United States

The essence of student-centered teaching is an awareness of how our students experience learning. Brookfield 2017, highlights that personal experiences of learning are intertwined with teaching practice and considers it as one of the lenses in his critical reflection framework. This study investigates the reflective practice of seven Irish pre-service physics teachers in the final year of their four-year concurrent science education degree. The significant guidance, support and feedback from teacher educators that is required to support deeper levels of critical reflection will be discussed in detail. Thematic analyses of seventy reflective journal entries have been carried out to make connections between themes and build a coherent argument supported by the data. Findings from this qualitative study outline the wider implications of reflective practice on deepening teacher knowledge and professional learning.

AAPT WM 21

Reflective Practice and Pre-service Physics Teachers’ Critical Thinking in Ireland

physics teacher education

pre-service teachers

reflective practice

**Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics**

As a gateway discipline to STEM majors and careers, physics plays a central role in deciding who does, and who doesn't, get to discover and pursue scientific careers. Technical and scientific professionals are rewarded with economic privilege and status which affords them both social and cultural power. Therefore, social justice will be realized only when the opportunity, and the choice, to excel in physics is open to all students. The culture and practices of the physics classroom reflect the culture of physics at large, which raises the question of how our professional physics communities can embrace, rather than inadvertently repel, a diverse group of academics that can help improve physics culture.  To this end, the 2021 Physics Education Research Conference will focus on defining inclusive spaces and practices. Additionally, we will explore strategies for eliminating exclusionary practices in our classrooms, research spaces, and professional organizations. We call on the community to propose sessions that will drive conversations related to these initiatives throughout PERC 2021.

Please download the full program [here. ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRMC_SYJ3PUqXyP7sskA7LRSA8ow0eRE/view?usp=sharing)

PERC SM 21

August 4, 2021 - August 5, 2021 in a Virtual Conference Format

Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics

technical paper

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.

If you're not able to log in, you're most likely using **incorrect login credentials**. Double-check that you are using the same email and password that you used to register for the conference, submit your abstract or access your AAPT membership. There may also be **an issue with your AAPT meeting registration**. Please email aapt2021@underline.io and programs@aapt.org and we will work quickly to resolve this issue.

A parental care for students&nbsp;works magic – as verified by the feedback I have received from numerous students in many countries. The students’ experience of a genuinely caring attitude from the teacher&nbsp;gives them extra energy for their learning-journey. Further, it facilitates relationship and interaction , which are very helpful in the learning process.&nbsp;The famous behavioral scientist Carl Jung&nbsp;has this to say: “The curriculum is so much raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child .”

A Powerful Factor in Teaching and Learning

The project “Teaching MINT D ” at the University of Education Schwaebisch Gmuend (Germany) aims for an increase in physics and technology teacher students with a multimethod approach to adapt and complete the current curriculum with diversity oriented and gender sensible contents. To identify appropriate methods and contents in the field the project acquired in-service STEM teachers to look into their current teaching and to develop contents for four special teacher training workshops. The PhD project focuses on the physic teachers and looks into the success of professional development on an individual subjective level with structured guideline interviews after each workshop and surveys the students with a questionnaire about their physic classes. The theoretical background is about the effects of teacher trainings on four levels (Lipowsky &amp; Rzejak, 2012, 2015, 2017). The presentation will show the state of physic classes and first results from the interviews.

Effects of Advanced Teacher Trainings Regarding Diversity Aspects

The National core curriculum prepared by the Finnish National Agency of Education is the statutory norm that guides teaching. The revised upper secondary school core curriculum will come into effect in August 2021. According to the new core curriculum, upper secondary school physics consists of eight modules, two of which are compulsory for every student. I will present the contents of the modules and general guidelines behind the curriculum. The physics part of the National Matriculation Exam that tests how the goals set by the core curriculum are met is also discussed briefly. I have worked as an advisor in the planning process of the physics core curriculum, have been preparing problems for the matriculation exam, and currently I belong to a team that will publish a set of textbooks and digital materials following the new standard.

The New Physics Curriculum in Finnish Upper Secondary School

Measuring the speed of sound in water is a typical experiment in undergraduate physics laboratory courses. The resonance of ultrasonic waves can be used to determine the wavelength, thereby calculating the speed of sound. It is generally considered that the ultrasonic wave reflected on the surface of the receiver interferes with the incident ultrasonic wave. Resonance occurs when the distance between the two transducers is an integer multiply of the acoustic half-wavelength. However, the residual distribution of the experimental data and the abnormal raising of receiving signal amplitude show that the simple standing wave model is not enough to describe this experiment. Considering the multiple reflections of ultrasonic waves between the transmitting and receiving transducers, and the reflection of ultrasonic waves on the water-air interface, an improved model is proposed. The simulation results show that the height of the water has a great influence on the abnormal experimental phenomena.

An Improved Model for Measuring the Speed of Sound

Higher education institutions play a critical role in preparing students to be future STEM leaders, yet significant inequities remain in which students persist and thrive in STEM. Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have both an outsized opportunity to support racially minoritized STEM learners and distinctive structural challenges that need to be considered. In this talk, I will share practical recommendations for cultivating lasting STEM instructional change at HSIs. These recommendations are distilled from my experiences designing and starting to implement a $2.5 million college-wide change effort with a team at my home institution, as well as my participation in the institutional change research community. They include the importance of creating a theory of change, coordinating multiple change strategies, drawing on targeted research about supporting racially minoritized learners, forming and building up positive relationships with administrators, fostering communities of practice among&nbsp;faculty and students, and constantly keeping your long-term goals in mind.

Practical Recommendations for Cultivating Sustained STEM Instructional Change at HSIs

California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB), a HSI located in Southern California’s Inland Empire, recently underwent a relatively unique opportunity to transform the physics curriculum as part of the university’s transition from quarters to semesters. This afforded our department to take a close look at our student population, learning outcomes, and overall mission in order to create new programs focused on student success and preparing them to enter a variety of fields, serving both local needs and a national priority of diversifying the STEM workforce. In this talk I will detail and reflect on our process of transformation and give specific examples of new courses (e.g. first-year seminar, new upper division labs) or approaches to teaching that we hope will benefit our departmental community. I will also discuss external funding programs and other resources we have tapped into to enhance opportunities available to our students.

Progammatic Transformation for Student Success at a Southern California HSI

This poster presentation focuses on the balanced mix of lecture-based teaching and project-based learning in introductory college physics courses for life science majors. Students naturally resist active learning approaches because they put more responsibility on the learner to master the content. If the lectures still cover the content, the accompanied labs practice the concepts hands-on, and instead of final exams, students are charged with final projects, they apply all of the learned concepts into problem-solving and trouble-shooting with a final product available at the end of the process. Students learn more than the physics concepts: they also learn patience, trial and error, time management, and many other life lessons

Active learning in college physics: it takes two to tango

Simple epidemiological models are introduced using finite difference methods in Excel. The resulting SIR model is then fit to published COVID-19 infection rate data for the United States using least-squares techniques. Using their own spreadsheets, students discover that the SIR model explains: the initial exponential growth of COVID-19; the effects of social distancing during April and May 2020; and the summer surge caused by prematurely lifting social distancing. The SIR model is the origin of the basic reproduction number R 0 and the concept of herd immunity. A wide range of student research projects are possible to make quantitative predictions based on published data for US states and other countries, including: predicting the benefit of implementing social distancing earlier; predicting how many lives were lost because people didn’t wear masks; the nascent fall surge; and the effect of a potential vaccine. See http://circle4.com/biophysics for free textbook chapters and instructional videos.

Modeling the coronavirus pandemic in the United States

Teaching traditional introductory physics courses to pre-health and life science students has been a challenge for students who find it difficult to connect physics concepts with bio-medical applications. This, in addition to, large class sizes, students with diverse skills in math, problem-solving, conceptual reasoning, and learning styles makes it even more challenging. Using biomedical examples, applications, and videos from experts in the bio-medical field throughout the course and providing interactive activities such as simulations, concept questions and problems with scaffolding questions along with support for students with different learning preferences and skill levels has potential to promote active and engaged learning to have a long-lasting impact on the students’ educational experience. We will discuss the curricular development and the first all remote implementation of the course on the online platform “Cogbooks”. The talk will conclude with our observations and experiences from the first &nbsp;course on mechanics. &nbsp; &nbsp;

Introductory Physics for Pre-health Students on an Adaptive, Interactive Platform

The traditional introductory physics course doesn’t work for life-science students. Life-science students don't find kinematics or Newton’s laws to be relevant to their interests. That, combined with the well-known conceptual problems associated with describing motion mathematically, suggests the need for a new starting point for the Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) course. This presentation outlines a new pedagogical approach for life-science students. It starts with the “marble game,” which simulates diffusion – a topic students already know is fundamental to biology. Modeling techniques introduced with the marble game are then applied to drug elimination; radioactive decay; osmosis; the Boltzmann factor; ligand binding; thermodynamics, phase equilibrium and entropy; membrane voltage, RC circuits and the action potential; models of COVID-19; and yes, even Newtonian mechanics. I’ve been successfully using this approach with IPLS students for over 5 years. See http://circle4.com/biophysics for free textbook chapters and instructional videos.

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Reflective Practice and Pre-service Physics Teachers’ Critical Thinking in Ireland

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