Problem solving is one of the areas physics education research (PER) focuses on. Before I look at the aspects of physics problem solving that PER has reported, I would like to put down my thoughts on physics problems after being a physics learner and now a physics educator for 10+ years. Physics problems can beContinue reading “Different levels of physics problems and physics problem solving”
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Student misconceptions on kinematics
In this post, I put down the student misconceptions on kinematics that I came across from reading physics education research (PER) papers that have been published. Kinematics means the study of motion. So, this post will focus on student difficulties on displacement, velocity, speed, and acceleration. Definitions Before I discuss what I learned from theContinue reading “Student misconceptions on kinematics”
My overview on physics education research
Physics education research (PER) started in 1970s. It started when physics educators started to investigate student misconceptions in kinematics and dynamics at the university level. People such as Arnold Arons, Lillian McDermott, David Hestenes, and Frederick Reif investigated student difficulties in mechanics and vectors. They developed different physics tasks to probe student understanding, collected studentContinue reading “My overview on physics education research”
Position-time vs. Displacement-time vs. Distance-time
This topic is more related to the learning of physics in secondary school in Malaysia and Singapore. I had a chance to look at the physics syllabus at the SPM level, Singapore GCE O level, and iGCSE Cambridge. In the iGCSE Cambridge physics syllabus, students are introduced distance-time graph. In the SPM and GCE OContinue reading “Position-time vs. Displacement-time vs. Distance-time”
Chang Physics Class 