Resources

Physics Education Research Groups:

There are physics education research groups at dozens of universities. Below are the websites of some of these groups. At these sites you can read articles, watch presentations and get more information about how people learn physics and new educational approaches to help them learn better.

• Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia
• The Mazur Group at Harvard University
• The Modeling Instruction Program at Arizona State University
• NC State Physics Education Research Group
• Physics Education Research, American Physical Society
• Physics Education Research at Colorado
• Physics Education Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Physics Education Group at the University of Maryland
• Physics Education Research Group, University of Minnesota
• Physics Education Research Group, The Ohio State University
• Physics Education Group at the University of Washington
• Research in Physics Education, Indiana University
• Science Education Initiative at the University of Colorado
• Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Major Articles about Physics Education:

Early papers published in the American Journal of Physics (these papers were mentioned in the radio documentary):

• The Initial Knowledge State of College Physics Students by Ibrahim Halloun and David Hestenes, November 1985
• Common Sense Concepts about Motion by Ibrahim Halloun and David Hestenes, November 1985
• Toward a Modeling Theory of Physics Instruction, by David Hestenes, May 1987
• Force Concept Inventory by David Hestenes, Malcolm Wells and Gregg Swackhamer, The Physics Teacher, March 1992
• Interactive-Engagement vs. Traditional Methods: A Six-Thousand-Student Survey of Mechanics Test Data for Introductory Physics Courses by Richard Hake, American Journal of Physics, January 1998
• Wherefore a Science of Teaching? by David Hestenes, The Physics Teacher, April 1979

Videos:

• Confessions of a Converted Lecturer by Eric Mazur (full talk)
• Confessions of a Converted Lecture (edited version)
• Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the Tools of Science to Teach Science, 2008 MacVicar Lecture by Carl Wieman at MIT

Books:

• How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (National Academies Press, 2000)
• Peer Instruction, Eric Mazur (Prentice Hall, 1997)
• Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite, Edward F. Redish (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003)

Other Helpful Resources:

• Peer Instruction in the Humanities Project
• The University of Minnesota Rochester
• The Mayo Clinic of Higher Ed by Kevin Carey, Washington Monthly, October 2010