Multimedia enhanced physics lecture experiments (ePhEx)Guillaume Schiltz1,a), Jonathan Hanselmann1), Willi Kernen3), Nathalie Schmidig2), Bertram Batlogg1)

1) ETH Zurich, Department of Physics, 2) ETH Zurich, ID-MultiMedia, 3) GRiDDS GmbHa) schiltz@phys.ethz.ch

In Class Online

documentation

video

exercise

applet

(ePhEx)presentation during the lecture

students predict & peer-discussthe experiment outcome

ETH Zurich holds a collection of more than 700 lecture experiments covering all major topics of experimental physics. These experiments are exhaustively used in all introductory lectures and address about 3’000 students per year.

The project ePhEx aims at raising student’s engagement with the experiments. It allows students to review the experiments beyond the lecture hall and to work more extensively with them. During the lectures we present experi-ments still in the traditional way. In addition, students get links to the corresponding enhan-ced experiments and can review them in detail while reviewing their lecture notes.

Approx. 60-100 experiments are presented during each of the 15 introductory lectures of-fered by the Department of Physics. The major aims of hese experiments are:

• entertain and involve students in the lecture,

• stimulate student interest in the subject,

• support memorization.

Asking students to predict and peer-discuss the outcomes of experiments supports student engagement and improves the learning process.

Classroom demonstrations are a substantial element of in-troductory physics lectures. The learning effect of these expe-riments, however, is discussed controversially [1][2]. While pure observation has almost no positive effect on conceptual lear-ning, interaction or at least engagement with the given expe-riments shows clear benefits [3].

References:

[1] Crouch, C.H., Fagen, A.P., Callan, J.P. & Mazur, E. (2004) Classroom Demonstrations: Learning Tools or Entertainment? American Journal of Physics 72, 835-838.

[2] Carr, K.M. (2005). The “Ten Most Beautiful” Experiments Interpreted by Novice Students. The Physics Teacher 43, 533-537.

[3] Wieman, C.E., Perkins, K.K. & Adams, W.K. (2008) Oersted Medal Lecture 2007: Interactive Simulations for teaching physics: What works, what doesn‘t and why. American Journal of Physics 76, 393-399.

ePhEx offers the following features through a public web site:

• Video recording (with audio explanations) of the experiment.

• Text description (with graphics/pictures) of the physics behind the experiment.

• Application exercise (with optional solution) based on the experiment.

• Interactive simulation (Java applet) allowing students to run the experiment with individual settings.

All material is available on http://ephex.phys.ethz.ch

So far we have videotaped 106 experiments, most of them being augmented by a de-tailed description. 35 simulation applets and 20 exercises have been included. We plan to continually increase the collection in the next two years and to end up with the 200 most frequently shown experiments. In 2011 we started to supplement selected lec-tures with additional enhanced experiments and the feedback has been encouraging. Further systematic evaluations including usage and preferences will be carried out in the coming semesters.

Acknowledgment:

Funded by Fonds Filep (ETH Zurich) and by the Department of Physics.

World Conference on Physics Education (WCPE) 2012, Istanbul

Watch a short pre-sentation of the ePhEx features!