Seeing the Light: 
What's so hard about teaching optics?

Outline

Introduction

How does science learn?
Builng a community consensus

How can we learn to teach effectively?
Building a community consensus

Learning About
Student Learning

The PER frame

A model of student learning
from a noted expert

A better model
from cognitive science

Learning is about building long-term memory

Key implications

The trouble with light

Major contributors

Some difficult items learning about light

Why can’t we just
tell them?  show them?

How we see

"The results stated on the..."

Images: Mirrors

Images: Lenses

Sherwood’s Theorem

Wave Optics

Interference:
A sample problem

Results

Photons

Why do they do this?

How can we help them?

The PER instructional development process

The UW Tutorial Model

Tutorials on interference and diffraction

Results

What about problem solving?

Results at UMd

Conclusions

For more information