Proposal for the Associated Colleges of the South Teaching with Technology Fellows Program

 

Title: Using Physlets and Just-in-Time Teaching in Quantum Mechanics, II

Applicants: Mario Belloni (MB)[1], Larry Cain (LC), and Wolfgang Christian (WC)

Physics Department, Davidson College

 

Background

We propose to create an instructor’s handbook to accompany the materials we have already created (available on the web at http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/qm_acs) in support of a one-semester, intermediate course in quantum mechanics.  The interactive curricular material uses the Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) technique and Physlets to actively engage students outside of the classroom to improve their in-class experience. During the summer of 2001, we developed forty-five such JiTT exercises, which stress the visualization of quantum mechanical concepts with the goal of achieving better student understanding of these concepts.  We can further enhance the effectiveness of the exercises by developing a more thorough discussion of the exercises for instructors.  Enhancing how instructors use the material enhances instruction. 

 

Description

Physlets—“Physics applets” written by WC—are small, flexible Java applets that can be used in a wide variety of WWW applications [Christian and Belloni 2000, Belloni, Cain and Christian 2001]. Physlet animations show simple representations of physical and non-physical situations[2] and standard VCR-type buttons allow students to pause, step forward, step back and reset the animations for analysis. 

         

Figure 1: One of our Physlet-based JiTT questions regarding the quantum mechanical barrier problem.  Students vary the energy (two such energies shown) of the incident plane wave to determine where the barrier(s) or well(s) are located.

 

The goal of Just-in-Time Teaching [Novak, Patterson, Gavrin, and Christian, 1999] is to actively engage students outside of the classroom (WWW) to enhance their in-class experience. This is primarily accomplished with WarmUps. WarmUps are web-based pre-instruction exercises that are assigned and due before the beginning of the next class period. Students submit their answers to the instructor over the web via a form that appears on the assignment’s web page. The instructor receives the student submissions and, armed with this information, the instructor crafts a lecture around these responses based on students’ needs. Students are both better prepared for class and better motivated to learn the correct answers and justifications.

 

The instructor’s handbook we create will include  a CD containing our interactive exercises.  The narrative will include the detailed theory portrayed in the exercises, a more extensive description of what instructors could and should be doing with these exercises in class (informed by our (and others’) experiences using the exercises this fall and next spring), screen shots of interesting scenarios (such as the one depicted in Figure 1), and other information useful for instructors.

 

Timeline

Since the 45 base exercises for this grant have already been developed, the work supported by the current grant proposal, if funded, will produce the instructor’s handbook and CD to accompany the exercises.  The handbook and CD will be completed by September 2002.

 

Technology

The Physics Department maintains its own servers and therefore server space and server access is not an issue. All three of us have office computers powerful enough to complete this project. In addition, the College supports our preferred authoring tools, such as Microsoft FrontPage.  For the 2001 project, the ACS Technology Center (Jim Busby) helped us create CDs containing our materials to distribute to the ACS physics departments. We will again need the Technology Center’s help and the ACS’s financial support to create the handbooks.

 

Other Support

A 2001 ACS Teaching with Technology fellowship has already supported our work.  Please see the attached grant summary for details.

 

Learning Outcomes

Learning quantum mechanics is difficult for many students. There are three reasons[3] for this:

 

·         Quantum mechanics is not like classical mechanics (uncertainty versus determinism).

·         Quantum mechanics is one level (at least) divorced from the world we live in.

·         Quantum mechanics is inherently mathematical.

 

The exercises we developed are geared to addressing these difficulties. Daily JiTT exercises (WarmUps) will help students be better prepared for class. Students prepared for class by doing these targeted exercises are more motivated to understand the material presented and will actively participate in class. Given how difficult quantum mechanics is to comprehend, student preparation and motivation is crucial.

 

Given how difficult quantum mechanics is to comprehend, instructor preparation and motivation is also crucial.  The instructor’s handbook we develop will aid the instructor’s use of the interactive materials, enhance their teaching, and therefore enhance student learning.

 

Curriculum

The Physlet and the JiTT approaches have already been assimilated into the lower-division courses taught by the Physics Department at Davidson College. MB is currently teaching the intermediate and advanced courses in quantum mechanics and will continue to do so next year. Consequently, he is using (and will use) the materials developed from this grant during fall 2001 and fall 2002 in his Physics 360 and 460 courses. (We have already been contacted by several colleagues, both inside and outside of the ACS, regarding the use of our materials this fall and next spring.  As our materials are more widely publicized, we expect even more interest.)

 

Assessment

We are evaluating our materials (and will continue this assessment under this grant) by administering the Quantum Mechanics Visualization Instrument [Cataloglu and Robinett, 2001].  This test consists of 25 qualitative, multiple-choice questions in the areas where students have difficulties (such as matching wave functions with quantum wells and barriers).  We administered the test the first day of class (the pre-test) and will re-administer the test on the last day of class (the post-test).  We will calculate the normalized gain from the pre- and post-test results (See Eric Mazur, Peer Instruction: A Users Manual, Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996) to evaluate the effectiveness of our materials.  Preliminary results will be available December 2001. 

 

Dissemination

The handbook and CD will be distributed to the Physics department chairs of the ACS. Our materials will also be available at http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/qm_acs. Chairs will be asked to distribute the materials to their colleagues.  In addition, MB, LC, and WC will disseminate the curricular materials developed from this grant through talks at local and national meetings.  Please see the attached summary report of our 2001 Teaching with Technology Fellowship for a more detailed description of our previous dissemination activities.

 

Bibliography

 

Physlets: Teaching Physics with Interactive Curricular Material, W. Christian and M. Belloni, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2000.

 

 “Using Physlets and Just-in-Time Teaching in Quantum Mechanics,” M. Belloni, L. Cain, and W. Christian, American Association of Physics Teachers 2001 Summer Meeting, Rochester, N.Y., 2001. See also: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/.

 

Just-in-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology, G. Novak, E. Patterson, A. Gavrin, and W. Christian, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1999.

 

Understanding Quantum Physics: A Users Manual, M. Morrison, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1990.

 

“Testing the Development of Student Conceptual and Visualization Understanding in Quantum Mechanics through the Undergraduate Career,” E. Cataloglu and R. Robinett, accepted for publication, American Journal of Physics.

 

Hyperlink References

 

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/physletprob, the WWW version of the curricular and reference material that accompanies Physlets: Teaching with Interactive Curricular Material, W. Christian and M. Belloni, Prentice Hall, 2000.

 

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/applets/applets.html, the Physlets website.

 

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/qm_acs, the web-based version of the quantum mechanics exercises developed for our 2001 Teaching with Technology Fellowship.

 

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/mjb/qm/phy_360a.html, the main web page for MB’s quantum mechanics course for fall 2001.

 

Previous Grant’s Summary Report (9/5/01)

 

“There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there was ever such a time. On the other hand I believe I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”

    ---Richard Feynman [The Character of Physical Law]

 

Abstract:  We have developed curricular material in support of a one-semester, intermediate course in quantum mechanics. This curricular material uses the Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) technique and, where applicable, Physlets to actively engage students outside of the classroom to enhance their in-class experience. Forty-five such JiTT exercises have been developed to stress the visualization of quantum mechanical concepts with the goal of achieving better student understanding of these concepts.  We originally proposed to develop twenty.

 

Student Learning of Quantum Mechanics

Learning quantum mechanics is difficult for many students. There are three reasons for this:

• Quantum mechanics is not like classical mechanics (uncertainty versus determinism).
• Quantum mechanics is one level (at least) divorced from the world we live in.
• Quantum mechanics is inherently mathematical.

 

The exercises we have developed are geared to address these difficulties.  Daily JiTT exercises (WarmUps) help students prepare for class.  Students prepared for class by doing these targeted exercises are more motivated to understand the material presented and actively participate in class. Given how difficult quantum mechanics is to comprehend, this preparation and motivation is crucial.  In addition, the visual nature of the Physlet-based exercises will aid students in understanding both the concepts and the mathematics behind quantum theory.

 

Integration into the Curriculum

MB is currently teaching the intermediate-level course in quantum mechanics and will continue to do so next year. He is using the materials developed from this grant in his quantum mechanics course during fall 2001 and will use again use the materials spring 2002 (his advanced quantum mechanics course) and fall 2002.  Several colleagues from colleges and universities across the country will also be using these materials in the fall 2001.  In addition, some of these materials have “trickled down” to the sophomore-level modern physics course at Davidson.

 

Evaluation and Dissemination

We are evaluating our materials by administering the Quantum Mechanics Visualization Instrument (QMVI) developed by Richard W. Robinett of Pennsylvania State University, University Park.  This test consists of 25 qualitative, multiple-choice questions in the areas where students have difficulties (such as matching wave functions with quantum wells and barriers).  We administered the test the first day of class (the pre-test) and will re-administer the test on the last day of class (the post-test).  We will calculate the normalized gain from the pre- and post-test results (See Eric Mazur, Peer Instruction: A Users Manual, Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996) to evaluate the effectiveness of our materials.  Preliminary results will be available December 2001.  We originally proposed to evaluate our materials by administering single- topic pre- and post-tests developed by E. Redish, R. Steinberg, and M. Wittmann and, where necessary, create our own pre- and post-tests.  The QMVI is a more comprehensive and established evaluation instrument.

 

We have e-mailed the Physics department chairs of the ACS and the members of the ACS-PHYSICS e-mail list with the web address: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/qm_acs where they may access our materials (We are currently working with the ACS to master our materials onto a CD, which we will send to chairs.). Chairs have been asked to distribute the materials to their colleagues.  In addition, MB, LC, and WC have already widely publicized these materials outside of the ACS.  Specifically:

 

• February 16, 2001: Syllabus column in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Profiled teaching methods (Physlets and Just-in-Time Teaching) and the (then) future work on quantum mechanics. This article is available at the web address: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/mjb/syllabus_02_16_01.html.

 

• March 17, 2001: Contributed talk, Enhancing Student Learning with Interactive Curricular Material. Mario Belloni reported several preliminary quantum mechanics exercises at the North Carolina Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) at their spring meeting. The talk is available at the address: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/mjb/ncssm_aapt_talk.

 

• July 22, 2001: Handed out 30 CDs containing the preliminary exercises to our (WC and MB) workshop (Physlets: Teaching with Interactive Curricular Material, W33) participants at the national American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) summer meeting in Rochester, NY.

 

• July 24, 2001: Invited talk, “Using Physlets and Just-in-Time Teaching in Quantum Mechanics.”  We reported preliminary exercises to the national American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) at their summer meeting in Rochester, NY. The talk is available on the web at the address: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/mjb/rochester2001.

 

• September 5, 2001:  Web site, http://webphysics.davidson.edu/qmbook/qm_acs, officially on-line with the quantum mechanics exercises.  We e-mailed a letter to each physics department chair in the ACS and the members of the ACS-PHYSICS e-mail list to inform them of our work.  We are currently working with the ACS to master our materials onto a CD, which we will send to chairs.

 

• November 3, 2001: Contributed talk, “Using Just-in-Time Teaching and Physlets in Undergraduate Quantum Mechanics.”  We will report on these exercises to the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society, Charlottesville, Virginia.