Concept Tests and Course Materials from CU Boulder
Below are some course materials used at CU Boulder. For the upper-division materials, we are actively engaged in education research, and these materials are fairly well organized, annotated, and updated. (See www.colorado.edu/sei/departments/physics.htm for more info.) For the lower-division, it's much more informal. At the start, many originally came from Eric Mazur at Harvard (see his Peer Instruction book), and many more were created at CU by Michael Dubson. We now include contributions from other CU faculty. ( NOTE: Since many originated from Eric Mazur's book on "Peer Instruction", please seek appropriate permission if you want to use those in any public or commercial forum)
We are believers in the "open-source" model of educational
materials - use what you need, as you like. We will be delighted if
you can use any of these in your courses. If you modify/improve them
(or find "bugs"), please return the favor by sending us improved
materials, so we can keep these links up-to-date and constantly
improving. Contact Steven.Pollock at colorado.edu
(And, please do reference original sources when it seems
appropriate, especially when publishing!)
COLLECTIONS
Many files below are raw (let us know if you find major issues) If you download and use these in your class we'd love to hear about it, send us a quick email.
Our upper division collections are also kept updated at www.colorado.edu/sei/physics .
The collections below are nearly complete, but we have removed some of the more sensitive materials (largely exams and solutions)
More complete collections (with solutions and exams) are here in our secure section. (For access to these more complete collections, please contact Steven.pollock at Colorado.edu for a password)
Lower Division
- Mechanics materials (35 Meg, zipped folder containing subfolders with concept tests, Tutorial information, syllabus, and more) Materials come from a number of faculty - originally Michael Dubson (with considerable borrowing from Eric Mazur at Harvard!), then Steven Pollock, Bob Wilson at CSU, then smaller updates from Charles Rogers and Murray Holland (who converted some .doc conceptest collections to .ppt format)
- Mechanics concept tests ONLY (3 Meg, zipped folder containing concept tests only, largely in .doc formats, but including a first pass at converting some to .ppt)
- Electricity and Magnetism materials (120 Meg, zipped folder containing subfolders with concept tests, Tutorial information, syllabus, and more) Materials come from a number of CU faculty - originally Michael Dubson, then cleaned up by Bob Wilson at CSU, added to by Jamie Nagle and Steven Pollock.
- Electricity and Magnetism concept tests ONLY (22 Meg, zipped folder containing concept tests only, in .ppt and .doc formats) Materials come from a number of CU faculty - originally Michael Dubson, then cleaned up by Bob Wilson at CSU, added to by Jamie Nagle and Steven Pollock.
- Energy and the Environment materials. (1.0 Meg, zipped folder containing sub-folders with concept tests, class activities, pre/post tests, and more) Thanks to Tom Murphy at UC San Diego for coming up with a few of the concept questions, this collection is from Steven Pollock.
- Physics of Sound and Music for nonmajors materials. (36 Meg zipped folder containing sub-folders with concept tests, class activities, pre/post tests, sound files and much more) This collection is from Steven Pollock
- Physics of Sound and Music for nonmajors concept tests ONLY (1.2 MB zipped folder containing powerpoint files) From Steven Pollock
- Physics of Light and Color for nonmajors materials. (330 Meg zipped folder containing sub-folders with concept tests, class activities, homeworks, and more) This collection is from Stephanie Chasteen.
Middle Division
- Modern Physics (sophomore level) : These materials were largely developed by Carl Wieman, Kathy Perkins, and Sarah (Sam) McKagan a few years back, and further developed by Charles Baily and Noah Finkelstein. These are available at http://www.colorado.edu/physics/EducationIssues/modern/ A username and password are required, please contact charles.baily at colorado.edu (or, sam.mckagan at gmail.com) for this (and be sure to specify you are looking for PHYS 2130 materials, since this is a DIFFERENT web site than all our other "secure" materials)
Upper Division
-
Sophomore/junior level combined Mechanics /Math Methods materials. This is an SEI
website with resources including concept tests, syllabus, homeworks,
activities, class notes, and more.
Also available through our "secure" page with assessment materials too (contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password) - Quantum I (junior level) materials.
This is an SEI website with resources including
concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, activities and class notes,
and more.
Also available through our "secure" page with assessment materials too. (Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password) -
Junior Level Electricity and Magnetism Materials. This is an
SEI website with resources including
concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, posttests, activities and class notes, and more.
More resources available through our "secure" page with assessment materials too. (Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password) - Upper division thermodynamics/statistical mechanics (Fairly small, zipped folder containing concept tests only. Developed by Michael Dubson.) More materials (followups from other faculty) coming soon, stay tuned. .
- Upper division Quantum Mechanics II (Fairly small, zipped folder containing concept tests only. Developed by John Bohn.)
- Upper division/graduate Teaching and Learning Physics. (200 Meg, zipped folder containing many course materials) Materials developed by Noah Finkelstein, with some supplements from Steven Pollock. The folder contains many references and materials from other authors.
NOTE: For more materials (including exams and solutions) contact Steven Pollock for a password, then click here
(For more options, visit our (currently unorganized and largely empty) collection of concept tests from a variety of classes.)