The Paradigms in Physics project at Oregon State University has reformed the entire upper-level physics curriculum. The reform has involved a rearrangement of content to better reflect the way physicists think about the field and the use of several new pedagogies that place responsibility for learning more firmly in the hands of the students. In particular, we employ a wide variety of computational examples and problems throughout the courses. Students use MAPLE, MATHEMATICA, JAVA, and other software packages to do calculations, visualizations, and simulations that develop their intuition and physical reasoning. These computational activities are indispensable to the success of the curriculum.
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See EPAPS Document No. E-AJPIAS-76-014803 for the plots and tables for all measurements. This document can be reached through a direct link in the online article’s HTML reference section or via the EPAPS homepage (http://www.aip.org/pubservs/epaps.html).
© 2008 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2008
American Association of Physics Teachers
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