COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS EDUCATION

COMPUTER-BASED INSTRUCTION
BRINGSADVANCED-PLACEENTPHYSICS
TO GIFTED STUDENTS
Raymond Ravaglia, J. Acacio de Barros,
and Patrick Suppes

Department Editor: Denis Donne11

donnelly@siena.e u

n this article, we describe two college-level introductory

to teach advanced-placement (AP) calculus and physics
courses in physics, with calcuhs prerequisites, that are
courses to gifted middle- and advanced high-school students
entirely computer-based. These courses have been developedThe remainder of this article focuses on the EPGY course
by the Eduction Program
for Gifted Youth (EPGY)
at Stansokware in the context of the
AP physics courses.
ford,' a research project that provides year-round, accelerated
instruction in mathematics and physics to gifted
or advanced
Background to EPGY
middle- and high-school students via computer-based course- The EPGY program started in 1985
a proof-of-concept
as
project funded by the National Science Foundation
to create
ware.
Students in EPGY run multimedia courseware
at home
a first-year course in calculus that would be entirely comor in school on personal computers usingthe MS-Windows
puter-based.' Our motivation was the fact that fewer than
operating system. Our software, unlike traditional applica25% of U.S. high schools offer AP calculus. If a computer
tions of computers in education,
1s intended tobe the primary
Program were the primary means of instruction, calculus
means of instruction
and not merelya supplementto a regular
could be made availableto more qualified students.
class. Itis precisely in those settings in which a regular class
Because our purpose was to provide access
to advanced
cannot be offered, either because of an insufficient numbercourses
of in situations in which on-site qualified teachers were
unavailable, we have had to concentrate on developing softstudents or the absence of a qualified instructor, that our
ware that can play the role of both instructor and demonstra
software is intended to be used. Because we are concerned
with college-level physics courses, which presuppose calcu- tor. We have assumed that our software will be used by
students, and notby instructors, and have therefore endeavlus, the issue of teacher qualification
is a significant one.
We have used our course model over the last four yearsored to make it as instructionally self-contained as possible.
The calculus course was complete
in 1990 and was used
to teach the AB curriculum of AP calculus (the first two
RaymondRavaglia is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Stanford
quarters of college calculus) to 13 studentsin the 1991 year.
University, and the directorof operations and developmentfor the Education
Of these 13 students,
six scored 5 , six scored 4, and one scored
Program for Gifted Youth. He has been involved with the EPGY j o m its
3 (where 5 is the top score and3 is passing). Because of this
inception andhas written muchofthe course sohare.
success, we expanded the course during
1991 to cover theBC
Jose Acacio de Barros is aprofessor at the Federal Universi@
of Juiz de Fora
curriculum
(the
third
quarter
of
college
calculus).
In 199 1-92,
in Brazil and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford Universi@. has
He acted
we
offered
the
course
to
four
students,
all
of
whom
scored
5.
as thep r i m y instructor ofthe EPGYphysics courses since their inception.
Following these results, we decided
to tackle the problem
Patrick Suppes is the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at
of using the same technology to teach college physics. BeStanford Universip. Hehas directed various research projects concerned with
cause our students had already taken calculus, we decided
to
g$ted students since 1955.
develop courses to cover the AP Physics C curriculum in
Researchfor this article was supported by a grant j o m the A@ed P. Sloan
mechanicsaswellaselectricity
and magnetism,courses
Foundation at Stanford Universi@. Request for reprints should be sent to
corresponding to the
first two quarters of college physics with
Raymond Ravaglia atCSLL Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115.
a calculus prerequisite. The problem of availability is even
~~

380

COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL. 9, NO. 4, JULIAUG 1995

O 1995 AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS 0894-1866/95/9(4)/380/7/$6.00

more extremefor these courses: they are

offered by fewer than 10%
of U.S. secondary schools.

Courses offered

EPGY L ssons in n echanics

Lesson
Number
9010

Textbook
Chapter
2.1-2

Subject or
Title
Motion in one dimension. Velocity.

2.3-4
Since December 1992, we have of- 9020
Motion in one dimension. Acceleration.
9030
3.1-5
Motion in two or three dimensions. Vectors.
fered three sections of our
AP mechan9040
3.6-7
Relatwe Velocity and Projectile Motion.
ics course and one section of our AP
9050
3.7
Projectile Motion. Examples.
electricity and magnetism course. We
3.8
9060
Circular Motion.
will classi@ students who have taken
4.1-2
9070
Newton's Law I.
4.3-4
Newton's Law II.
9080
these courses into three groups, based
4.1-4
9090
Newton's Law. Examples.
on which exam they
took and when they
Forces. So What are They?
4.5
9100
took it.
How to solvephysics problems.
4.6
9110
The fvst group consists of those
9120
How to solve physics problems.
4.6
9130
who took Physics C: mechanics in the
Friction.
5.1
5.1
9140
Analysis ofCar's Motion.
1992-93 school year. This course was
5.2
Drag Forces.
9150
offered to all students who had taken
9160
5.3
Problems with morethan one object.
calculus with us in 1991 or 1992. All
5.4
9170
Pseudoforces.
those fromthe 1992 class chose to parWork and Energy.
6.1
9180
9190
Work and Energy. Example.
6.1
ticipate, and six (three boys and three
6.2
9200
Work Done by a Variable Force.
girls) of the 13 students from the 1991
9210
6.3
Work and Energyin Three Dimensions.
class accepted the invitation. We will
6.3
9220
The Dot Product.
refer to this group often students who
of Objects.
Work and Potential Energy for Systems
6.4
9230
Potential Energyand Work Done by a Conservative Force.
6.4
9240
took the AP exam in 1993 as Mech93.
Work, Energyand Equilibrium.
6.5
During the 1993-94 academic year, 9250
Conservation of Mechanical Energy.
6.6
9260
we offered two sections of mechanics.
9270
Conservation of Mechanical Energy-Examples.
6.6
The first section consisted of students
6.7-9
9280
Work-Energy Theorem with Non-conservative Forces.
whobegan the course in September
Conservation of Momentum.
7.1
9290
of Mass.
Subject or Title Motion of the Center
7.2
9300
1-993hoping to complete both the me9310
Conservation of Momentum.
7.3
chanics and the electricity and magnetThe Center of Mass Reference Frame.
7.4-5
9320
ism coursesduring the year. The second
Collisions in One Dimension.
7.6
9330
section began in January 1994 and con- 9340
Completely Inelastic Collisions.
7.6
sisted of students who plannedto take
Collisions in Three Dimensions.
7.7
9350
Impulse and Average Force.
7.8-9
9360
onlythemechanicsAPexarn.These
8.1
9370
Rotational Motion.
students were all required either
to have
Torque.
8.2
9380
completed a calculus course during the
8.2
9390
A RotatingPulley-Example.
previousyear or tobeenrolled in a
Rotational Kinetic Energy.
8.3-4
9400
9410
Angular Momentum.
8.5
calculus course concurrently with the
9420
Conservation of Angular Momentum.
8.5,8.7
physics. Because these eight students
all
Rolling Objects.
8.6
9430
took the AP exam together, for the
pur9440
8.8
Precession of A Gyroscope.
poses of this article we treat thesetwo
8.9'9.1-5 Static Equilibrium.
9450
9460
10.1
Gravitation.
sections as one group, which we will
10.2-3
Newton's Law of Gravity.
9470
call Mech94.
10.5
Moon Falling Towards
the Earth.
9480
The electricityandmagnetism
10.6
Gravitational Potential Energy.
9490
course was offered for the firsttime in
10.7,10.4 Gravitational Fieldof a Sphencal Shell.
9500
December 1993.The group of students
12.1
95 10
Oscillations.
12.2-8
Examples for Simple Harmonic Motion.
that took this course, which we will call 9520
EM94, comprised nine of the ten students who had been
in Mech93, together
instructors primarily by phone and electronic mail, though
with four students from Mech94.
l1 13 of these students
took
the PhysicsC: electricity and magnetism exam in May 1994. monthly review sessions at Stanford were open to them as well.
The main prerequisite for taking the physics courses with
EPGY was having
the appropriate mathematical background System requirements
for the course taken. We did not require that students first
The EPGY courseware consists of
a course driver comcomplete a conceptual-physics course such as AP Physics
B,
mon to all courses, together with course-specific files containand in fact onlytwo from Mech93 and five from Mech94 hadinglesson and lecturematerial. The course driver is
taken any physics before.
necessarily dependent ona particular architecture and operating system. However,
the lessons and lectures are machineAll these students ran the physics course
at home on
independent, andin principle canbe used on any machine to
personalcomputers.Theywere
in contactwithStanford
COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL. 9, NO. 4, JUL/AUG 1995

381

YSICS EDUCATION

which the course-driving system has been ported.

put in schools. After we ported the program to personal comTheEPGYcourse-drivingsystemwasdevelopedon
puters, we required students to supply their
own machines to
IBM RS6000s usingthe ACPA sound card and the X-Winrun the course. However, students participating in EPGY wh
dows display system. During 1991 such a system cost well
qualify for financial aid are exempt from this requirement;
over $10,000. The course driver was ported to personal comsupply them with computers belonging to EPGY.
puters using MS-Windows in the summer of 1992. At that
Under the MS-Windows operating system,
the following
point personal multimedia computers were available less
for
is the minimal configuration necessary
to run the course softthan $3000. While
we were runningon RS6000s, the number ware: a 3 86-compatible computer
with 4 Mbytes RAM
of
and
of students was limited
to the number of computers we could MS-Windows 3.1; a hard drive with 20 Mbytes of free space
and a 1.44-Mbytes floppy
&ive; a VGA monitor; a 2400-baud modem; and an 8-bit sound
card with a compatible CD-ROM drive.
Because we make extensive use symof
bolic algebra in processing student input, a
computer faster than a 386 is desirable. For
some of the problemsin the physics course,
even a fast 386 can take over to
1 process
min
a student answer. Certain optional features
built into our lecture-delivery system require
considerable digital signal processing and do
not operate correctly on slower machines. Fo
these reasons we recommend that students
who do not have a computer buy at least a
486DX33.

Course design: lessons and lectures

L-

Figure 1. Handwritten blackboardfrom mechanics lesson 9050presewes the informality of

the classroom.

Figure 2. Formatted blackboard from mechanics lesson9050 has moreof the appearance of a
textbook.
382

COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL 9, NO. 4, JUL/AUG 1995

The EPGY courses are completely computer-based, withthe computer delivering the
vast majority of the instructional material.
comOnlme course components include a
plete, interactive, multimedia exposition of
the curriculum material involving digitized
sound and graphics, an interactive problemsolving environment, mastery quizzes, problem sets, and databases of off-line problems.
Additionally, a derivation system using the
Maple symbolic computation system is available to students for doing computations. The
fundamentals of this derivation system are
also used m processing student answers so
that a wide variety of equivalent mathematical expressions canall be counted as correct.
Similar to their classroom counterparts,
our courses are dividedinto several lessons,
each of which corresponds to a topic in the
course being taught. These lessons have been
designed to mirror the form of the standard
university presentation of the material (see
"EPGY lessonsin Mechanics," p. 381; alist
of the EPGY lessonsin electricity and magnetism is available from the authors on request.)
A computer lesson usually begins with a
lecture, in which a student listens
to digitized
sound recordingswhile graphics tablet-writing (or formattedtext and graphics) appears
on the computer screenin real time, synchronized to the voice, so that theneteffect
closely resembles that of a teacher writing o

a chalkboardwhile lecturing. The lectures in

Browse Options Mail TakeExam Derive
Help
our courses havebeen given by Mason
7 Questions.
Yearian, a professorin the Stanford UniverCan a p a r t i c l e have nonzero acceleration and
sity Department of Physics and director
the of maintainthe samespeed? Yes
Hanson Expenmental Physics Laboratory.
Screen dumps ofthe two types of lecture are
Suppose t h a t you drive a car
on a c i r c u l a r
shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
track,keeping
i t s speed constant ( a t , l e t s
The lectures have been designed
to presay, 5 5 mi/h). From the graph we cansee
that
serve the informal nature of spoken physics
f o r two d i f f e r e n t p o i n t s i n the track the
as contrastedwith the more formal prose style v e l o c i t y has d i f f e r e n t d i r e c t i o n s . However, the
of textbooks. This design is important bef the velocity i s
speed i s constant. But i
cause-as has been observed by many peochanging, even i
f i
t i s only i n direction, then
ple, though not rigorously proven-oral
there i s an acceleration by d e f i n i t i o n .
lectures are an important part of learning
the
mathematical and physical sciences. Spoken
physics can be more intuitive and flexible
than textbook physics, and lecturers can waver
in their degree of rigor tosut the point being
made. Such lectures give students an opportuC l i c k OK or press Enter t o continue.
nity to learn how to talk informally and how to
I OK 1 QUIT
b
draw diagrams and write physical equations.
We agree with Hestenes and Wells con- Figure 3. Exercises such as this one from mechanics helps to develop understandingof the
cerning the importance of keeping lectures
lecture material.
short.2 The lecturesin the courses described
here are brokeninto segments of not more than
10 min each,
- 1 - i 6 . --ll ++ &
i 6-1+i6
after which studentsare required to do some exercises orto
and
and
2

2
2
2

investigate a computer simulation.

We use lectures based on graphics tablet and digitized
-1 i & and ---;-+i-1 i & -1
6 and --i-1
6
sound, rather than fll-motion video,to reduce the require-+2
22
2
2
2
2
2
ment for digital storage space and cut down on production
expense. Moreover, the graphic images of handwritten equations and thelike are much sharper visually than what can bein addition to several others with essentlally the same form,
not including variations in spacing. To code each of these
obtained by ordinary video procedures that include shots of
pairs of answers for the purposes of simple string comparison
the lecturer and the chalkboard.
to exploit the semantic content of
The lectures are followed by a set of sirnple questions thatwould be tiresome and fail
the mathematical expressions. By
taking advantage ofthe fact
review the students understanding of the just
matenal
presented.
by using
After these review questions students work a set of interactive that the answers are mathematical expressions and
exercises (see Fig.
3). The interactive exercises consist of a quizthe symbolic computation program Maple for evaluation and
on the matenal covered in the lecture; interactive, step-by-step comparison, a great increase in flexibility for both student
is obtained. Furthermore, by processexposition of a detailed argument; or a derivation in which the input and author coding
ing the answers with Maple, the computer treats as correct and
student is asked to obtain the answer to an exercise.
equivalent expressions such as (:,4),;n
which a vector is
The exercises become more difficult the
as student proexpressed with parentheses, and
31 + 4 ~in
, which a vector is
gresses into a lesson. Depending on the complexity of the
expressed in terms the
of unit bases.
exercises, the student may have
to make several intermediary
When students get the correct answer, they receive ancomputations. These computations can be done with either
other exercise or lecture. If the answer
is incorrect, they see a
paper and pencil or a calculator. Eventually,
we hope tooffer
short explanationof how to solve the problem, either ln the
the use of our Derivation System, a symbolic computation
form of a lecture or as text. In some cases, rather than explain
system built on top of M a ~ l e . ~ ? ~
the answer to students, the course may reformulate the probIt is important to emphasize that students are not conlemintoseveralsimplerintermediateproblemsandlead
strained to giving numerical answers. In fact any answer may
students throughthe solution stepby step.
beacceptedthat is mathematicallyequivalenttotheone
Independently of the above,
all answers given, correct
or
intended by the author. The computer
is able to achieve such
incorrect, are stored on the students computer for finther
flexibility by processing the answers symbolically, taking
evaluation by the instructor at alater time.
into consideration their mathematical meaning, and
thinking
One lesson generally comprises
two to four lecture-exerof possible correct answers in terms of equivalence classes.
cise units. After students have completed a lesson, they are
A simple example from algebra shows the natural variety
expected to read their textbooks and do standard problem set
that a students answer can take. Suppose a student
is asked
Students spend on average as much
as doing additional
75 min
to solve the equation x? + x + 1 in the complex plane. One
off-line homework-reading andsolvingexercisesinthe
may wantto accept as correctall the following variants:

p
.

COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL 9, NO 4, JUL/AUG 1995

383

UTERS IN PHYSICS EDUCATION

textbook5-for every lesson they complete online. Laboratory work is also required of students. Homework andlabs
will be discussed in
more detail below.

The reportfacility
Electronic communication between
the students andthe
human instructors plays animportant role in the EPGY
courses. Everytime a student is asked a question, his
or her
computer records thelength of time to answer the question,
whether the answer was correct or not, and the correct answer-if the student's response was incorrect. The computer
responds with a similar sequencefor subsequent askings of
the same question. This information
is stored in a report file,
384

COMPUTERSIN PHYSICS, VOL 9, NO. 4, JUL/AUG 1995

which students are required to send electronically

to Stanford
once a week. To send such athereport
student simply chooses
Report from a pull-down menu in
the MS-Windows menu
bar. Depending on how the student's machine is configured,
it will either dial the Stanford computer immediately and
transfer this report or
it will writeit to afile for the student to
send as simple electronic mail. Once
the report is received by
the Stanford computer, the reporting
facilityprocesses it. This
processing consists of filing the student's responses in the
student database and in sending any comments or questions
by the student tothe Stanford instructor as e-mail.
When thestudent's computer has dialed
into the Stanford
computer directly,the reporting process ends by transferring
any messages thatthe student has inhis or her mail boxto a
file on the student's computer. Sfxdents can then review their
mail after the reporting session has terminated.In this way,
the actual phone connecttime is kept to a minimum.
The reports supply the course instructors with detailed
information about individual student progress (see "Sample
EPGY student report," this page). Such
infomation is usefl
both for purposes of tutorial support and also for detecting
problems in the course material.
The first line of the report has the date that the student
enrolled in the course. Next come blocks of text that have t
header - - - - - START xxxxxxx- - - - - . Each of these blocks
represents a complete report sent
by the student. The number
following the wordSTART is the date on which the previous
report was sent. Following this aretwo option fields, identified by ! REMARKS or ! HISTORY.
Remarks are messages to be sent to the instructor as
electronic mail by the reporting facility. One such message
starts immediately after the thirdline and contains the text,
Hello, 9010 is fun. Note that the message header has the
information a t 9 O 1O/ 1/ 1indicating that when the student sent
90 1O, exercise 1, page 1.
this message he or she was at lesson
Thehistoryfieldcontainsinformationaboutstudent
usage and performance. Whenever the student gives a correct
answer, the computer registersit as -r. Every timethe student
gets a question wrong,the computer registers -w.The numbers beside the -r's and -w's are the lengths of time in
seconds used by the student to answer the questions. It is
pointless to register correct solutions, because the instructor
knows what they are. It is very useful to register incorrect
solutions. Inthe sample student report, an incorrect solution
of 200 is noted for the third question
of exercise4 in lesson 9070.
The amount of individualized information
in the student
reports is substantially larger than that usually obtained from
a teacher in a conventional classroom. Having these data
available enables an EPGY instructoronly
notto compare the
performance of different students butto also
pinpoint subjects
so as to take remedial
in which a student
is stronger or weaker,
actions if necessary. Another significantuse of the datais in
making modifications to the course from year to year. By
finding questions that most students get wrong, we are able
to identify weaknesses in our lectures, which we attemptto
remedy when revisingthe course.

Other asynchronous communication

In addition to being able to ask questions as part of a

Table. 1992-93 Physics C: mechanics exam results.

report, students can aska question at any pointin the course
merely by selectingComment from a pull-down menuin the
Student
Grade
Sex
Prior
Calculus
Physics
C
MS-Windows menu bar. Unless the questionis urgent, it is
Exam & Score Mechanics Score
not sent immediately, but merely added to the remark field of
8
M
BC-5
1
5
the report to be sent at a later time. Students can also send
BC-5
2
9
4
M
standard electronic mail at any timeto each other and their
F
BC-5
3
9
5
mstructors. This electronic dialogue bringstocomputer
4
BC-5
9
M
3
F
5
9
AB-5
5
coursework an analog of traditional class interaction.
6
10
M
AB-5
5
10
4
7
AB-4
M
Off-line work
l1
4
AB-4
8
M
Students are required do homework and laboratory ex9
F
4
11
AB-4
12
10
AB-4
F
N/A
periments in addition to online work. The homework exercises have been
taken from the textbook
Physicsfor Scientists
and Engineers by Paul Tipler.' Students are required to write
tricity and magnetism exam. All these students passed, and
their solutions on paper, theway they would for a standard
class, but can evaluate their own performance by viewing inover 80% scored 4 or 5. Although the College Boardhas not
structor-provided solutions online. These solutions are stored yet
in released its statisticsfor the 1993-94 academc year, we
a coded form, and students have access toonly
them
after they
expect to accountfor about 15% of the students under grade
have submittedtheir work. The solutions are often accompa- 11 who took Physics C exams. Given the small number of
nied by lectures that work through
the steps of the problem in students in our program,this figure is impressive. In the next
detall, just as a course assistant would at
a review section.
five years we expect to account for over half the students
Student experiments have consisted, in the mechanics
taking these examinations while
in their first two yearsofhigh
class, of simulations done using the
Interactive Physics proschool.
gram and, in the electricity and magnetism class, of hands-on
experiments using the text
ZAP! A Hands-on Introduction to
Towards the future
Electricity and Magnetism by Morrison, Morrison, and
The main problem we face as our student population
I(mg,6developedby the ZAP! project,ajoint effort involving
increases in size and geographical diversity
is that of supplyphysicists at MITand C a l T e ~ hThese
.~
experiments and the
ing tutorial supportin situations in which the asynchronous,
difficulties we encountered with them be
will
discussed elsetext-only aspect of e-mail inhibits effective communication.
where.
For the last two years we have addressed this problem by
offering optional discussion sections at Stanford. These secClassroom environment
tions are given about once every three weeks during the
We try to create a classroom environment among the
course, increasing to once
a week for the three weeks before
the AP exam. Attendance at these sections hasrun at about
students. We encourage them to work togetheron problem
sets and facilitate
this cooperationby making availablea DOS
50%, withsomestudentsattendingmorefrequentlythan
BBS, which they use asa forum for discussion.In the laboothers. Attendance in the final three weeks has run at about
ratory component o f the course, we encourage students to
8O%, with almostall students showingup at least twice.
work together on weekends in groups of two. We have also
Our experience with these discussion sections has demconfigured the reporting system to send automatically, once onstrated that software developmentis an iterative process.
a week, a progress report on all the other students to every
One must not think of the first version of the course software
student. These reports promotea sense of friendly competias the final product but, rather, must adesign
working version
tion and help students to find others at knowledge levels
and see how it does. As weaknesses are isolated, they are
similar to their o w . Thefinalcomponent is thereview
addressed in the present at the review sections and
in the
section. We will discuss below these review sections and thefuture by revising or expanding
the course software.
ways in which we envision replacing them by electronic means. This is not to say that we envisionthe software running
without any lund of review sections. However, the review
Results
sessions we have mind
in for the future will use an important
Results so far have been quite promising. The first groupnew feature which we have dubbed, in accordance with the
of students, Mech93, scored well and in
a pattern similar to
trends of the day, "the virtual classroom." We are currently
that ofthe first group of calculus students (see Of
table).
these
adding this featureto our classes.
students, 88% received scores of 4 or 5, as compared with
Ourvirtual-classroomsoftware will combineshared47% of students nationally. Moreover, the national numbers whiteboard capability with voice conferencing. Students and
are for all students, whereas the majority of EPGY students their instructorswill use graphicstablets and digitized sound
were in 11th grade or below when theytook the exams. Of
to comunicate with each other. Students will the
hearvoices
the eight students in the country in grades 9 or below who
of their instructor and classmates and see the shared chalktook the 1993 Physics C: mechanics
AP exam, five were from board. The result will be more dynamic and interactive.
This
our program.8
fall wewill begin ourfirst experiments with this new feature,
During the 1993-94 academic year, eight of our studentsusing IBM's Personto Person conferencing software.
took the Physics C: mechanics exam, and 13 took the elecThe virtual classroom will let us transform the review
COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL 9, NO 4, JUL/AUG 1995

385

PUTERS IN PHYSICS EDUCATION

sections into remote interactions. These courses will become courses whilestill in high school.
We also feel that our instructional model can
be adapted
truly computer-based and useful
to students who live
far away
to other groups of students.
With some success, we have used
f-om Stanford.
It should be evident
that the tutorialrole of the computer the same model to teach coursesin beginning algebra, intermediate algebra, and precalculus
to adult students at cornmuin EPGY courses is considerably more central than the role
nity college^.^ We have discovered that such students have
technology frequently plays in mathematicsor science edudifferent needs and require different pedagogical approaches.
cation. The computer in our program is no mere computaIdeally one shouldbe able to design a course that has several
tional aid, electronic textbook, or drill assistant. Rather, we
paths for students of different ability. In such a course the
have sought to exploit the technology fully
as as possibleto
performance ofthe student would determine the level
of the
produce stand-alone courses that capture and maintain stuto
dents' interest while efficiently teaching college-level subjectlectures received.In this way the course could adapt itself
fit the needs of the student. The result
would be a course that
matter. With the addition of
the virtual classroom, we hope
to
actively engaged students regardless their
of ability level. As
make university-level courses in physics widely available
to
we revise and improve our existing software, we hope to m
advanced students in secondary school. Finally, because
we
inthis direction.
have put the entlrety of the course online, our program makesprogress
it
possible to offer college-level physics instruction to students in
situations in which they usually would be unable to obtain it. About the software
Although we do not at present planto market our softAlthough the students described
in this articleall scored
ware as a stand-alone cornmercial product, we are happy
to
in the top 5% on the mathematics portion of the Scholastic
make arrangements with individuals or schoolsto use these
Aptitude Test, we believe that our courses
are probably sultoras
able for students scoring
in the top 20%. This group probably materialseitherascompleteinstructionalpackages
encompasses all students who are ready
to take the Physics C supplements to existing physics courses. For more information, contact the author bye-mailat
ravaglia@epgy.
stanford. edu or by post at the address given below.
A demonstration version of the program
is available from
the author. For a copy, send $10.00 to Demonstration Program, EPGY Ventura Hall, Stanford CA 94305-41 15. The
demo is also availablevia anonymous ftp from ep gy .st - an
ford .edu, as is additional information about EPGY. The
URL for the EPGY Web page is http ://kanpai. stanford .edu/epgy/pmphs/pamph.htrnl.

References

1. R. Ravaglia et al., "Computer-based Mathematics and

Physics for Gifted Students," Gifted Child Quarterly
39
(l), 7-13 (1995).
2. D. Hestenes and M. Wells,
"A Mechanics Baseline Test,"
Phys. Teach. 30, 159-166 (1992).
3. P. Suppes, Editor,University-levelcomputer-assisted instruction at Stanford: 1968-1980 (Institute for MathematicalStudies of theSocialSciences,Stanford
University, Stanford, CA,1981).
4. R. Ravaglia et al., "Pedagogical Ramifications of Symbolic Computation" in Human Interaction with Symbolic
Computation, edited by N. Kajler (Springer, Berlin, in
press).
5. P. Tipler, Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Worth,
New York,1991).
6. P. Morrison, P. Morrison, andJ. G. King, ZAP!A HandsOn Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism, preliminary ed. (MIT Physics Department, Boston, 199 1).
7. J. G. King et al., "ZAP! Freshman Electricity and Magnetism Using Desktop Experiments: A Progress Report,"
Am. J. PhYs. 60,973-978 (1992).
8. 1993 Advanced Placement Program (CollegeBoard,
Princeton, NJ, 1993), p.23.
9. R. Ravaglia, "A Computer-based SecondarySchool
Mathematics Curriculum for Adult Students," 1995 (unpublished).
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COMPUTERSIN PHYSICS, VOL. 9, NO 4, JUL/AUG 1995