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Session G02 - Computers in Education.
session, Tuesday afternoon, June 6, 14:00.
Monongahela Room, Westin William Penn Hotel
Substantial computer use is part of the Haverford College physics curriculum. For each course beyond the introductory sequence we have developed computer projects for independent use by students. Each comprises an in-depth study of some model or concept associated with the course in question and demands both programming and analytical analysis. Most courses are taught in the traditional format; a typical mode of use is to replace some of the usual assigned homework for a 4- or 5-week period with the project. True BASIC is used for all programming; shell and solution programs are available for both Macintosh and IBM-PC-compatible platforms. The full list of projects will be presented in the talk. One of the projects--a numerical study of a damped, driven pendulum which displays a transition to a chaotic state of motion, a project used in our Classical Mechanics course--will be used to illustrate the nature of the projects. The projects are available for use at other institutions. The material in the form of writeups for use by students, manuals for the instructor and full sets of shell and solution programs may be obtained by contacting the author at LROELOFS@HAVERFORD.EDU.