The Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research (TIPERS) workbooks pose questions in styles quite different from the end-of-chapter problems that those of us of a certain age were assigned back in the days before Netscape. My own spin on TIPERS is not just to do them on paper, but to have students set up the situations in the laboratory to verify—or contradict —their paper solutions. The circuits unit is particularly conducive to creating quick-and-dirty lab setups that demonstrate the result of conceptually framed problems.
References
1.
Curtis
Hieggelke
, David
Maloney
, Thomas
O’Kuma
, and Stephen
Kanim
, TIPERs: Sensemaking Tasks for Introductory Physics
(Pearson
, 2013
).2.
Curtis
Hieggelke
, David
Maloney
, Thomas
O’Kuma
, and Stephen
Kanim
, E&M TIPERs: Electricity & Magnetism Tasks
(Pearson
, 2006
).3.
Lillian
McDermott
, Paul
van Kampenb
, Paul
Shaffer
, and MacKenzie
Stetzer
, “New insights into student understanding of complete circuits and the conservation of current
,” Am. J. Phys.
81
, 134
(Feb.
2013
).4.
Martha
Lietz
, “Make a mystery circuit with a bar light fixture
,” Phys. Teach.
45
, 244
(April
2007
). This article presents a challenge of deducing the nature of the electrical connections hidden by the black box. You can also have the students create their own “mystery circuits” and present them to the class.© 2018 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2018
American Association of Physics Teachers
AAPT members receive access to The Physics Teacher and the American Journal of Physics as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.