FiPS - Physics and Distance Learning

by Frank Schweickert, Daniel Roth, and H.-J. Jodl

University of Kaiserslautern, Germany

FiPS is the distance learning project for physics majors at the Physics Department of the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Every winter semester it supplies about 90 students, most of whom were bound to military or community service, with Internet lectures from first year physics studies. The project started in winter 1997 as a publicity incentive of the Department and receives public funds during 1999-2001. The FiPS team consists of about 3 fulltime co-workers and 8 scientific assistants. The research addresses the following issues:
  1. How can off-campus students be confronted with physics phenomena and experiments?
  2. How can one set up an ergonomic and stimulating environment for theoretical discussions via the Internet? How could one structure complex discussions and transmit formulas and sketches?
  3. How can one evaluate the students’ progress and the virtue of the new techniques in this field?
We’d like to contribute to a lively discussion with our own findings:
ad 1.
We deliver experiments by means of photorealistic screen experiments (IBEs by TU Berlin) and scriptable java applets (Physlets by Davidson College). These techniques are well known from contributions of other participants of this meeting. Apparently students scarcely appreciate multimedia elements that don’t fit within the context of regular credits. One should discuss once again not only educational intentions of multimedia physics but also motivational aspects from the student’s point of view. We give some evidence from interviews and questionnaires.
ad 2.
We decided to develop some tools for communication and information in Java servlet technology in order to respond flexibly to the students’ needs. Especially, we provide a continuous feed back of achieved credits in relation to the students’ average and to the expected learning goals. We also discuss some first impressions of students’ collaboration on the Internet.
ad 3.
Beyond mere enthusiasm about technical solutions, we should point out the crucial physics skills that are likely to be specifically addressed by multimedia physics. This discussion should be stimulated by both theoretical expectations and practical experience. The goal is twofold: firstly, towards a more objective evaluation of physics multimedia products and secondly towards new kinds of exams which respond to what students actually learn with multimedia.
The homepage of the FiPS-Project: http://fips-server.physik.uni-kl.de/fips

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