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Page 1: Computer-Assisted Teaching and Learning of Physics · Computer-Assisted Teaching and Learning of Physics ... [1, 4]. Leaving alone, ... stiffness and gravity in a simple web form

Computer-Assisted Teaching and Learning of Physics

P. Böhm Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Abstract. This paper presents literature search outcomes concerning computer-assisted teaching and learning of physics and its efficiency, informs about translation and customization of PhET physics applets and introduces new database of links related to physics and physics education which should serve mainly to physics teachers.

Introduction Computer-assisted teaching and learning of physics became quite common component of the

process of education. It includes tutorials, assessment, experiments, data processing and presentation, modeling and simulations, ‘drill and skill’ and making use of the Internet [1].

This paper describes three main parts of my work: literature search, translation and customization of PhET applets and new database of links related to physics and physics education.

Literature search There are plenty of computer applications for use in the teaching situations. However, any

research literature exploring the effects of computer applications is more difficult to find (this observation is confirmed by [1]). The associated literature is spread across a very wide range of books, journals and other publications.

I have searched literature using ERIC, Web of Knowledge and ProQuest 5000 trying to find articles dealing with computer assisted teaching of physics and its effectiveness. I also listed all issues of The Physics Teacher, American Journal of Physics and Physics Education since the year 2000.

I have found about 20 relevant papers, a few case studies among them (the two most reliable are summarized below). About one third of the papers contain research results, one third give an example of using computer in physics teaching and the rest offer tips or ideas which I considered useful.

Case studies In the study [2], 60 students in control group were taught in ‘standard way’ with no use of

computers. In experimental group consisting of 30 students the modeling program Interactive Physics was used in addition. Students working with simulations exhibited significantly higher scores in the research tasks.

The study [3] dealt with instructional computer program designed to learn physics of motion. Results of this study:

Interactive multimedia is promoted as an effective and stimulating medium for learning science, but students do not always interact as intended by the designers.

The Educator‘s intervention is necessary. Despite interactivity and animated graphics, interactive multimedia may not produce the

desired outcome for students who are learning physics concepts.

Other studies – the most important results Computers make lessons more exciting for students as well as for their teacher [1]. My

own observations correspond with the literature in this point, however I am afraid it may be caused by the ‘newness’ and might disappear if commonly used.

The educator’s role is crucial [1, 4]. Leaving alone, students do not use computer applications appropriately. This is also confirmed by my own experience.

Effect of computer-assisted teaching and learning is moderate but significant. This finding comes from meta-analysis of 254 studies [5].

‘Give them more time!’ The article [6] presents a general recommendation that seems to be valid also for computer-assisted teaching and learning. It is: Give them more time! Authors conducted observation of students who were solving a physical problem (which

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WDS'08 Proceedings of Contributed Papers, Part III, 19–23, 2008. ISBN 978-80-7378-067-8 © MATFYZPRESS

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BÖHM: COMPUTER-ASSISTED TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PHYSICS

average teacher resolves in a few minutes). They reported that given enough time (actually it was more than one hour), students were also able to make it. This is confirmed by my own experience at school. It may be more useful to make less things, but in a higher quality.

Internet resources concerning computer-assisted teaching and learning of physics There are many web sites offering Java and Flash applets for free (e.g. [7-9]). Some of these

applications do not offer many (or any) opportunities for interaction with the students and for activating them (e.g. [10], fig. 1).

The absence of interaction of course does not mean that such an application is inevitably useless. Nevertheless there are also more sophisticated applications like [11] (fig. 2), which is discussed in the next section.

Figure 1. This simple Flash animation [10] demonstrates the connection between simple harmonic motion and uniform circular motion.

PhET applets The Physics Education Technology (PhET) [7] is an open source project offering a suite of

interactive animated game-like simulations for teaching and learning physics and chemistry. Anyone can have access to the source code (Java, Flash) and make changes in it.

Translation Author of this paper together with Z. Onderišinová have spent some time exploring how to

translate these applets to Czech which effort produced a guide to translation with many useful hints. How to translate and customize these applets was described in detail in [12] (the article is available from [13]).

Five applets (Wave Interference, Fourier: Making Waves, Wave on a String, Masses & Springs, Microwaves) are being currently translated by Z. Onderišinová within her bachelor thesis and as the method is already developed more bachelor theses may be involved later.

Customization Access to the source code makes it possible to change functionality of the applets so they may

better fulfill our needs. For instance Masses & Springs applet [11] (fig. 2) allows students to examine springs and hung

up masses (some of them with unknown values) in situations hardly realizable in common conditions (weightlessness, a planet with unknown acceleration of free fall, zero friction etc.). The fact that only one set of stiffness, masses and accelerations is available in original applet prevents us from doing

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BÖHM: COMPUTER-ASSISTED TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PHYSICS

Figure 2. Mass Spring Lab: the highly interactive Flash applet with real physics behind.

more sophisticated activities. As teachers are usually not able to write or change any computer program, making customization available for non-programmers is necessary.

Because of that a customized applet was created as well as a supporting web page [15], so teachers can enter masses, stiffness and gravity in a simple web form and gain the applet with changed parameters immediately.

My effort is now focused on creating student activities, methodology and support (customized applets, web pages, worksheets, audiovisual guides etc.).

New database: FyzWeb Links Description of the database

FyzWeb [14] is Czech popularization server focused on physics and physics education. During 8 years (since its origin in 2000) lots of web links, demonstration experiments etc. were accumulated so searching in such a big amount of information was not easy anymore.

The need for more accurate and faster searching in tried-and-tested content led us to make brand new database [15] in which each record should be precisely tested, commented and categorized (fig. 3). This work is managed and for the most part done by me.

Technically the database (web page) runs as a part of FyzWeb using Linux server (this is managed by Jakub Jermář), user interface and search engine (both made by me) use MySQL and PHP. The database allows its users to select:

for whom is the link supposed to be (elementary school, high school, pre-university), in which language (including nonverbally understandable applets/videos), what type of document is he/she searching for (e.g. exercises, educational games, pictures), which branch of knowledge should it be connected with - together with electromagnetism,

optics and other physical disciplines it could be also connected with non-physical disciplines like chemistry, biology, music etc.

Each record includes a title, a short description, a more detailed description, a URL and attached documents if available. A simple graph shows accuracy according to the selected categories. Users can use a simple complaint form to let us know about invalid links, bad categories and other problems.

Categorization and fulltext-searching together with real-time displaying the number of records according to actual selection provides quick and easy way to get what the user needs.

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BÖHM: COMPUTER-ASSISTED TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PHYSICS

Figure 3. FyzWeb Links

Optimization of the database Statistics may help us to observe users’ search behavior. Adding the real-time displaying the

number of records even within typing the text for full-text searching is based on statistics which showed us that too many searches were giving zero results.

Now we are facing new problem: how to store the information about searched phrases? Storing only submitted phrases is not suitable anymore because phrases that might lead to zero result are supposed to be recognized before the submission, i.e. they should not be submitted. But just these ‘zero result phrases’ can notify us about lack of some information in our database. To solve this problem is our task in the near future.

Another important conclusion based on the statistics is that users strongly prefer Czech to English (fig. 4). So we got to know that it is important to translate the content to Czech if possible.

Our effort is now focused on improving the quality of the database and its content. More than 200 new records were added during last year. Majority of the objects recorded in our database were gained by searching the Internet, but some of them originated directly at Department of Physics Education as bachelor or diploma theses.

Number of Searches by Language

0 100 200 300 400 500

other

English

Slovak

nonverbal

Czech

Figure 4. Number of searches by language shows that users strongly prefer Czech to English.

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Conclusion Computer-assisted teaching and learning is not a ‘magic tool’ that brings an instant success. We

have to learn to use it as well as other teaching tools and we should expect moderate results rather than extremely good ones. But it seems to make sense to search for existing ways of computer-assisted teaching of physics, to develop new ones and to examine its efficiency if possible – and of course to apply it to our students.

Translation and customization method for PhET applets was developed and described [12, 13]. Five applets are being currently translated and as the method is already developed we expect more applets to be translated soon within bachelor theses.

Creating student activities, methodology and support (customized applets, web pages, worksheets, audiovisual guides etc.) is now in sight.

New database of links related to physics and physics education originated as a part of the popularization server FyzWeb [15].

Acknowledgments. The database development and its operation are supported by rozvojový projekt MŠMT

135/2008 (“Tvorba multimediálních vzdělávacích pomůcek a integrace e-learningu na UK v Praze”).

References [1] Bennett, J. Teaching and Learning Science. New York: Continuum, 2003. [2] Jimoyiannis, A. – Komis, V. Computer simulations in physics teaching and learning: a case study on

students‘ understanding of trajectory motion. Computers & Education, 2001, vol. 36, pp. 183-204. [3] Yeo, S. et al.: What do students really learn from interactive multimedia? A physics case study. Am. J.

Phys., 2004, vol. 72, pp. 1351-1358. [4] Monk, M. – Osborne, J. Good Practice in Science Teaching: what research has to say. Buckingham: Open

University Press, 2000. [5] Kulik, C. C. – Kulik, J. A. Effectiveness of Computer-Based Instruction. An Updated Analysis. Computers

in Human Behavior, 1991, vol. 7, pp. 75-94. [6] Redish, E. F. et. al. Why Learning Physics is Harder than it Looks. The Physics Teacher, 2006, vol. 44,

pp. 293-300. [7] University of Colorado at Boulder. Physics Education Technology. [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008].

Available at <http://phet-web.colorado.edu/>. [8] Harrison, D. M. Flash Animations for Physics [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at

<http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/Flash/>. [9] oncord Consortium Inc. Molecular Workbench [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at

<http://mw.concord.org/modeler/index.html>. [10] Harrison, D. M. Simple harmonic Motion I [online]. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at

<http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/Flash/ClassMechanics/ /Circular2SHM/Circular2SHM.html>.

[11] University of Colorado at Boulder. Masses & Springs Laboratory [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at <http://phet-web.colorado.edu/simulations/massspringlab/MassSpringLab2.swf>.

[12] Böhm, P. – Onderišinová, Z. Phet Aplety – Překlad a úprava. Alternativní metody výuky 2008. Univerzita Karlova v Praze. Přírodovědecká fakulta. Hradec Králové: Gaudeamus, 2008. CD-ROM attached. ISBN: 979-80-7041-454-5.

[13] Böhm, P. Customization of Masses & Springs Applet [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at <http://fyzika.pavelbohm.cz/amv08en>.

[14] MFF UK v Praze. FyzWeb [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at <http://fyzweb.cz>. [15] MFF UK v Praze. FyzWeb odkazy [online]. 2008. [cit. June 9, 2008]. Available at

<http://fyzweb.cz/odkazy>.

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