NOTE: This page is archived. It is no longer being maintained or updated and information may not be accurate or complete.

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 https://www.colorado.edu/sei/departments/physics  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).

You might also want to see our STEMclickers resource page, part of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiatives efforst to provide resources including written guides and short videos to help get in structors starting using Clickers and peer instruction in classrooms.

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

Calc based 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).
Update: Here is a link to Prof. Dubson's latest lecture notes in pdf (also available as MSWord docs)
Algebra based: Here is a link to Prof. Dubson's latest lecture notes in pdf (also available as MSWord docs)

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).

Calc based 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.
Update: Here is a link to Prof. Dubson's (very complete!). lecture notes in pdf (also available as MSWord docs).
Algebra based: Here is a link to Prof. Dubson's (very complete!) lecture notes in pdf (also available as MSWord docs).

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.

NOTE: We also have E&M Materials for our algebra-based course (bio/pre med/physiology majors), with solutions. For those, please see our more complete collections (with solutions and exams) .

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 non-majors 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 non-majors concept tests ONLY. (1.2 MB zipped folder containing powerpoint files).
From Steven Pollock

Physics of LIght and Color for non-majors (1.3 GB zipped folder containing syllabus, lecture notes, preflight quizzes, project, readings, and resources.)  From Spring 2016, developed by Chasteen, Rogers and Regal. (For the full course materials, including exams and homework, use our "secure" page . Contact Steven.Pollock (at) colorado.edu for password) 

Middle Division

Modern Physics (sophomore level) : These materials were largely developed by Carl Wieman, Kathy Perkins, and Sarah (Sam) McKagan, and further developed by Charles Baily and Noah Finkelstein. A username and password are required, please contact charles.baily at colorado.edu (or, sam.mckagan at gmail.com).

Sophomore level combined Mechanics /Math Methods materials. This is an extensive website with PER-based resources including concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, activities, class notes, and much more. (This material is for the FIRST semester of our sequence only, combining math methods (Boas) with Mechanics (Taylor), up to but NOT including Lagrangians). Solutions and assessment materials are available from within the link above. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password. You can also access this same content through the SEI site.

We now have some materials for the second half of this course (Mechanics and Math Methods 2), see immediately below under "Upper Division"

Upper Division

Classical Mechanics 2. (134 MB) This is a set of materials developed by Prof. Ethan Neil. (Not associated with a PER project, but a comprehensive followup to the Class Mech 1 materials found above) Secure materials (including exams and solutions) are available through our "secure" page. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password.

Quantum 1 (junior level) materials This is an extensive website with PER-based resources including concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, activities, class notes, and much more. Solutions and assessment materials are available from within the link above. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password. You can also access this same content through the SEI site

Electricity and Magnetism 1 (junior level, electrostatics) materials This is an extensive website with PER-based resources including concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, activities, class notes, and much more. Solutions and assessment materials are available from within the link above. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password. You can also access this same content through the SEI site

Electricity and Magnetism 2 (junior level, electrodynamics) materials This is an extensive website with PER-based resources including concept tests, syllabus, homeworks, activities, class notes, and much more. Solutions and assessment materials are available from within the link above. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password. You can also access this same content through the SEI site

Upper division thermodynamics/statistical mechanics This is a fairly small, zipped folder containing concept tests only. Developed by Michael Dubson, followed up by V. Gurarie and M. Hermele (not as part of any PER project). A very limited set of solutions are available through our "secure" page. Contact steven.pollock at colorado.edu for password.

Upper division Quantum Mechanics II (Fairly small, zipped folder containing concept tests only. (Developed by John Bohn, not as part of any PER project.)

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.)

Some of this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1023028 and 0737118. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.