collection of student answers, and display of histograms showing how the class answered, all feeding into classwide discussions. The technique engages students in active learning…