Computational thinking" (CT) is still a relatively new term in the lexicon of learning objectives and science standards. The term was popularized in an essay by Wing, who said, "To reading, writing and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability." Agreeing with this premise, in 2013 the…

Multiple initiatives contend that all students should master computational thinking, including the "Next Generation Science Standards, the K-12 Framework for Computational Thinking," and Code.org. In turn, many physics teachers have begun to explore a variety of approaches to integrating computational modeling through programming. These…

Making meaning with math in physics requires blending physical conceptual knowledge with mathematical symbology. Students in introductory physics classes often struggle with this, but it is an essential component of learning how to think with math. Teaching the dimensionality of measured quantities and dimensional analysis (DA) is a valuable first…

In a paper (posthumously) co-authored by Isaac Newton himself, the primacy of geometric notions in pedagogical expositions of centripetal acceleration has been clearly asserted. In the present paper we demonstrate how this pedagogical prerogative can inform the design of an experiment involving an accelerometer-equipped smartphone rotating…

This paper shares a hands-on activity that introduces Feynman diagrams and the accompanying idea of using pictorial representations to describe the behavior of subatomic particles--specifically, for electrons and photons--in place of mathematical expressions. Built collaboratively by scientists and artists, it exemplifies a triumph of lateral…

In any science field, including physics, it is important to remain abreast of new assessment methods to cater to the 21st-century student. The rationale of this paper is to argue for a move away from the use of lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) in e-assessment in favor of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), in line with Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.…

Learning in the classroom is highly influenced by the experiences a teacher plans for students. Concerned that students were not achieving adequate conceptual knowledge during traditional undergraduate physics courses, the authors used the Making Sense of SCIENCE curriculum to tailor a course for 21 pre-service elementary teachers at the…

The key difference between math as math and math in science is that in science we blend our physical knowledge with our knowledge of math. This blending changes the way we put meaning to math and even the way we interpret mathematical equations. Learning to think about physics with math instead of just calculating involves a number of general…

Electromagnetism (E&M) is often challenging for students enrolled in introductory college-level physics courses. Compared to mechanics, the mathematics of E&M is more sophisticated and the representations are more abstract. Furthermore, students may lack productive intuitions they had with force and motion. In this article, we explore the…

Popular accounts of exciting discoveries often draw students to physics and astronomy, but at the introductory level it is challenging to connect with these in a meaningful way. The use of real astronomical data in the classroom can help bridge this gap and build valuable quantitative and scientific reasoning skills. This paper presents a strategy…

Thinking in Physics (TIP) is a new curriculum that is more effective than commonly used interactive engagement methods for students who have the greatest difficulty learning physics. Research has shown a correlation between learning in physics and other factors, including scientific reasoning ability. The TIP curriculum addresses those factors.…

Games have often been used in the classroom to teach physics ideas and concepts, but there has been less published on games that can be used to teach scientific thinking. D. Maloney and M. Masters describe an activity in which students attempt to infer rules to a game from a history of moves, but the students do not actually play the game. Giving…

Most physics teachers would agree that one of the main reasons for her/his students to take physics is to learn to think critically. However, for years we have been assessing our students mostly on the knowledge of physics content (conceptually and quantitatively). Only recently have science educators started moving systematically towards…

Addressing student conceptions with instruction has been a major issue in physics education for decades. However, too often the focus is on treating student ideas as "misconceptions" rather than as potentially productive ideas with varying degrees of sophistication. This paper introduces "learning progressions" as models that…

In this paper, we examine a first-year torque and angular acceleration problem to address a possible use of the forelimbs of "Tyrannosaurus rex." A 1/40th-scale model (see Fig. 1) is brought to the classroom to introduce the students to the quandary: given that the forelimbs of "T. rex" were too short to reach its mouth, what…