Introductory Notes for TIPERs

 

We wish to inform you about some important aspects of the TIPER set in this collection as you start to explore these materials. 

 

First, the TIPERs are intended to be very flexible in a variety of ways. You should be able to use individual tasks or any combination or sequence of tasks that you think would be useful. While the tasks within a set are correlated, they do not need to be used together. The basic unit is the individual task.

 

At this point (8/1/2002),we have developed 16 TIPER sets in magnetism that can be classified into two different types that are designed for different aspects of instruction.

 

One is called a BASIC type and these are designed to be used when students begin their study of a topic. These sets have simple, straightforward situations designed to give students basic practice with the fundamental ideas and procedures of the topic. These sets often have several variations of the different formats that ask about different quantities in the situation, or vary basic aspects of the situation while asking the same question.

 

The second type of TIPER set is called CONCEPT or ISSUE focused set. These sets are designed to be more advanced, and the different formats within the set usually ask the same question in different ways.These sets usually have only one version of each task format with the same question, as close as possible, in all formats.

 

We have also developed a topic categorization system for the TIPER sets that we hope will help you find items of interest relatively easily. There are two primary categories in this scheme: MFF for Magnetic Fields and Forces and EMI for Electromagnetic Induction.Within these categories task sets are numbered to indicate specific topics.