United States

I report on two synchronous online courses: an algebra-based introductory Applied &amp;nbsp;Physics I course to a broad-spectrum of non-physics majors, and an algebra-based Physics II course to post-baccalaureate pre-Health students. Active learning has been established in these courses in the form of small group problem solving sessions with Teaching/Learning Assistants. Additionally, I developed an active, graded discussion board. Experienced learning assistants worked with me to post open-ended questions for students, approximately once a week for the first few weeks. The aim was to get a dialogue going among students themselves after the initial weeks of prompting. They were encouraged to help one another with tips on homework questions. &amp;nbsp;Part of the aim was to get students to use physics terminology. &amp;nbsp;This resulted in several interesting threads revealing areas of misconception. I will highlight some of these discussions and report on how peer-discussion can enhance learning outside of class time. &amp;nbsp;

AAPT WM 21

Enhancing Student Engagement via a Monitored Student-Student Discussion Board

learning assistants

introductory + discussion boards

student engagement

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. 

I report on two synchronous online courses: an algebra-based introductory Applied &nbsp;Physics I course to a broad-spectrum of non-physics majors, and an algebra-based Physics II course to post-baccalaureate pre-Health students. Active learning has been established in these courses in the form of small group problem solving sessions with Teaching/Learning Assistants. Additionally, I developed an active, graded discussion board. Experienced learning assistants worked with me to post open-ended questions for students, approximately once a week for the first few weeks. The aim was to get a dialogue going among students themselves after the initial weeks of prompting. They were encouraged to help one another with tips on homework questions. &nbsp;Part of the aim was to get students to use physics terminology. &nbsp;This resulted in several interesting threads revealing areas of misconception. I will highlight some of these discussions and report on how peer-discussion can enhance learning outside of class time. &nbsp;

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.

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The measurement of the wavelength of a monochromatic source of light with the Fresnel’s biprism is a fundamental experiment in most Universities. In this experiment, the determination of distance between two virtual light sources is necessary for the calculation of the wavelength of light. However, the presence of the aberration of lens results in an erratic distance between virtual source by using conjugate foci method, which leads to an erratic wavelength. To solve this, we used a CMOS detector to record magnified images and diminished images. The accurate distance between two virtual light sources was obtained with digital images processing, thereby reducing the uncertainty of measurement of the wavelength. The deviation between the measured wavelength of sodium light from CMOS imaging analysis method and the average wavelength at 589.3&nbsp;nm calculated by two wavelengths of&nbsp;sodium yellow light is only 0.3%, which is smaller than the deviation from traditional method.

The Fresnel Biprism Experiment Based on CMOS Imaging Analysis

We are conducting out a study to evaluate the effectiveness of structured peer review sessions on student writing skills in introductory physics laboratory courses.&nbsp; Preliminary data suggest that peer review sessions are more efficient for improving students’ technical writing skills.&nbsp; Previously, students were expected to write weekly lab reports over different experiments without peer communication or review.&nbsp; We have now implemented a writing instruction method in which students produce three reports throughout the semester that undergo peer review by fellow students, then are revised based on the feedback they receive, and finally submitted to the instructor for grading.&nbsp; Following a research protocol previously applied to non-peer review student writing, we will be able to compare the effectiveness of both methods.

Effectively Implementing Peer Review into Introductory Physics Laboratory Courses

Physics students generally encounter only rudimentary concepts of measurement uncertainty analysis in an introductory university physics course. This talk presents a physics-forward more advanced introduction to probability and statistics beginning with loaded dice and chaos concepts in a computational tutorial for first year physics and astronomy students. Subsequent tutorials provide a rigorous frequentist interpretation of nonlinear curve fitting parameters and uncertainties used throughout their laboratory data analysis. Other topics such as Monte Carlo techniques are touched upon. These tutorials and student lab data analysis makes use of MATLAB.

Advanced fitting and uncertainty analysis in introductory physics

In this joint study, we try to uncover the common misconceptions amongst the educators that result from a lack of understanding of the underlying principles involved in the construction of mathematical and scientific concepts. We seek to raise awareness to the issue to provide support to mathematics and science educators in correcting their own misconceptions as well as strategies for identifying and correcting misconceptions held by their students. Research shows that teachers who understand their student’s common misconceptions are more likely to design instruction that will increase student understanding in the subject than teachers who do not. Additionally, teachers with misconceptions themselves unknowingly contribute to the reinforcement of student misconceptions during the teaching and learning cycle. Data will be collected online and anonymously across the state and the country. The target participants include mathematics and science educators in universities, middle and high schools as well as pre-service Mathematics teacher candidates.

A Study on Misconceptions of Mathematics and Science Teachers

The Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA) is a 31-question assessment designed to assess student understanding of basic principles of electricity and magnetism in an introductory, calculus-based physics course. This study develops a model of student knowledge measured by the BEMA. This is guided by a theoretical model of expert understanding of electricity and magnetism. Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) was used to investigate a large post-test dataset (N=9666) from a large, western public research university collected over the span of 15 years. An optimal model was found by exploring variations to the theoretical expert model and selecting the model with the optimal MIRT fit parameters.

Multidimensional Item Response Theory and the BEMA

Our investigation of introductory physics students' difficulties with pre-college mathematics has extended to five campuses at four universities, employing a 14-item diagnostic administered near the beginning of the semester.&nbsp;&nbsp;More than&nbsp;6000 students have taken the diagnostic&nbsp;over the past four years. We find (1) consistently high error rates (30-70%) on trigonometry, algebra, geometry, and graphing problems, (2) significant degradation of algebra performance when symbolic coefficients are substituted for numerical coefficients, and when Greek letters are substituted for Latin letters, and (3) high performance consistency among diverse question types, such that&nbsp;performance on a single test item can reliably predict overall diagnostic performance. A new online version of the diagnostic has been tested with small samples and seems to produce results that are largely consistent with the written version. Performance on non-mathematical conceptual physics questions, added&nbsp;to the online diagnostic, is significantly correlated with performance on the mathematics questions.

Consistency of Students' Mathematical Difficulties May Allow Reliable Performance Predictability

Over the past four years, we have administered over 6,000 mathematics diagnostics to introductory physics students at four large state universities. Previously, our hand-written diagnostic only included pure mathematics problems in graphing, trigonometry, geometry, and algebra. While these problems have shed light on the severity and nature of students’ mathematical difficulties, our new online diagnostic aims to also measure performance on conceptual physics problems (Newton’s second and third laws). We find the mathematics portion of our online diagnostic shares the same characteristics as older hand-written versions with similar correct-response rates, internal consistency, and performance predictability.&nbsp;Our analyses show that overall mathematics performance is correlated with performance on the newly added physics problems (r=0.35). Here, we present our most recent findings while examining the observed relationship between math and physics performance.&nbsp;

Introductory Physics Students’ Mathematical Preparedness and Conceptual Understanding of Force

Under NSF funding we have been developing and evaluating Interactive Video-Enhanced Tutorials (IVETs) which are designed to help students learn to use expert-like problem-solving strategies for college students in introductory physics. The tutorials involve web-based activities which lead students through a solution by providing guidance and feedback depending on the choices they make within the activities. This presentation will showcase one of our IVETs, namely Angular Momentum, and provide details about its design features, which involve multimedia principles of learning and research on human learning and memory, and subsequent impact on student problem-solving abilities. *Work supported by the NSF IUSE Program (DUE #1821396)

Impact of an Angular Momentum Problem-solving Tutorial on Student Performance

As a part of our larger research on students’ conceptions on fluids, our group has been developing a taxonomy categorizing alternate conceptions about buoyancy and giving assessments in various introductory courses to determine the prevalence of selected taxonomy items.&nbsp; This talk will focus on a few of those taxonomy items, discussing the populations in which they were identified and how they relate to the overall taxonomy construction.&nbsp;

Discussion of Selected Alternate Conceptions about Buoyancy in College Populations

As a part of our larger research on students’ conceptions on fluids, our group has been developing a taxonomy categorizing alternate conceptions about buoyancy and giving assessments in various introductory courses to determine the prevalence of selected taxonomy items.&nbsp; This talk will focus on the results of selected assessment questions given to multiple introductory physics courses at Grove City College; some questions were also given to students at the University of Washington.&nbsp; The prevalence of each alternate conception probed will be discussed, along with similarities and differences between the populations.&nbsp;

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