Prior physics preparation seems to be the biggest contributor to the gender gap but a lot is still unknown.
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Is taking notes on paper better than taking notes on a computer? Y- Maybe?
Prior work has claimed that taking notes by hand is better than on a computer but this claim doesn’t appear to hold up.
Continue readingBuy the pizza, have the grading party
Getting a group of instructors together to grade can be difficult, but it seems to be worth the hassle.
Continue readingThe GRE: what is it good for?
The GRE: great at acting as a barrier to underrepresented groups, not so good as a predictor of completing graduate school.
Continue readingHow far is far? Investigating students’ knowledge about distance to astronomical objects
Students are often unfamiliar with sizes and distances of astronomical objects. Today’s study compares student knowledge about this topic at different educational levels.
Continue readingExtra! Extra! Physics labs might be extra
Labs have been a standard part of the physics curriculum. Today’s paper suggests that labs don’t help students develop physics knowledge beyond what is already covered in other parts of the course.
Continue readingPaper or Pla– Electronic For Conceptual Inventories
There is only so much class time during a semester which may make it difficult to incorporate research based assessments. Can we just give them online?
Continue readingThe lack of a relation between student learning and student evaluations
Student evaluations of instruction are widely used to evaluate instructors. Today’s article suggests these are not correlated with student learning.
Continue readingTo use g or not to use g? That is the question.
Normalized gain, g, has been the standard statistic in PER for the past two decades, but its statistical properties haven’t been explored until recently.
Continue readingThe Original Case for Active Learning
Arguably one of the most significant papers in physics education, this paper gave strong evidence in favor of active learning over traditional lecture courses.
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