comPADRE Pedagogic Library
This collection describes a set of pedagogic approaches relevant to physics and astronomy education; it provides example activities for each. A detailed faculty guide to each teaching method is provided.
Currently Available
- Interactive Lectures: draw students into the class and gain feedback on student understanding by interspersing short individual, pair, or small-group activities with the lecture.
- Just-in-Time Teaching: Students in introductory courses read assigned material outside of class, respond to short questions online, then participate in discussion and collaborative exercises the following class period.
- Mathematics and Statistic Models: Mathematical Models: grow out of equations that determine how a system changes from one state to the next (differential equations) and/or how one variable depends on the value or state of other variables. Statistical Models: include issues such as statistical characterization of numerical data, estimating the probabilistic future behavior of a system based on past behavior, extrapolation or interpolation of data based on some best-fit, error estimates of observations, or spectral analysis of data or model generated output.
- Teaching with Interactive Demonstrations: Interactive demonstrations strenghten students' abilities to observe, and stimulate questions and discussions. A demonstration can be used in its simplest form as a show-and-tell experience to enhance a lecture, or it can be developed as an effective hands-on, inquiry-based learning opportunity in a class or lab. Interactive demonstrations can also be used in classes of all sizes, as projection systems can make demonstrations visible to students in the backs of large classrooms.
- Using Indoor Labs Labs provides students with opportunities for structured investigations and experiments with materials, models, and other equipment.
Workshops to Build the Collection
Summer 2007 Workshop: This workshop was held in conjunction with the AAPT Summer Meeting in Greensboro, NC. Participants in this workshop generated activities for the comPADRE Pedagogic Service activity collection.
