Adaptable Curricular Exercises for QIS: Intro QIS

Adaptable Curricular Exercises (ACE) for Quantum Information Science (QIS)

Our goals for this site are to provide adaptable resources to support faculty, including those very new to these topics, who wish to add some student-centered, research-based QIS instruction to your classes.

We have materials for two different audiences, depending on the type of course you teach.

QM Course: Are you teaching quantum mechanics in a physics department to (mostly) majors, and want to add a short unit on quantum information (e.g. quantum computing or cryptography) within your course?

QIS Course: Are you teaching a quantum computing/QIS course to a diverse population of students (e.g. computer science, physics, engineering, math...), and want to support students in the basic quantum mechanics needed?
(These materials are under development)

And: if you teach undergraduate quantum mechanics to physics students and are looking for a suite of student-centered materials to help you with the entire QM course, please visit our Adaptable curricular materials for Quantum Mechanics site.

Tools for introducing QIS in a QM course

Who is this for? An instructor teaching Quantum Mechanics who would like to add some quantum information science topics to their physics course.
(Materials are suitable for faculty new to these topics.)

Topics: We have divided our materials into three main topical areas.

Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation

Entanglement and EPR

Quantum Cryptography

Each is standalone - materials can be taught without any prerequisite material from the other groups.
(Because of this, there are some duplicate materials across the groups.)

We do not intend for the materials to be used wholly as written. Rather, they form a complete set that a faculty member can pick and choose from as it fits their schedule, the material already taught, and the interests of both the faculty member and student.

Types of instructional materials

The “instructional materials” found on this site include: lecture notes for faculty, concept tests, homework questions, online tutorials, and assessments.

Please use and adapt whatever is helpful to you, however it will most benefit your students. Please credit our work if you share your materials beyond your own classes. Please make an effort to keep assessment materials off the open web - alter questions for your students.

Example Classroom Implementations

Curriculum designers Dr. Steven Pollock and Dr. Gina Passante have each taught this material in their classes. Feel free to download our lecture notes - we are happy for you to use whatever material works for your class.

Please email if you try our materials and have any feedback:
steven.pollock (at) colorado.edu or gpassante (at) fullerton.edu

Steven Pollock's CU Boulder Implementation

CUB is a research-intensive public institution. I teach these materials in junior or senior-level undergraduate quantum mechanics courses, which currently all follow a spins-first curriculum (using McIntyre's Quantum Mechanics textbook.)

Each sequence below takes me one week. These are all taught in "large lecture" (75+ student) settings with three 50-minute lectures/week.

I teach entanglement and EPR midway through the first semester (this is largely following McIntyre's Chapter 4 treatment)
I teach qubits and teleportation late in the second semester (senior-level) quantum course, as a basic introduction to quantum information science. (This is largely following McIntyre's Chapter 16 treatment)

Please reach out if you have questions or feedback: steven.pollock (at) colorado.edu

Gina Passante's CSUF Implementation

CSUF is a primarily undergraduate, large, Hispanic-serving institution. I teach these materials in several of my quantum mechanics courses at the undergraduate and master's levels.

Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation: I choose to teach this in the middle of a first semester of undergraduate QM. My course is spins-first and I do a "quantum computing" week to apply what they have learned before moving to position wave functions.
Entanglement and EPR: I teach an introduction to entanglement and a conversation of "spooky action at a distance" when I teach the "qubits, quantum gates, and teleportation" material. But the discussion about the EPR paradox and the Bell inequalities is taught at the master's level.
Quantum Cryptography: This is a one-class supplement that can be taught at any level. The only prerequisite knowledge is superposition states, measurement, and bra-ket notation. The example here was done in my first-semester, junior-level quantum mechanics course.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions (gpassante at fullerton dot edu).

QIS for QM » Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation

QIS for QM » Entanglement

QIS for QM » Quantum Cryptography

Introductory Quantum Information Science Materials

Who is this for? These materials are for anyone teaching an introductory (first course in) quantum computing or quantum information science.

Why did we create these materials? Introductory QIS courses often include students from multiple different academic backgrounds (physics, computer science, engineering, math, chemistry, ...). These materials are intended to assist with deep conceptual practice on some of the fundamental ideas in quantum information science. Some students may find these materials too easy, while others may find them too hard. That is exactly the reason for their existence! The goal is to bring all students to the same level of understanding that will set the foundation for future QIS learning.

Note: By design, these materials do not cover complex (or even intermediate) QIS topics. We have chosen to focus on those materials most important at the beginning of a QIS course. These topics happen to be "physics heavy" topics, and ones for which our group's educational and research expertise is particularly well-matched.

This page is currently (July 2024) under construction, and improvements are constantly being made!

What will I find in the tabs below?

For each broad topical area listed below, you will find:

Links to free online Tutorials at https://acephysics.net/qis
These are interactive worksheets that provide students with real-time feedback as they practice with basic quantum computing concepts. They are suitable for homework, or in-class group work.
(If you choose to assign them as homework, email us at hello[at]acephysics[dot]net to set up an entry page for your course and gain access to student completion data. Please note that students get feedback, but these online tutorials are not graded.)
Paper versions of the above tutorials/worksheets you can use in person during class time. These might typically take students 20-50 minutes, depending on how much of the worksheet you assign and how much scaffolding you provide.
(Physport.org has some short guides to help you facilitate in-class tutorials.)
Clicker questions: These are conceptual questions that can be used to make your lecture more interactive, solicit student ideas and encourage discussion.
(Physport.org has some short guides to help you implement clicker questions in lectures effectively.)

Introduction to Quantum Gates

Quantum Circuit Diagrams

Tensor Products

CNOT and entanglement

Quantum Cryptography (BB84)

Who we are

We are PER research faculty teaching at very different institutions - different in class sizes and setups, student demographics, institutional research-focus - but all interested in helping introduce undergraduates to basic elements of Quantum Information Science. We have all taught a variety of quantum courses for many years.

The materials you will find here are not meant to be taken as givens, this is not a "fixed curriculum" that you are supposed to fully adopt (or reject). We hope that you will be inspired by some of the activities, notes, concept-tests, homeworks and more, and will borrow and adapt them for your own situation and students. We do not all use exactly the same materials ourselves.

We have borrowed where we can from PER literature on Quantum Mechanics (and tried - but apologize up front where we occasionally have failed - to appropriately credit the the hard development work of others!) We do not claim that these materials are "Research-validated" (they are still under development), but cheerfully present sometimes half-baked or partially-tested materials that we might argue are "research-based", a vaguer but perhaps more realistic description.

We welcome feedback and suggestions. If you make significant changes or additions, and particularly if you have classroom evidence that suggests it works well - let us know. We hope someday this site will be flexible enough to allow for community-sharing of new resources, and will work towards making that happen. (See contact information at the bottom of the page)

CONTACT INFORMATION:
This page was built by Steven Pollock (steven.pollock (at) colorado.edu), Gina Passante (gpassante (at) Fullerton.edu), and Bethany Wilcox (bethany.wilcox (at) colorado.edu). Contact us with questions or feedback.

We are funded in part by NSF DUE- 2012147 and 2011958: Collaborative Research: Connecting Spins-First Quantum Mechanics Instruction to Quantum Information Science

PLEASE USE AND ADAPT whatever is helpful to you, however it will most benefit your students. Please credit our work if you share your materials beyond your own classes. Please make an effort to keep assessment materials off the open web - alter questions for your students.

QIS for QM » Notes for Faculty - Entanglement and EPR