Quantum education: how to teach a subject that nobody fully understands

Abstract

Quantum technologies are expected to be among the most transformational technologies of the twenty-first century, changing how we sense the world around us, approach security, and process critical information. Transitioning the industry from quantum research labs to the commercial environment requires a sizable workforce skilled in supporting Quantum 2.0. To achieve the goal of the entire quantum ecosystem, society at all levels needs to be aware of this emerging field and then be inspired, attracted, educated, and trained with the new quantum skills and competencies. This poses a challenge as quantum science is a difficult and counterintuitive subject. How is a subject such as quantum mechanics that, as the famous quantum scientist Richard Feynman once said, "nobody fully understands" to be taught?In this presentation, we will share our experiences and results of EdQuantum, an NSF-funded project whose goal is to develop a curriculum to train future quantum technicians. The proposed curriculum intends to provide an essential first step in quantum education at the associate's level. The curriculum relies heavily on a visual, hands-on approach that is based on commercially available quantum educational hardware. The curriculum strives to bring complex quantum science to a level understandable to individuals without a solid scientific background through algebra-based theory and simple experiments. As such, it may also be used to raise awareness and inspire high school students to seek careers as future quantum scientists.

Oqtant: democratizing quantum research and education

“…Quantum literacy is critical to the future of quantum technology 6 . This requires that quantum resources be accessible and digestible by people at all levels and backgrounds 7 . Oqtant abstracts some of the most difficult steps in creating quantum matter so that users at different levels can still engage with the underlying quantum mechanical phenomena.…”

Introducing Quantum Information and Computation to a Broader Audience with MOOCs at OpenHPI

“…Figures (7) - (10) show the details. Figure (7) shows that many participants specifically selected one or a few courses and did not decide to complete the entire program with all courses.…”

“…Delgado's examination of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on quantum information science education underscores the evolving landscape of online teaching modalities [9]. Lastly, Hasanovic's account of the NSF-funded EdQuantum project highlights efforts to develop a curriculum for future quantum technicians [10].…”

“…The other groups are roughly equal in size, with variations between individual courses. Figure (10 ) shows which participants took which learning paths. Here, only course participations with at least 25% of visited items are considered, these are 2036 participants.…”

Quantum Science and Technologies in K-12: Supporting Teachers to Integrate Quantum in STEM Classrooms

“…These included (a) relating quantum to everyday events, (b) employing active learning strategies, (c) focusing less on mathematics formulas and more on concepts, and (d) aligning quantum content with existing standards. These are echoed in Hasanovic's [36] recommendations for quantum instruction to use a visual, hands-on approach that incorporates analogies to make the content more accessible. Choudhary and colleagues [37] suggested that some quantum concepts could be taught at the middle school level, as did Farris et al [38], who studied the development of middle school curricular activities related to using quantum methods for drug discovery.…”