David M. Harrison Senior Lecturer (Emeritus) Department of Physics University of Toronto Computer assisted instruction Cognitive issues in Physics education Foundations of Physics Telephone: (416)-978-2977 e-mail: david.harrison@utoronto.ca

Brief CV

Ph.D., Physics, University of Toronto (1972)
B.Sc., Physics, American University (1967)

Canadian Association of Physicists Gold Medal for Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Physics (2012)
Dean's Excellence Award (2008)
Dean's Small Group Award (2008)
Dean's Excellence Award (2004)
Dean's Excellence Award (2002)
Dean's Excellence Award (1992)
Dean's Excellence Award (1991)
Ontario Conferederation of University Faculty Associations Award for Outstanding Contributions to University Teaching (1976)

Teaching Summer 2018

• PHY131H1F - Introduction to Physics I

Some Recent Papers

• Why Science? (2018), pdf, 900k.
• Energy, entropy, and the village witch (2018), pdf, 510k.
• Personality types and student performance in an introductory physics course: part 2 (2018), pdf, 2.7M.
• Analysing class performance on tests: gray swans (2017), pdf, 959k.
• Personality types and student performance in an introductory physics course [Physical Review Physics Education Research 13, 020124 (2017)], pdf, 2.6M.
• Threshold Concepts in Physics [Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Special Issue: Threshold Concepts and Conceptual Difficulty 12(2), 352 (2017)] pdf. 412k.
• Cognitive reflection and physics student performance (2016), pdf, 2.2M
• Perspectives on modern reformed pedagogy from the history of science, psychology, and the performing arts (2016), pdf, 285k
• Textbook Use in the Sciences and Its Relation to Course Performance [College Teaching 63(4), 171 (2016)]
• Effective Student Teams for Collaborative Learning in an Introductory University Physics Course [Physical Review Physics Education Research 12, 010138 (2016)], pdf, 1.6M.
• The axis of rotation for rolling motion. (2015), pdf, 524k.
• Factors correlated with students’ scientific reasoning ability in an introductory university physics course (2014) [K.A. MacLeod and T.G. Ryan, eds., The Physics Educator: Tacit Praxes and Untold Stories (Common Ground Publishing, Champaign IL, 2016), Chapter 11, pg. 186 - 212.], pdf, 777k.
• On Resistance to Implementing Physics Education Research Results in Physics Courses(2014), pdf, 156k.
• The Uncertainty of Grades in Physics Courses is Surprisingly Large [Physics in Canada 40(2), 2014], pdf, 263k
• Compressed-Format Compared to Regular-Format In a First-Year Physics Course (2013), [American Journal of Physics 83(2), 272 (2015)], pdf, 501k.
• Correlating student interest and high school preparation with learning and performance in an introductory university physics course [Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research 10, 010112 (2014)], pdf, 940k.
• Uncertainty in Physical Measurements (2013), html
• Studying Physics: Advice to 1st Year Unversity Students (2011), pdf, 300k
• A Brief Introduction to the Fourier Transform (2011), pdf, 176k
• Introduction to Physics Education Research (2010), html, 24k
• University of Toronto Physics Practicals (2009), Flash
• What's all the clicking about? A study of Classroom Response (2008) pdf, 1.5M
• Serial Team-Teaching and the Evolving Scholarship of Learning:(2007) pdf, 240k
• Team Teaching: A survey of 50 courses in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto with more than one instructor (2006) pdf, 330k
• "Quarks, Bootstraps and Monads" (2006) pdf, 250k
• "Tutorial Attendance and Student Performance" (2006) pdf, 24k
• "Life, Emerging Structures and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" (2006) html, 300k
• "Blackboards, PowerPoint and Tablet PCs" (2005) pdf, 390k.
• "A Demonstration of Reading on a Computer Screen" (2004) html, 18k
• "Least Squares Fitting of Data in the Physical Sciences" (2004) html, 132k
• "Results on the Force Concept Inventory by Adult Learners" (2004): html pdf
• "An Simple Analogy to Bell's Theorem" (2003): html pdf
• "Physics Flash Demonstrations" (2003) html, 12k.
• "How Does the Delivery of Information Help Students to Learn?" (2002) pdf, 63k
• "Learning About UNIX-GNU/Linux" (2002) html
• "Quantum Teleportation" (2001) html, 41k
• "Error Analysis in Experimental Physical Science" (2001), html

Physics Virtual Bookshelf

Many of the above papers plus some course notes for a variety of courses, written both by me and by others are collected into a Physics Virtual Bookshelf which I maintain. The main index is at:

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/PVB.html

Some "Minor" Documents

• A U of T Magazine article on my Flash animations
• A newspaper article on clickers
• PHY110Y/PHY138Y 2005 Lab Evaluation
• PHY110Y/PHY138Y 2004 Lab Evaluation
• Relating students' high school background to their 1st Year Physics performance
• A newpaper article on teaching in Convocation Hall
• PHY110Y/PHY138Y 2003 Lab Evaluation
• PHY110Y/PHY138Y 2002 Lab Evaluation
• PHY110Y/PHY138Y 2001 Lab Evaluation
• What Browser Do Undergraduates Use?
• Results of an Assignment for First Year Students to Measure the Height of the Physics Tower

Some Other Journal Publications

• "The Physical Pendulum in an Advanced Undergraduate Course in Mechanics", S.C. Douglas, D.M. Harrison and T.G. Shepherd, Computers in Physics 8, 416 (1995). A pdf version is available here.
• ``Computerized pre-checking of laboratory data'', D. Harrison and J.M. Pitre, The Physics Teacher 26, 156 (1988).
• ``Computers in a teaching laboratory: just another piece of apparatus'', D. Harrison and J.M. Pitre, Computers and Education 12, 261 (1988).
• ``Computerized lab test on error analysis'', D. Harrison and J.M. Pitre, The Physics Teacher 21, 588-589 (1983).
• ``Discovering induction'', D. Harrison, Amer. J. Physics 49, 603 (1981).
• `Entropy and the number of sentient beings in the universe'', D. Harrison, Spec. in Sci. and Tech. 5, 43-48 (1982).
• ``Bell's inequality and quantum correlations'', D. Harrison, Amer. J. Phys. 50, 811-816 (1982).

Last revision: $Date: 2018/10/17 16:51:31 $ (y/m/d UTC)