Featured Collections

Helping Students Discover The Future: the Physics Careers Resource Website

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 EST

Written by Dr. Crystal Bailey the Education and Careers Program Manager at the American Physical Society in College Park, MD. This article from the APS Summer 2011 Forum on Education newsletter discusses the biggest challenges physics educators face today. In spite of the fact that only a tiny fraction of physics bachelors can reasonably expect to become physics faculty, students consistently name this career path as the "typical" track for physicists. Therefore a reliable, accurate source of information about physics careers is essential, in order to give students a clear picture of what's possible after graduation, and beyond. Bailey discusses the way that the comPADRE Career Website does this.

OSP Tools and the ComPADRE OSP Collection

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 EST

This paper outlines the pedagogical and technical features of the Open Source Physics (OSP) project and how we use OSP-based tools and resources to introduce modeling into the curriculum. We describe our current effort to create and distribute new material using the Easy Java Simulations and Tracker tools and how we distribute this curricular material with ComPADRE National Science Digital Library [OSP 2009]. The paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces the Modeling Cycle that is the basis for our pedagogy. Section III describes basic Easy Java Simulations concepts and section IV describes Tracker. The main features of ComPADRE are presented in section V and section VI presents the pedagogical benefits of this connection. Finally, section VII summarizes the improvements obtained by the use of our approach.

PER-Central

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

H. Vincent Kuo PER-Central - The Physics Education Research – Community Enhancing Network for Teaching, Research and Learning is a ComPADRE collection designed specifically to serve as an informational touch-point and online community for "producers" and "consumers" of physics education research (PER). The collection contains information about and links to a wide range of materials and resources for the use of people conducting research on the teaching and learning of physics. Some of these materials are also useful to teachers and administrators interested in applying the findings of physics education research.

Teacher Resources on the Nucleus

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

David Donnelly The Nucleus is the ComPADRE collection targeted at undergraduate students majoring in physics and astronomy. It is assumed that undergraduates majoring in physics and astronomy might follow a wide array of career paths, so the types of resources included in the collection are correspondingly broad. From its inception, the collection has had two primary goals: Providing resources that will enhance the learning experiences of undergraduates, and providing tools and resources that will facilitate the establishment of an online community of physics and astronomy undergraduates.

Pedagogy in Action: On-line resources for physics faculty and teachers

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

Cathryn A. Manduca and Bruce Mason ComPADRE, the physics education digital library of the AAPT, APS, AAS, and SPS, and the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College have joined forces to make it easier to access a rich body of expert teaching experience. The new pedagogic portal at ComPADRE brings together information about effective teaching methods and examples of ways in which teachers and faculty use these methods for specific physics concepts. Each teaching method is described in peer-reviewed websites that are written by faculty known for their teaching (in physics or other disciplines).

Snapshot of the Physics Front

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

Cathy Mariotti Ezrailson The Physics Front collection is the physics and physical science online library developed for pre-college teachers within the ComPADRE Digital Library Pathways Project. The Physics Front serves a broad spectrum of users that include new and crossover physics teachers, pre-service as well as in-service teachers of physical science and physics for grades K through 12, teacher preparation instructors in universities as well as students of physics and physical science. Participation in The Physics Front collection also extends to physics departments involved in the preparation of pre-service teachers and the support of in-service teachers and their students.