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Browse University of Washington Tutorials

The UW Tutorials are a set of guided-inquiry worksheets, or lecture slides with embedded clicker questions, designed for small-group work, as a supplement to other instruction in physics. Browse to find tutorials or collections of tutorials for specific classes or topics.

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23 Tutorials

Introductory, Interactive tutorial lecture

This tutorial helps students develop skill in reasoning about how surface area and volume scale for two-and three dimensional objects.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs, models, proportional reasoning, rates of change, and scaling.

Topics: Mathematics / Scaling

This tutorial gives students practice in interpreting and relating motion graphs and in translating between such graphs, written descriptions, and real-world motions.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs, rates of change, representations, and verbal interpretations.

Topics: Mechanics / Kinematics

Students interpret and apply operational definitions of velocity, change in velocity, and acceleration. There is an emphasis on vector addition and subtraction.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs, idealizations, limits, operational definitions, rates of change, representations, and vectors.

Topics: Mechanics / Kinematics

The tutorial provides practice in identifying forces, constructing free-body diagrams, determining net force, applying Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws, and identifying systems.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets representations, systems, and vectors.

Topics: Mechanics / Newton's Laws

Students are led to understand the approximations and limiting processes involved in treating strings as massless.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets idealizations, limits, and systems.

Topics: Mechanics / Newton's Laws

Students apply the concepts of force and torque to model the human arm as two rods connected by a hinge and string.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets models and vectors.

Topics: Mechanics / Rotation

Students construct momentum vector diagrams for a collision and are guided to understand the conditions under which momentum remains constant.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets limits, systems, and vectors.

Topics: Mechanics / Momentum

Students are led to develop the idea of conservation of energy by relating the net work done by external forces on a system to the total change in energy of a system.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets representations and systems.

Topics: Mechanics / Energy

Students reason about the electric force on a charge due to point and continuous charge distributions using superposition and Coulomb’s law.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets superposition, symmetry, and vectors.

Topics: Electricity and magnetism / Electrostatics

Students are guided in developing an interpretation of electric potential difference.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets fields and representations.

Topics: Electricity and magnetism / Electrostatics

Students examine the relationship between charge, potential difference, and electric field for parallel charged plates and are guided to construct the concept of capacitance.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets proportional reasoning.

Topics: Electricity and magnetism / Electric circuits

Students apply the Kirchhoff's loop and junction laws to circuits with multiple batteries to predict the relative brightness of bulbs.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets models.

Topics: Electricity and magnetism / Electric circuits

Students are given practice in: relating magnetic fields to currents, using the right-hand rule, and relating the behavior of a magnetic compass to external magnetic fields.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets fields, representations, and vectors.

Topics: Electricity and magnetism / Magnetism

Students apply the concepts of pressure, temperature, and volume to an ideal gas and determine how these change when forces are exerted on a gas.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs, proportional reasoning, and representations.

Topics: Thermal and statistical / Thermodynamics

Students are led to distinguish between heat transfer and work as means of changing the thermal energy of a gas. Failure to distinguish related concepts is also addressed.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs.

Topics: Thermal and statistical / Thermodynamics

Students apply Newton's laws to examine how pressure varies within an incompressible fluid.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets systems.

Topics: Fluid mechanics / Hydrostatics

Students examine a simple harmonic motion from an energy perspective. There is an emphasis on energy versus position graphs. Hooke's law and forces are also discussed.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets graphs.

Topics: Mechanics / Rotation

Students use superposition to determine the overall shape of a spring while two pulses overlap. They then develop a model for how pulses behave after reaching a fixed and free end.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets boundary conditions, models, superposition, and symmetry.

Topics: Waves and optics / Waves

Students observe pulses that reach a boundary between two different springs and draw on observations to construct a model for reflection and transmission from a boundary.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets boundary conditions, limits, and models.

Topics: Waves and optics / Waves

This tutorial lays a foundation for physical optics. It uses water, instead of light, to help students relate the representations and formalism to real-world phenomena.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets representations, superposition, and symmetry.

Topics: Waves and optics / Physical optics

Observations motivate a model for geometrical optics: (1) light moves outward in straight lines from point sources and (2) extended sources act as collections of point sources.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets limits, models, and representations.

Topics: Waves and optics / Geometrical optics

Students use parallax to find the location of an image produced by a convex lens. Their observations help them infer the paths of various rays and motive the idea of focal points.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets representations.

Topics: Waves and optics / Geometrical optics

This tutorial helps students relate spectral lines, photon energies, and the electron energy levels of hydrogen.

Additionally, this interactive tutorial lecture tutorial targets representations.

Topics: Modern and quantum / Modern physics