A Dynamic Digital Environment For The Exploratory Learning of Physics Pedagog

A new physics teacher faces a daunting task. All too frequently he or she is asked to teach physics without the benefit of sufficient background in either the content or pedagogy of physics. Yet, obtaining that background information is not easy for an in-service, under-prepared teacher. The Physics Teaching Web Advisory (Pathway) is addressing this problem by creating a dynamic digital library for physics teaching. This library provides information which can help teachers of all levels of proficiency prepare for their classes including a large corpus of virtual video laboratories and demonstrations that emphasize hands-on and mindson activities as well as conceptual understanding of the physics. Pathway is integrated with a novel system by which users can easily obtain valuable assistance through interactions with live and virtual experts in the field. To make these materials accessible Pathway includes state-of-the-art video retrieval tools. Pathway builds on the Informedia Digital Video Library, which is addressing the problem of information extraction from video and audio content, and Synthetic Interviews of expert physics teachers, with pedagogical advances developed at Kansas State University and with materials contributed by master teachers. The Synthetic Interview is a technology and technique that creates an anthropomorphic interface into video of a person responding to questions and has been successfully used by Carnegie Mellon researchers in numerous other domains. With Synthetic Interviews developed for Pathway, the new-to-physics teachers, pre-service teachers, and experienced teachers will be able to “converse” with knowledgeable experts on their classroom techniques and how those techniques are related to contemporary issues in physics teaching Pathway builds on a unique collaboration between several longstanding research projects in digital video libraries, advanced distance learning technologies, collaboration technologies, and nationally known experts in physics pedagogy and high quality content. The result is a state-of-the-art system in which all users interact, both virtually and directly, with experts in physics teaching to become more effective teachers of physics.