Physlets for quantum mechanics

Educators have often pinned their hopes of better instruction on emerging technologies such as television, computers, and the World Wide Web, yet teaching with technology-without a sound pedagogy-yields no significant educational gain. In addition, students often approach typical end-of-chapter textbook problems by finding a formula that contains the variables given in the problem statement, rather than first determining a problem's conceptual foundation. We use the technology of Physlets combined with pedagogical techniques such as just-in-time teaching to create alternative problems that we believe help students better develop their problem-solving ability and deepen their conceptual understanding. Physlets-physics applets-are small, flexible Java applets usable in a wide variety of Web applications. They have attributes that make them especially valuable for science education.

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