Problem-Based Learning (University of Delaware)
Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method that challenges students to "learn to learn," working cooperatively in groups to seek solutions to real world problems.
Fermi Problems (Old Dominion University)
Physicists should be able to estimate the order-of-magnitude of anything. How many atoms of Julius Caesar do you eat every day? How much waste does a nuclear power plant generate?...
Fermi Problem Site (University of Maryland)
"... the estimation of rough but quantitative answers to unexpected questions about many aspects of the natural world. The method was the common and frequently amusing practice of Enrico Fermi, perhaps the most widely creative physicist of our times. Fermi delighted to think up and at once to discuss and to answer questions which drew upon deep understanding of the world, upon everyday experience, and upon the ability to make rough approximations, inspired guesses, and statistical estimates from very little data." [Philip Morrison]
Mazur Group (Harvard)
Class time is a precious commodity, but how often do we stop to think about how it's being used? Should class activities merely transmit information that is already printed in the students' textbook? Do our students actually learn during class, or do they simply feverishly scribble down everything we say, hoping somehow to understand the material later?
Activity-based Physics Instruction
This website is designed to provide a set of resources for instructors of introductory quantum physics who are teaching either physicists or other scientists and engineers.
Reforming a Large Lecture Modern Physics Course for Engineering Majors Using a PER-based Design (This article describes the transformation of a large physics course for engineering majors using a model based on concept learning.)
Journals on the Teaching of Physics
Physics Education
Physics Education seeks to serve the physics teaching community and we welcome contributions from teachers. We seek to support the teaching of physics to students aged 11 up to the introductory undergraduate level.
Physics Teacher
The Physics Teacher Online is dedicated upon inception "to the enhancement of physics as a basic science in the secondary schools," TPT's mission was later extended to include the first-year physics course on all levels. Today, about two-thirds of TPT subscribers are teachers in two- and four-year colleges and universities.
