Integrating electrostatics with demonstrations and interactive teaching

Teaching electrostatics is challenging due to its complexity and high degree of abstraction. To facilitate students' understanding of the meanings and relations of the key terms, this paper describes a series of demonstrations and conceptual questions based on an interactive teaching approach. The context was an introductory university physics course for engineering and science students in Taiwan. Features of the teaching intervention include the utilization of a series of demonstrations for repeated practice applying the important concepts, the incorporation of derivations of equations and verbal elaboration of concepts, and the engagement of students in thinking and discussing. Data show that the teaching intervention benefited the students' academic performance and their satisfaction with the learning achievement.