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Our algebra-based introductory physics class for life science students is entirely remote this year. The course is typically taught as a highly interactive multi-section studio class. It was a challenging transition but, by making extensive use of Zoom breakout rooms, we think we have done this fairly successfully. The transition has been a tremendous amount of work. The things we plan to retain when we eventually go back to in-person teaching include: (1) using interactive Google doc worksheets, rather than a printed workbook ; (2) spending less time presenting slides and more time with students working together; (3) regular low-stakes quizzes instead of a few high-stakes tests; and (4) streamlining the course, with fewer topics and not as many moving parts. This talk will go over details of these features, which seem to have worked well and which we hope will make for a better student experience in future semesters.

AAPT WM 21

Keepers: From remote studio physics back to in-person

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The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


AAPT SM 20

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

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AAPT® is a strong professional physics science society dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in physical science education.

Winter and Summer National Meetings:
These National Meetings, held each winter and summer, are opportunities for members, colleagues, and future physicists from around the world to:

- participate in physics workshops
- meet and greet other physics educators
- form networks nationally and locally
- engage exhibitors and learn about the latest physics resources
- discuss innovations in teaching methods
- share the results of research about teaching and learning.

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The STEMcoding project launched in 2017 with a series of "physics of video games" activities designed for high school physics and physical science. Many of these activities are described on the STEMcoding YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/c/STEMcoding) and we have trained dozens of teachers through various workshops. In 2020 these resources became a lifeline for many of these teachers who needed to find solutions for distance and hybrid learning. And over summer 2020 we redesigned nearly all of our activities with this in mind. This talk provides and overview of how 2020 has shaped the STEMcoding project.

The STEMcoding Approach to Distance Learning

The pandemic timeline has turn out to be much longer than initially predicted, and the need for a remote teaching will be the norm for many more months (if not years) to come. &nbsp;The immediate switch to the remote teaching that happened due to COVID-19, not surprisingly, had the greatest detrimental effect on laboratory components of physics courses and challenged academic integrity during testing. Smaller courses during summer time allowed us to test different approaches and more adequately prepare for large-enrollment classes for the upcoming Fall semester. Decisions when to choose between the labs with real data or simulations-generated data will be discussed. I will touch upon the challenges and successes of running the live lab sessions on teleconferencing platforms such as Zoom. Some elements, like pre-recorded introductions to the labs, methods of lab reports collections and grading online will be useful well past the pandemic.

Lessons from Virtual Laboratories

Material properties such as pressure, tension, conductivity and elasticity arise due to the complex interactions of atoms and electrons.&nbsp; Interaction forces such as friction also have atomistic origins.&nbsp; Our textbooks may mention these ideas in advanced topic boxes, but what do you say when a student wants to know more?&nbsp; In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the field of condensed matter physics.&nbsp; I will describe how condensed matter physics is present not only in our physics curriculum, but in daily life in technologies such as semiconductors, fiber optics, light-emitting diodes (LED’s), and liquid crystals.&nbsp; The talk is intended for anyone who teaches introductory physics, from college physics to secondary science teachers -- both high school and middle school.

Condensed Matter Physics in Introductory Physics: Hiding in Plain Sight

Young students are often enamored by the promise of exotic fundamental discoveries in the field of high-energy particle physics. Unfortunately, it is less often that I meet a young student who sees condensed matter physics in the same light. To help inspire more students to pursue condensed matter, I’ll start by illustrating how both fields (condensed matter and high-energy) are at the frontier of fundamental understanding. There is a fruitful exchange of theoretical concepts and theoretical techniques between the two fields. Then, I'll highlight a few condensed matter experimental systems, from my lab, and from colleagues at other universities. The common theme will be exotic phases of matter that arise when strongly interacting electrons dance with each other: in carbon nanotubes, in graphene, and at the interface between&nbsp;semiconductors and superconductors. This talk is intended for anyone who teaches introductory physics, from high school to college.

Condensed Matter Experiments that Use Strongly Interacting Electrons

Brown et al. (1) demonstrated that explicitly incentivizing students in quantum mechanics to correct their mistakes on midterm problems assists students on improving their performance on the same problems as featured on a final exam. We discuss a similar investigation into a first-semester upper-division electromagnetism course, taught at a large research university in the Mountain West, in which 25 students were similarly given explicit incentives to rework three unit exam problems (one for each of three unit exams). For each problem, we compare students who chose to rework their errors for credit with students who did not. We discuss initial findings as follows: for one of the three problems, the explicit incentivization shows a statistically significant benefit for students who accepted the incentive. For the other two problems, certain issues (e.g. an unexpected ceiling effect on midterm attempts) are discussed in terms of affecting outcomes.

Evaluating Explicit Incentives to Correct Mistakes in Upper-Division Electromagnetism

Research-based instructional strategies (RBIS) have been proven effective in improving student learning gains and in reducing course drop rates. Unfortunately, these strategies are not the norm for many physics departments. Studies indicate that some 1/3 of instructors who try RBIS discontinue the use, perhaps because the RBIS were not seen as successful or were viewed as too time consuming. One possible remedy is to have faculty looking to try RBIS co-teach with instructors who’ve previously used these strategies. We will report on our experiences flipping an upper-level quantum mechanics course working with just such a model. We believe this approach could increase the number of instructors who decide to try RBIS as well as increase the probability that these first attempts will lead to further use.

Who Flipped Our Class?

Introductory quantum mechanics can be challenging to students because many concepts are nonintuitive and the development of quantum intuition faces numerous hurdles. One important pathway to developing such intuition through problem-solving is limited due to the fact that few time-independent problems, and virtually no time-dependent problems, are analytically solvable. Computational modeling, however, can be an effective, complementary pathway to developing quantum insight and deepening conceptual understanding. In this presentation we will discuss computation in introductory quantum mechanics with examples to enhance student learning and active engagement (see http://www.faculty.umassd.edu/j.wang/ for some examples).

Enhancing learning and engagement in quantum mechanics with computation

Muon and neutrino classroom activities and exercises involving experimental data are extremely rare.&nbsp; Using the Arachne viewer for the MINERvA experiment at Fermilab, students can analyze data sets of muon decays to determine the following: the half-life of a muon, the energy spectrum of the daughter Michel electrons, and the existence of two other neutral daughter particles.&nbsp; Furthermore, by cleverly using conservation laws, students can deduce that these neutral particles must be an electron neutrino and a muon antineutrino.&nbsp; In this talk we will present three activities that help achieve student success with this muon decay analysis.&nbsp; First will be a simple rolling of a die activity, followed by the muon decay and lifetime analysis, and finally the deduction of existence of neutrino decay products using conservation laws.

Muon Half-life and the Inference of Neutrino Decay Products

Large neutrino experiments like MINERvA, NOvA, and MicroBooNE provide data that physics teachers and students can analyze to learn about analysis techniques, practice scientific skills, and learn how physics concepts taught in introductory physics courses apply to contemporary experiments. QuarkNet has created workshops for its member teachers based on activities from the QuarkNet Data Activities Portfolio that build toward an authentic neutrino data analysis from one of the neutrino experiments. In these workshops, teachers discuss and develop implementation plans on how activities, skills, and ideas from the workshop can be transferred into the classroom. We will examine Neutrino Data Workshops, how teachers can get involved, and how the model can be used in teacher professional development.

QuarkNet Neutrino Data Workshop

Around the 5th grade, students make a conceptual leap in their understanding of the world around them. In the NGSS, it's at this time that students should be mastering the idea that "matter is made up of particles too small to be seen". How can we help them make this conceptual change?&nbsp; The Sanford Underground Research Facility has developed a curriculum unit to do just that. The unit begins with a phenomenon that all students have seen but maybe not thought about deeply: salt dissolving in water. What happens to the salt? They investigate this phenomenon through the lens of the crosscutting concept 'Scale, Proportion and Quantity'. They develop models to help understand the size of atoms then extend those models to the size of neutrinos. Using these models help students make sense of why scientists need 70,000 tons of argon in future neutrino detectors.&nbsp;

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