Matter & Interactions: Models & Modern Concepts in Introductory Physics

我们正在开发教材，以便将现代内容引入物理学入门课程。在以前美国国家科学基金会的资助下，我们编写了一本新的力学和热物理微积分入门教材，解决了以下问题：1)许多学生在高中已经学习过力学，在大学里重复几乎相同的材料感到无聊。2)学生和教师对传统课程中现代科学的缺乏感到不满。3)传统课程的学生不参与物理系统的建模，包括理想化、近似化和简化假设。4)热力学和力学传统上被视为完全独立的主题，而不是基于少量基本原理的综合科学。新课程强调原子级的描述和分析，以及物理建模，包括计算机建模。这些材料故意让学生们看起来与他们以前学过的截然不同。在整个教科书中，热物理与力学结合在一起，最重要的是对爱因斯坦固体的机械处理。我们认为，新教科书提供了传统教科书所需的替代方案，但它在教学上还不够强大，也不能移植。它已经在非常优秀的学生身上发挥了很好的作用；这一点很重要，因为这样的学生特别有可能感到无聊，我们不想失去他们。然而，我们希望让这一有趣的主题不仅对优等生，而且对有过体面高中物理补偿的普通学生也是如此。让其他教师能够教授课程也很重要；这需要创建更多种类的材料，包括教师手册和将计算机建模引入课程的支持包。我们建议继续在教学方面进行工作，并根据我们的教学经验和正在进行的形成性评估活动进一步修订教科书。一个关键的组成部分将是1999年秋季的全国贝塔测试，我们目前正在招募参与者。我们相信，我们现在有了一些非常值得教授的东西，但我们需要解决我们和其他人在如何更好地教授它方面的不足。我们还建议修改和扩展我们较早的E&M教科书以匹配新材料，从而提供一本连贯的、现代的一年入门物理教科书。我们建议开展更多的评价和传播活动。

We are developing educational materials to bring modern content intointroductory physics. With the aid of previous NSF funding we have createda new calculus-based introductory textbook on mechanics and thermal physicsthat addresses the following problems: 1) Many students have alreadystudied mechanics in high school and are bored by repeating nearly the samematerial in college. 2) Students and instructors are unhappy with the lackof contemporary science in the traditional course. 3) Students in thetraditional course are not involved in the modeling of physical systems,including making idealizations, approximations and simplifying assumptions.4) Thermodynamics and mechanics are traditionally treated as completelyseparate topics, rather than as an integrated science based on a smallnumber of fundamental principles. The new curriculum emphasizesatomic-level description and analysis, and physical modeling includingcomputer modeling. The material deliberately looks to the students verydifferent from what they had studied earlier. Thermal physics is integratedwith mechanics throughout the textbook, climaxing with an accessiblestatistical mechanical treatment of the Einstein solid.We believe that the new textbook provides a needed alternative totraditional texts, but it is not yet pedagogically robust andtransportable. It already works well with exceptionally strong students;this is important because such students are at special risk of boredom, andwe do not want to lose them. However, we would like to make thisinteresting subject matter accessible not just to the honors student butalso to the average student who has had a decent high school physicspreparation. It is also important to make the curriculum teachable by otherinstructors; this requires the creation of additional kinds of materials,including an instructor's manual and support packages for introducingcomputer modeling into the course.We propose to continue work on pedagogical aspects of the reform, withfurther revisions of the textbook in response to our teaching experiencesand ongoing formative assessment activities. A key component will be anational beta test in Fall 1999 for which we are currently recruitingparticipants. We believe that we now have something well worth teaching butwe need to address shortcomings in how well we and others can teach it. Wealso propose to revise and extend our earlier E&M textbook to match the newmaterial, thus providing a coherent, modern one-year introductory physicstextbook. We propose to engage in additional evaluation and disseminationactivities.