We've had a phrase in our heads for a long time that sums up our mission: "serving students, teachers and classrooms." Every resource on our website has been fueled by the passion to put a tool in the hands of a student or a teacher to help them more effectively learn or teach physics. The Physics Classroom has numerous tools to address both in-the-classroom and at-home needs of students, teachers, and "classrooms". We believe that the resources described below will be your best resources for such purposes.

 

Task Tracker - An Online Task Management System

Every resource that you navigate to on our website (that’s a lot of resources) is free. You can use it all with your students at no cost. But we do offer a premium service that allows teachers to use these resources in an efficient and effective manner. It’s called Task Tracker. It offers the capability of tracking and storing student progress in our Task Tracker database. This capability allows teachers to create classes, populate their classes with students, assign tasks to their students, and view their progress and scores.
 
Purchase a subscription and get started today.
 
Or ask to view a product demonstration.

 

Version 2 Concept Builders

Concept Builders are interactive questioning modules that target a discrete learning outcome. A Concept Buildes takes a concept and approaches it from three (usually) different difficulty levels. A collection of questions or manipulatives are used to address the difficulty level. Students answer questions or perform tasks to demonstrate their understanding and earn stars for each successful response. An incorrect response means the student must answer two similar questions correctly before earning the star. Once all questions are correctly answered (and stars are earned), students receive the Trophy for that particular difficulty level. Concept Builders are Task Tracker compatible so the earning of a Trophy is stored in our Task Tracker database. 

Learn more about Version 2 Concept Builders.




 

Minds On Physics - Version 5

Give your students an exercise in close reading, deep thinking, sense making, and reflecting upon one's own understanding. Common misconceptions are confronted and superficial understandings are challenged by these intensive questioning modules. Minds On Physics works with and without Task Tracker accounts. For those teachers with Task Tracker accounts, student progress (and partial progress) is stored in a database, allowing teachers to easily determine what portion of a task has been completed. Task Tracker accounts also allow teachers to customize assigned missions by discarding unwanted Question Groups, assigning scoring rules for partial and full completion, and setting a Health Penalty.

Learn more about Minds On Physics - Version 5.
 

 

The Calculator Pad - Version 2

If you've been searching for an inexpensive, yet powerful tool for delivering and auto-grading Physics word problems, your search can end with The Calculator Pad. New in the Fall of 2022, The Calculator Pad includes a ready-to-use program of more than 2500 problems organized into ~300 problem sets. And at the same time, it provides teachers with Task Tracker accounts the ability to customize the problem sets, alter the problems, and even create problems and problem sets of their own using our Problem Builder. Teachers can assign problems, set scoring rules, and view the student progress.  Our Feedback view of student progress allows teachers to quickly scan assigned work to identify common problems in advance of entering class. All this for $1/student (or less, depending on your numbers). And we even have a free version that makes for great student practice and in-class work.

Learn more about The Calculator Pad - Version 2.
 
 

 

Physics Simulations

The Interactives section of our website consists of a large collection of interactive simulations. Most of the simulations are accompanied by one or more ready-to-use, inquiry-based activities that guide students through a collection of steps towards an intended outcome. With a little effort, you will likely be able to navigate this section and find an activity that fits perfectly into your current unit. Visit the Physics Interactives.

These simulations are now accompanied by Concept Checkers. A Concept Checker is an interactive questioning module that provides a quick check for student understanding. Concept Checkers can be used with or without a Task Tracker subscription.
 


 

Science Reasoning Center

Physics class (like any Science class) should be about more than facts and equations. A Physics class should also educate students about how science works. Science skills like asking testable questions, planning an investigation, analyzing and interpreting data, making claims that are supported by evidence, building and using models to describe and explain the physical world, etc. should be part of every student's experience in a Physics class. When combined with a strong Lab program, our Science Reasoning Center will help teachers provide students these experiences and improve their skills in the process. Our newest version (revised for the Fall of 2023) is Task Tracker compatible and NGSS-aligned. Visit our Science Reasoning Center.
 


 

The Physics Classroom Tutorial

Our Tutorial section has been the staple of our website for a couple of decades. It is the "textbook" of our website. The Tutorial presents concepts in a logical manner and easy-to-understand language. Many teachers assign these pages as student readings. And while we are far from finished, we have even begun the conversion of our written tutorial into a video tutorial. Visit our Tutorial.





 

Curriculum Corner and the Solutions Guide Download

Our recently updated Curriculum Corner consists of a collection of more than 200 downloadable PDF files designed to lead students to an understanding of basic principles in a developmental manner. Questions on a given page tend to build upon previous questions so that a conceptual understanding of the topic is gradually developed. PDF files are available for every unit covered at The Physics Classroom Tutorial. The Physics Classroom also sells a product called the Solutions Guide that provides purchasers with the source documents (Microsoft Word files), answers and solutions, and a broader set of licensing rights. Visit the Curriculum Corner.





 

Teacher Presentation Pack

Our Teacher Presentation Pack is a downloadable product that includes nearly 190 Microsoft PowerPoint slide decks, about 170 animations and videos in .mp4 and .gif formats, too-many-to-count stand-alone images, and a Lesson Notes page for every slide deck. The slide decks are compatible with Google Slides. We did our best to make the product ready-to-use and at the same time fully customizable. It's a great tool in the toolbox for any early-career teacher, cross-over teacher, or even veteran teacher. Learn more about the Teacher Presentation Pack.





 

Question Bank Download

 The Physics Classroom distributes a Question Bank with more than 9300 high-quality questions that target students' conceptions of physics principles. The questions are available as Microsoft Word documents and neatly organized according to topic, allowing a teacher to quickly copy and paste them into quizzes, tests and other documents. The Question Bank is the perfect tool for busy teachers. The Question Bank is available as a Paid download or mail-able CD for $25. Learn more about the Question Bank.

 
 

 

I Teach Chemistry. Do You Have Anything for Me?

You bet we do! And in fact, we continue to add more every year. While we remain primarily a Physics website, you will find a load of Chemistry resources in our Concept Builders section, our Calculator Pad section, and our Science Reasoning Center. Navigate to those sections, scroll past the Physics topics to near the bottom part of the page, and check out what we have. And stay tuned - there's going to be more. In fact, our Chemistry Tutorial is now being written. This is BIG! We publish pages as we finish them so the pages will slowly emerge between now (August, 2024) and our scheduled completion date (December, 2025). When done (and before done), it will be a FREE online Chemistry textbook for students (and teachers too). 
 

 

The resources described above are the ones that we believe will serve you best during these times. But we invite you to peruse the many other resources on our website ... like the Review Session, the Science Reasoning Center, or the Multimedia Physics Studios.