Teaching optics to small groups of students allows them to share ideas and leads to discussions, which will enable them to understand concepts better. This is a form of peer teaching/evaluation. This group dynamic favors creativity and inhibits obstacles to learning and understanding due to shyness, and other psychological factors. In addition, this paradigm allows the learner to be an active participant in the learning process rather than a passive recipient of knowledge as in the traditional lecture based teaching methodology. The project proposed here is based on both experimental and numerical approaches. Groups of students will be using simple and inexpensive equipment in a hands-on way. Additionally using numerical tools with open source environments such as the Python programming language allows one to perform numerical experiments. These two approaches are perfectly complementary; indeed the experiments favor observations and measurements and on the other hand numerical modeling favors abstraction and familiarization of mathematical formalisms of the optical phenomena. We propose a pedagogical methodology “Active Learning in Simulating Optics” (ALSO), where the active learning method is used not only for hands on experimentation while numerical modeling facilitates development of computer codes wherein students can design their own experiments. Mixing these two approaches, experimentation and simulation, is also very well adapted in working within projects for the elaboration of a new tools for teaching. This ALSO methodology will be presented along with results from workshops utilizing this technique.
Numerical simulations allow teachers and students to indirectly perform sophisticated experiments that cannot be realizable otherwise due to cost and other constraints. During the past few decades there has been an explosion in the development of numerical tools concurrently with open source environments such as Python software. This availability of open source software offers an incredible opportunity for advancing teaching methodologies as well as in research. More specifically it is possible to correlate theoretical knowledge with experimental measurements using “virtual” experiments. We have been working on the development of numerical simulation tools using the Python program package and we have concentrated on geometric and physical optics simulations. The advantage of doing hands-on numerical experiments is that it allows the student learner to be an active participant in the pedagogical/learning process rather than playing a passive role as in the traditional lecture format. Even in laboratory classes because of constraints of space, lack of equipment and often-large numbers of students, many students play a passive role since they work in groups of 3 or more students. Furthermore these new tools help students get a handle on numerical methods as well simulations and impart a “feel” for the physics under investigation.
Simulations can play an important role in science education. Simulations (enabled by powerful numerical and visualization methods) are excellent tools for teaching optical phenomena. The advantages of using simulations as a tool for teaching optics include, amongst others, (1) giving students an engaging, hands-on active learning experience, (2) helping in understanding equations as physical relationships among experimental measurements and (3) allowing students to investigate phenomena that would not be possible to experiment on in a laboratory or classroom setting. We illustrate the utility of simulations in optics by describing some examples from geometric and physical optics using the open source programming language Python.
Python is an easy open source software that can be used to simulate various optical phenomena. We have developed a suite of programs, covering both geometrical and physical optics. These simulations follow the experimental modules used in the ALOP (Active Learning in Optics and Photonics) UNESCO program in the sense that they complement it and help with student prediction of results. We present these programs and the student reactions to these simulations.
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