Transcript publications:paradigmssides.ppt

PRODUCTS/PUBLICATIONS
WEBSITES
http://www.physics.oregonstate.edu/paradigms
http://www.physics.oregonstate.edu/bridge
These sites contain:
1. an introduction and overview of the project for the interested public.
2. information for institutions interested in adopting our curriculum or
developing new upper-division curricula of their own, including information
about workshops, links to publications, and detailed syllabi for the new courses.
3. detailed materials for many of the new courses, primarily for the use of
students at our own university.
PUBLICATIONS
1. Corinne A. Manogue and Kenneth S. Krane, The Oregon State University
Paradigms Project: Re-envisioning the Upper Level, Physics Today 56, 53-58
(2003).
2. Corinne A. Manogue, Philip J. Siemens, Janet Tate, and Kerry Browne
(Department of Physics) & Margaret L. Niess and Adam J. Wolfer (Department
of Science and Mathematics Education), Paradigms in Physics: A New UpperDivision Curriculum, American Journal of Physics 69, 978-990 (2001).
3. Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue, Spherical Coordinates, College
Mathematics Journal 34, 168-169 (2003).
4. Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue, The Murder Mystery Method for
Determining Whether a Vector Field is Conservative, College Mathematics
Journal 34, 238-241 (2003).
5. Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue, Using Differentials to Bridge the
Vector Calculus Gap, College Mathematics Journal 34, 283-290 (2003).
6. Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue, Electromagnetic Conic Sections,
American Journal of Physics 70, 1129-1135 (2002).
7. D. H. McIntyre, Using Great Circles to Understand Motion on a Rotating
Sphere, American Journal of Physics, 68, 1097 (2000).
8. Tevian Dray & Corinne A. Manogue, The Vector Calculus Gap, PRIMUS 9,
21-28 (1999).
INVITED TALKS AT MAJOR MEETINGS
1999 AAPT Summer Meeting, San Antonio, TX, August, 1999.
AAPT 2000 Department Chair Conference, College Park, MD, April, 2000.
April 2000 APS Meeting, Long Beach, CA, April, 2000.
March 2001 APS Meeting, Seattle, WA, March 2001.
2001 Academic-Industrial Workshop, Rochester, NY, October 21, 2001.
AMS-MER Workshop on Excellence in Undergraduate Mathematics:
Diversification of Upper Level Mathematics Programs, Baton Rouge, LA,
November, 2002.
2002 Gordon Science Education and Policy Conference, Physics Education
and Research: Quantum Mechanics, Mount Holyoke College, South
Hadley, MA, USA, June, 2002.
87th Meeting of the MAA and 993rd Meeting of the AMS, Phoenix, AZ,
January, 2004.
2004 AAPT Winter Meeting, Miami Beach, FL, January, 2004.
Symposium & Workshop for Physics Faculty sponsored by the Swedish Council
for Higher Education, Lund, SWEDEN, June, 2004.
2004 Congress of the Canadian Association of Physicists, Winnipeg,
CANADA, June, 2004.
2004 Gordon Science Education and Policy Conference, Physics Education
and Research: Classical Mechanics and Nonlinear Dynamics, Mount
Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA, June, 2004.
Also numerous presentations at regional meetings and departmental colloquia.
WORKSHOPS
Spin & Quantum Measurements and Energy & Entropy:
AAPT Winter Meeting, Austin, TX, January, 2003.
Paradigms Summer Faculty Workshop, Corvallis, OR, June 2003.
AAPT Winter Meeting, Miami Beach, FL, January, 2004.
Paradigms Summer Faculty Workshop, Corvallis OR, June 2004.
Bridge Project:
AAPT Winter Meeting, San Diego, CA, January, 2001
MathFest, Boulder, CO, July, 2003.
Bridge Faculty Workshop, Corvallis, OR, August, 2003.
AAPT Meeting, Miami, FL, January, 2004.
PREP Workshop, South Hadley, MA, June, 2004.
PNWMAA Meeting, Anchorage, AK, June, 2004.
MathFest, Providence, RI, August, 2004.
Bridge Faculty Workshop, Corvallis, OR, August, 2004.
MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
Materials for student use in 15 courses have been developed, classroom
tested at Oregon State University, and in use for eight years. Class notes for
four courses, in the form of short texts, are complete—we are discussing an
appropriate format with commercial publishers. In the next phase of the
project, we hope to revise and test these materials at several other
institutions, in preparation for widespread national dissemination.
EXAMPLES
EARLY QUANTUM MECHANICS
Our rearrangement of content allows students to begin their exploration of
quantum mechanics earlier, in the middle of the junior year. In a measurementbased approach using a computer simulation of successive Stern-Gerlach
experiments (Schroeder & Moore, Am. J. Phys. 61, 798-805, 1993), students
infer the wave function from “data” as in real experiments. (Traditional
curricula approach these problems backwards: predicting the results of
experiment from “knowing” the unknowable wave function.)



Z
0
Z


0
0
EMPHASIS ON VISUALIZATION
We discovered that many students do not ask themselves about the physical
meaning of the axes on graphs and therefore misinterpret, for example, graphs of
wave functions. By first using color rather than a coordinate direction to
represent the value of the wave function, we encourage a correct interpretation.
MULTIPLE REPRESENTATIONS
Kerry Browne, in his Ph.D. thesis (OSU 2002), showed that while students may
be able to employ different representations of physical quantities (pictorial,
graphical, algebraic, words, etc.) they often have trouble relating these
representations. We include activities that explicitly encourage students to make
these links.
Flux is the total amount of electric field through a given area.
Normal
Vector
Perpendicular
Component
   E  da
E  da
E
da
 over all rectangles
INTEGRATED LABORATORIES
Even traditionally theoretical subjects such as thermal physics benefit from
concrete examples. In the Energy & Entropy paradigm, the surprising
thermodynamic consequences of the models the students have developed are
investigated in quantitative, but accessible elastomer (rubber band!) experiments
and outcomes are compared with predictions.