Using Mathcasts to Facilitate Student Comprehension of Physical Applications of Math Concepts

Colleen Lanz Countryman; Hong Wang

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arXiv · 1809.09720

Using Mathcasts to Facilitate Student Comprehension of Physical Applications of Math Concepts

Colleen Lanz Countryman·Hong Wang

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Abstract

Many Physics Education Researchers have discussed the positive correlation between students' incoming mathematics skills and performance in their physics classes. Thus, in order to strengthen their performance gains in their physics courses, professors strive to bolster students' mathematics abilities but in-class time constraints force instructors to focus their lesson plans on physics concepts rather than renewing mathematics material. For the sake of preserving in-class time, many instructors are turning to lecture delivery outside of class by way of flipped classrooms and MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses). Videos can strengthen problem-solving skill sets and some PER researchers have begun moving worked problems and class lectures to YouTube. YouTube videos even have a relatively long history of being used for in-class discussions. We aimed to provide students with videos that directly connected mathematics concepts from previous classes (such as dot/cross products, limits of integration, solving systems of equations, etc.) to E&M concepts in their current class (such as work/torque, electric fields from continuous objects, Kirchoff's Laws, etc.).

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Colleen Lanz Countryman, Hong Wang. 2018-09-25. Using Mathcasts to Facilitate Student Comprehension of Physical Applications of Math Concepts. https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.09720

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