Abstract
Student interest in studying physics has continued to grow, stimulated in part by contemporary discoveries like the 2015 detection of gravitational-wave signals by LIGO. Yet many students are still taught in a traditional, passive manner, and leave the introductory course with significant gaps in their conceptual understanding, even about Newton’s laws of motion, acceleration, and gravity. Active learning strategies have been developed over the last 40 or so years in parallel with and, in many cases, enhanced by developing computer technologies. These technologies provide students with unprecedented tools to explore and analyze the physical world as part of their introductory physics experiences. This chapter describes some of these strategies and the computer-based tools supporting them, with gravity-related examples.
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Notes
- 1.
In the U.S., such tools are available from Vernier Science Education (www.vernier.com) and PASCO Scientific (www.pasco.com).
- 2.
See Footnote 1.
- 3.
See Footnote 1.
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Sokoloff, D.R. (2023). Applications of Technology to Promote Active Learning with Examples from Acceleration and Gravity. In: Streit-Bianchi, M., Michelini, M., Bonivento, W., Tuveri, M. (eds) New Challenges and Opportunities in Physics Education. Challenges in Physics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37387-9_17
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