Learning by Playing: Optics Games

Jing-Wei Yang^1,2,4*, Jung-Chan Lee^2,3,4, Jia-Wern Chen^2,4, Chiao-Yun Chang⁴, Chin-Jen Yang⁴, Chin-Te Wu⁴, Jing-Wen Yang⁴, Kuei-Jen Chou⁴, Li-Hsin Wu⁴, Ruo-Qi Yu⁴, Shao-Hung Lan⁴, Wei-Chi Hsu⁴, Wen- Jung Cheng⁴, Yen Ching Wu⁴, Yi-Chieh Hsieh⁴, Yi-Jia Chen⁴, Yu-Wei Zhang⁴, Tzu-Yu Peng^1,2,4, Yen-Yu Wang^2,3,4, Li-Chien Chang^2,3,4, Xing-Hao Lee^2,3,4, Yu Cheng Chu^2,3,4, Yu-Jung Lu^1,2,3,4

¹Graduate Institute of Applied Physics, National Taiwan Unervisity, Taipei, Taiwan
²Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
³Department of Physics, National Taiwan Unervisity, Taipei, Taiwan
⁴Student Chapters of the International Society for Optics and Photonics, National Taiwan Unervisity, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Jing-Wei Yang, email:asdfghjkl123885@yahoo.com.tw

How to make learning physics an intriguing thing has been discussed for years. Teachers tried to teach it in not only interesting but also in-depth methods. So that students could fully understand physics and still enjoy learning it. According to Dewey's concept of service-learning, we had designed an activity about optics, which includes two tutorials. First, we taught staff, mostly who weren't major in science, how to play the game which they were assigned to. Also the staff had taken part in game design so that they understood the theory that was used in design. Some games included knowing optical devices and having electric circuit practice. The staff would have been working at physics in order to explain precisely. Second, the staff guided participants, which were junior high school students, through the game. Participants had different levels of understanding. In order to encourage them, we provided all sorts of explanations and reactions that fit the participants. There were 9 games in our activity. They would have learned about reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference, birefringence, polarization, and energy band of semiconductor through the day. Further, there were physics comics. We demonstrated how to analyse concepts step by step by means of our comics. With graphic picture, we let them understand concepts directly and provided good examples of scientific demonstration.

Keywords: optics, service-learning, learning by playing