What is MOP? During the past two decades, study after study has
pointed out the shortcomings of high school physics courses: (a)
The vast majority of students who take high school physics
emerge with only a shallow understanding of miscellaneous facts
and formulas; (b) What knowledge students do acquire is usually
plagued with misconceptions, many of which persist despite
instruction; and (c) With rare exception, students are unable to
apply what they learn to explain, or to reason about, the world
around them or to solve interesting, nontrivial problems. These
unintended outcomes of physics instruction are the result of a
mismatch between the way physics is typically taught and the way
students go about the business of learning physics. The Minds•On
Physics (MOP) curriculum materials were specifically written to
address this situation. In developing MOP, we have endeavored to
take account of research on the teaching and learning of
physics, which has grown steadily during the past twenty years.
This research