Simulations teaching

Hennessy, S., Deaney, R., Ruthven, K. (2006). Situated expertise in integrating use of multimedia simulation into secondary science teaching. International Journal of Science Education, 28(1), 701-732. 

Complex flow-sheeting programs, that simulate the operation and a complete process, or individual units, have been developed by several commercial software organisations. The names of the principal packages available, and the contact address, are listed in Table 4.1. Many of the commercial programs have been made available by the proprietors to university and college departments for use in teaching, at nominal cost. 

The book explains how to solve coupled systems of ordinary differential equations of the kind that commonly arise in the quantitative description of the evolution of environmental properties. All of the computations that I shall describe can be performed on a personal computer, and all of the programs can be written in such familiar languages as BASIC, PASCAL, or FORTRAN. My goal is to teach the methods of computational simulation of environmental change, and so I do not favor the use of professionally developed black-box programs. 

If the client has skills deficits in coping effectively with a high-risk situation, then the next step is to ascertain whether the skill set is present but not being generated in this particular situation. If the skill set is present, then skills generalization is the next step, and the client should rehearse the skills under the conditions that best simulate the situation in question. If the skills are absent, then you must teach them, and after the skills are taught, the client must practice, practice, practice, under a variety of conditions to promote generalization. 

This manual is designed to show students how to use the PSpice circuit simulation program from Oread with the schematic capture front end, Capture. It is a collection of examples that show students how to create a circuit, how to run the different analyses, and how to obtain the results from those analyses. This manual does not attempt to teach students circuit theory or electronics that task is left for the main text. Instead, the manual takes the approach of showing students how to simulate many circuits found throughout the engineering curriculum. An example is the DC circuit shown below. 

Finally, promising for the overcoming of relevant misconceptions is the coupling of teaching with computers (79, 80). In particular, animations appear to be helpful in visualizing chemical processes on the molecular level. Computer animations and simulations are most effective when coupled with actual demonstrations or working in the laboratory with electrochemical cells (80). 

The use of technology, and especially of computers, in undergraduate physical chemistry may contribute to better teaching and learning. In particular, the use of models, simulations and animations may help students contradict and overcome common misconceptions. 

Molecular-Level Simulations as a Chemistry Teaching Tool... 

The physical description of the simulated systems in Odyssey is via classical potential functions that have been developed for research applications. In many areas relevant to teaching, the description is at least qualitatively correct. This is all that is required from a pedagogical standpoint. Nevertheless, the models do fail on occasion, even qualitatively. Rather than being a drawback, this can well be considered a compelling illustration of the fact that eventually all scientific models have intrinsic limitations. As teachers of science (rather than of scientific facts), we should be conveying this to our students in any case Going back to the laboratory is eventually the only way to find out ... 

There are two basic approaches to the computer simulation of liquid crystals, the Monte Carlo method and the method known as molecular dynamics. We will first discuss the basis of the Monte Carlo method. As is the case with both these methods, a small number (of the order hundreds) of molecules is considered and the difficulties introduced by this restriction are, at least in part, removed by the use of artful boundary conditions which will be discussed below. This relatively small assembly of molecules is treated by a method based on the canonical partition function approach. That is to say, the energy which appears in the Boltzman factor is the total energy of the assembly and such factors are assumed summed over an ensemble of assemblies. The summation ranges over all the coordinates and momenta which describe the assemblies. As a classical approach is taken to the problem, the summation is replaced by an integration over all these coordinates though, in the final computation, a return to a summation has to be made. If one wishes to find the probable value of some particular physical quantity, A, which is a function of the coordinates just referred to, then statistical mechanics teaches that this quantity is given by... 

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