physics

Sam McKagan

Sam McKagan is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sam McKagan rather than just read about it. In short: Sarah Busby (Sam) McKagan (also published as Sarah B. McKinney) is an American physics educator who directs several online portals for education resources in physics and related subjects.

Key takeaways

Sam McKagan belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sam McKagan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sam McKagan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sarah Busby (Sam) McKagan (also published as Sarah B. McKinney) is an American physics educator who directs several online portals for education resources in physics and related subjects. These include PhysPort and the Living Physics Portal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, aimed at physics and physics for the life sciences, respectively, and Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3), a project of the American Physical Society. Her research publications have included work on instructional simulations, concept inventories, and gender gaps in physics education.

Education and career McKagan majored in physics at Barnard College, graduating summa cum laude in 1998. She went to the University of Washington in Seattle for graduate study in physics, earning a master's degree in 2000 and completing her Ph.D. in 2004. Her dissertation, Dynamics of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices, was supervised by William P. Reinhardt. She became a researcher in physics education at JILA, a joint research institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, from 2005 to 2008, and at Seattle Pacific University from 2009 to 2013. She founded PhysPort in 2009, became design and development director of the Living Physics Portal in 2016, and became editorial director of Effective Practices for Physics Programs in 2016.

Recognition McKagan was a 2013 recipient of the Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2018, after a nomination from the APS Topical Group on Physics Education Research, "for contributions to physics education research in energy and quantum mechanics, and for supporting excellence in physics teaching by pursuing scholarly efforts on the adoption of effective practices, organizing research-based resources, and creating tools for communities of physics educators".

Selected publications McKagan, S. B.; Perkins, K. K.; Dubson, M.; Malley, C.; Reid, S.; LeMaster, R.; Wieman, C. E. (April 2008), "Developing and researching PhET simulations for teaching quantum mechanics", American Journal of Physics, 76 (4): 406–417, arXiv:0709.4503, Bibcode:2008AmJPh..76..406M, doi:10.1119/1.2885199 McKagan, S. B.; Perkins, K. K.; Wieman, C. E. (November 2010), "Design and validation of the Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Survey", Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 6 (2) 020121, arXiv:1007.2015, Bibcode:2010PRPER...6b0121M, doi:10.1103/physrevstper.6.020121 Madsen, Adrian; McKagan, Sarah B.; Sayre, Eleanor C. (November 2013), "Gender gap on concept inventories in physics: What is consistent, what is inconsistent, and what factors influence the gap?", Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 9 (2) 020121, arXiv:1307.0912, Bibcode:2013PRPER...9b0121M, doi:10.1103/physrevstper.9.020121

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sam McKagan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sam McKagan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sam McKagan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sam McKagan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sam McKagan

In research: Sam McKagan appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sam McKagan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sam McKagan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American physicists, American women physicists, Barnard College alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sam McKagan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sam McKagan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sam McKagan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sam McKagan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sam McKagan in simple terms?

Sarah Busby (Sam) McKagan (also published as Sarah B. McKinney) is an American physics educator who directs several online portals for education resources in physics and related subjects.

Why does Sam McKagan matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sam McKagan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sam McKagan.