Overview

PhET Interactive Simulations (https://phet.colorado.edu/), a project of the University of Colorado Boulder, provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations for use across, primary, secondary, and higher education levels. We extensively test and evaluate each simulation to ensure educational effectiveness. All simulations are open source and free to all students and teachers. In this course, you will acquire teaching and facilitation strategies for how to use PhET simulations for teaching introductory, conceptual electricity and magnetism topics. Specifically, you will interact with 16 PhET simulations, engage as a learner with model lessons, and reflect as a teacher on PhET’s instructional strategies in the context of introductory electricity and magnetism. To finish this course, you need to complete one assignment with peer review: design your own sim-based plans (such as a unit plan) for teaching electricity and/or magnetism, making use of five or more PhET simulations and instructional strategies.

Syllabus

Introduction to PhET’s E&M Simulations

In this module, you will get an overview of PhET’s simulations for electricity and magnetism, including a brief tour of the PhET website, making a teacher account (if you don’t already have one), and thinking about when and why to incorporate simulations into your teaching.

Electric Charge and Coulomb's Law

In this module, you will review the concepts of electric charge and electrostatic forces from the perspective of a learner, using PhET simulations to bring key ideas to life. Along the way, you’ll pause to consider how to teach these ideas effectively.

Whole Group Questioning Strategies

In this module, you will take a step back from physics content to focus on pedagogical strategies. In the prior lessons, your exploration of PhET simulations was guided by a variety of teacher-created questions, including questions that could best be used when leading discussions with the whole group, using a projected simulation. Learn how to create the best context to promote student inquiry.

Electric Fields, Potential, and Energy

In this module, you will learn about electric fields and electric potential.

Small Group Questioning Strategies

In this module, you will again take a step back from physics content to focus on pedagogical strategies. In the prior lessons, your exploration of PhET simulations was guided by a variety of teacher-created questions, including challenge prompts that scaffold learning when students have direct access to manipulate the simulations themselves.

Electric Current and Circuits

In this module, we shift our attention from charges at rest to charges in motion. Our goal is to help you leverage the natural relevance and excitement that electric circuits offer so that students see circuits not just as diagrams on paper, but as tools for solving real-world problems and imagining new inventions.

Modeling Strategies

Already throughout this course, you have used multiple models, and you have engaged in modeling of physical phenomena. In this module, you will learn about models and modeling as an underlying process skill that can enhance your use of PhET simulations.

Magnetism & Electromagnetism

In this module, you will explore magnetic fields and electromagnetic induction from the perspective of a learner using simulations. While magnets are familiar to many students, the mechanism behind their behavior is invisible and frequently misunderstood. Our goal in this module is to help make magnetic fields visible, directional, and meaningful.

Creating a Sim-Based Unit

In the past modules, you engaged with over a dozen powerful PhET simulations. Now, it’s time to think about how you plan to integrate these simulations–and effective strategies for using them with students–into your teaching.