You are here

Waving Arms to Teach & Learn Quantum Mechanics

Description: 
In this dissertation I explore the Arms representation and activities for teaching quantum mechanics invented at Oregon State University. In the Arms representation students embody quantum states. The Arms activities are presented as an exemplar of the unique physics classroom culture of the upper-division Paradigms in Physics program. In the first manuscript, I distill the Arms activities for physics instructors. The activities progress from individuals embodying complex numbers, to students working in pairs to enact complex-valued vectors (quantum states), through various spin-1/2 quantum concepts, and concluding with many students working together to approximate position-basis wavefunctions. This practitioner-focused piece includes insights, anecdotes, and tips for implementation gleaned throughout the research process. In the second manuscript, I leverage Portraiture, a narrative inquiry methodology that incorporates the researcher as a research instrument, to examine how the Arms activities exemplify the Paradigms classroom culture and support students in understanding key quantum mechanics concepts. I present portraits of Vivian and Owen, two Paradigms students, as they engage with the Arms representation. Owen, an involuntary physics major, leverages the Arms representation to productively reason about time evolution of quantum states. Vivian, a nontraditional physics major, has an ah-ha moment about the geometric meaning of relative and overall phase. Portraits of both students highlight how the teamwork and multimodal communication of the Paradigms pedagogical approach support student learning. These findings suggest avenues of future research focused on understanding how this kinesthetic, enacted representation is experienced by students with mobility limitations, social anxiety, or learning physics in a second language. Recommendations for instructors include emphasizing multimodal communication of ideas and explicit development of teamwork skills.
Type: 
Dissertation
Raw Url: 
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu?metadataPrefix=&verb=GetRecord&identifier=ir.library.oregonstate.edu:k643b841f
Repository Record Id: 
ir.library.oregonstate.edu:k643b841f
Record Title: 
Waving Arms to Teach & Learn Quantum Mechanics
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/k643b841f
Database: 
Resource OE Format: 
randomness