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CUPLE- The Comprehensive Unified Physics Learning Environment: Description

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Description

The Comprehensive Unified Physics Learning Environment (CUPLE) is a project to create a hypermedia computer-based resource for the teaching and learning of physics. It will be comprehensive in coverage and unified in the way its parts operate and interact with the user. CUPLE draws upon the material and experience of several established projects, including:

CUPLE is being carried out under the auspices of the American Association of Physics Teachers with funding from IBM, the Annenberg/CPB project, and the National Science Foundation.

The CUPLE system is a multitasking, windowing, graphic environment for learning physics that combines hypertext materials, computational physics tools, video from videodisc, videotape, or other sources, and computer data acquisition. CUPLE is designed to be used in lecture, laboratory, recitation, homework, workshop, or independent study situations. CUPLE was born of the conviction that the development of educational software in physics had reached the point where many talented people were building excellent materials in very idiosyncratic ways and that the physics community would benefit from a unified approach. It is the goal of CUPLE to develop a learning environment that can play three roles:

  1. It is a means to improve our current teaching.
  2. It is an environment where innovative approaches can be developed and tried.
  3. It can serve as a basis from which a new learning environment can evolve.
CUPLE includes many of tools for both users and developers. The basic materials included are:

The heart of the CUPLE innovation is to provide the student from the beginning with a working environment analogous to that of a professional. The emphasis is on tools that permit easy manipulation of the different representations so critical to understanding physics: graphs, numbers, data, and pictures. In addition to these tools for the user, the environment provides tools for developers that facilitate producing new modules and linking them into the full system.

The CUPLE Developer's System is published by Physics Academic Software, an arm of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). By the summer of 1995, CUPLE will be "open for business" -- ready to accept submissions. Educators will be able to submit actual materials for student use rather than just descriptions of them. These will then be peer-reviewed and beta tested. Those materials that pass our rigorous screening will be distributed to CUPLE subscribers twice a year. CUPLE will bring to educational publishing the modularity and flexibility of the scientific research literature. This structure will permit far more people to contribute to the wide distribution of educational materials. It could lead to major changes in the way educational materials are developed and distributed.

Returns

CUPLE HomePage

U. of Md. Computers in Physics Education HomePage

The Academic Software Library (TASL) HomePage, U. of NC

The CUPLE Developer's Kit is available from Physics Academic Software (phone 1-800-955-TASL for information or orders).

Edward F. Redish
Jack M. Wilson

This page prepared 6. April 1995 by
Edward F. Redish
Department of Physics
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: (301) 405-6120
Email: redish@quark.umd.edu