Simulations Help Teach Difficult Concepts

by Aviva Luria For nearly fifteen years, Rod Cole has been a pioneer in the use of technology in the classroom. As a lecturer in physics, and particularly as an instructor for the Physics 9 series -- the introductory course for physics, engineering, and other science majors -- Cole finds himself faced with the task of presenting difficult physical concepts to large groups of beginning students. Creating animated tutorials has made this task easier.

In the early '80s Cole began creating digital films using a VAX machine, a VCR, and a graphics application. "Ten seconds of video tape would take all night to film -- if nothing went wrong," he says. This is the process by which the first computer animations were made.

Now, using QuickTime or Java, Cole might be found creating a tutorial for his students on the very morning of his class. "With simulations I can do a lot of things that I can't do with real materials," he says. He can slow down the evolution of time, allowing students to see things that might not be obvious or visible in nature. One of Cole's QuickTime movies shows a wave encountering interference from a barrier; the wave inverts and becomes two waves, the original, above-surface wave fading out as the other moves in the opposite direction. Although wave machines using real water are often used to demonstrate this process in physics classes, the natural phenomenon happens too quickly to allow students to see what really happens, Cole says. The simulation, which demonstrates the process more slowly, makes the reaction clearer to the viewer.

Cole has never been satisfied with students learning by rote; he aims for students to develop what he calls a "gut feeling" about physics, as well as intellectual comprehension. The computer tutorials help students gain this deeper understanding by allowing them to visualize the fields that they're learning about. Traditionally, the teaching of electricity and magnetism relies heavily on mathematics, he says. "Concentrating on the math shortchanges the concepts. We use the computer simulations to build the conceptual understanding in the students."

"I believe students do not have the 3-D visualization skills they used to have. Probably it comes from not playing in the same way. Students used to take things apart a lot more than they do now. The tutorials really help students with visualization problems," he says.

Students in Cole's Physics 9 class work on exercises in the computer labs in groups of two or three. They can also work on the problems on their own time, whether in a lab or on a personal computer. Cole's Web site provides a link to the necessary plug-ins, so that students can run the tutorials using the Web browsers on their own machines.

For Cole, using technology in the classroom is about more than simply teaching the same topics in a new way. "Now I can teach certain things that I wouldn't have had any hope of getting across to students," he says. "It opens up a whole new world of what you can do in a class."

For more information:

Cole's Web site: http:// maxwell.ucdavis.edu/~cole/

Tutorials: http://maxwell.ucdavis.edu/~electro/