Abstract of Paper presented at First European Conference on Physics Teaching in Engineering Education (PTEE97) Engineering College of Copenhagen (IKT), Copenhagen, Denmark, 46 June 1997.
Experientially based Physics Instruction using hands on Experiments and Computers.
Jonte Bernhard
School of Engineering, Högskolan Dalarna, S-781 88 Borlänge, Sweden
The undergraduate physics laboratory at Högskolan Dalarna is equipped with computers at every lab-station (mostly PowerMac 7600) connected to a PASCO ScienceWorkshop interface. This type of "Microcomputer Based Laboratory" makes it possible to collect physical data in real-time and the data is immediately avaible for analysis and presentation. The almost instant feedback makes its feasible to introduce a new type av student experiments there the students passes through a "learning-cycle" in which the student cooperatively in a lab-team put forward a hypothesis and makes predictions of the outcome of an experiment, does the experiment and immediately receives feedback and the possibility to compare prediction and outcome. This learning-cycle strengthen learning and comprehension.
Link to Full Paper (pdf-format)