Effects of a Thermal Inversion Experiment on STEM Students Learning and Application of Damped Harmonic Motion

Abstract

There are diverse teaching methodologies to promote both collaborative and individual work in undergraduate physics courses. However, few educational studies seek to understand how students learn and apply new knowledge through open-ended activities that require mathematical modeling and experimentation focused on environmental problems. Here, we propose a novel home experiment to simulate the dynamics of a flue gas under temperature inversion and model it as damped harmonic motion. After designing and conducting the experiment, twenty six first year students enrolled in STEM majors answered six qualitative questions to inform us about their epistemological beliefs regarding their learning process. Their answers imply that this type of open-ended experiments may facilitate students’ understanding of physical phenomena and point to the significance of physics instructors as promoters of epistemological development. In general, students described this activity as a positive experience that helped them connect an environmental phenomenon with a fundamental physics concept.

Excel Methods to Design and Validate in Microelectronics (Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor, CMOS) for Biomedical Instrumentation Application

“…The full-blown methodology includes the Excel method, schematic development, layout implementation, and simulation test, and it is used for conceptual design development in microelectronics courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. The undergraduate courses include industrial partner participation to develop instrumentation systems specified by industrial needs [43]; as a result, these educational collaborations with other entities have been applied in our academic educational practices and/or by applying our new educational model TEC21 at the undergraduate level [44][45][46][47]. As mentioned earlier, the main contributions of this research are in teaching CMOS microelectronics in which the method helps the instruction of the following points:…”

Advanced CMOS Integrated Circuit Design and Application

“…This phenomenon was verified in both NMOS and PMOS because the carrier type does not affect the operating principle [43]. Flicker noise reduction by using the switched-biasing technique has been applied to various circuit designs, such as amplifiers and frequency mixers requiring low-noise characteristics [32][33][34]45,46]. In particular, the switched-biasing technique can be useful for the oscillator to improve the performance because the output signal in the oscillator is generated by the periodic switching operation of the transistor.…”

Analysis of Competency Assessment of Educational Innovation in Upper Secondary School and Higher Education: A Mapping Review

“…Nevertheless, verifying and modernizing this concept are necessary steps, such that it can be adjusted and aligned with the 2030 mission of the Tecnologico de Monterrey and the SDGs of the United Nations. From the perspective of relating the SDGs to educational programs, these SDGs are beginning to be incorporated an in intensive manner (see [27][28][29][30][31][32][33] for examples). Moreover, this systematic review study intends to contribute to the elucidation of the process and method of implementing educational innovation in teaching and evaluation of competencies at the upper secondary and higher education levels.…”