Millikan Lecture 1999: The workplace, student minds, and physics learning systems

We review three important ideas concerning physics education. First, what do surveys from the workplace indicate about the relative importance in student education of scientific process knowledge, personal skills, and conceptual physics knowledge? Second, what are the characteristics of student minds that need to acquire this knowledge and these skills? Finally, what can we do with physics learning systems to help these minds better acquire this knowledge and these skills? (C) 2001 American Association of Physics Teachers.