Supporting physics teaching with research-based resources

Concept inventories such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) have had a major impact on physics education reform: The FCI, a test of basic concepts of forces and acceleration, has been given to thousands of students throughout the country and the results show that PER-based teaching methods lead to dramatic improvements in students’ conceptual understanding of mechanics. These…

This article describes an approach to introducing discussions about equity into the physics classroom, based on the Underrepresentation Curriculum (https://underrep.com).

Many research-based teaching methods in physics, including Peer Instruction, CAE Think-Pair-Share, Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment, and teaching with clickers, involve having your students discuss and answer multiple-choice conceptual questions. A challenge of using these methods is finding and writing good questions. This recommendation helps you find and write questions for your class.