Teaching and learning contemporary physics concepts online

Abstract

For about 15 years Kansas State University has offered a course called Contemporary Physics which targets secondary education and other science majors. The course is strongly activity based, and the students work through a series of explorations and applications to build an understanding of energy conservation, the particle and wave nature of electrons, the wave function and other quantum physics concepts. In order to make this course more accessible to under-prepared physics teachers in Kansas we have adapted this course to an online format. We have made every effort to preserve the successful teaching and learning environment of the existing course in the online version by including computer-based and hands-on activities, interaction with fellow students and individual feedback. The first group of students has completed the online course and this poster will present some results of the evaluation on student learning and experiences using this delivery method. Additional information is available at http://www.phys.ksu.edu/perg/.