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Many studies have shown that engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher level critical thinking skills, and promotes meaningful learning experiences. In this talk, I will share a way that I engage the students in the classroom setting and with online instruction using free a online tool called Quizziz. Quizizz is a free tool. It works on almost any device or web browser. You can access hundreds of learning quizzes that other instructors have created or you can create your own. This is a great way to promote student engagement and fun competitive learning especially when teaching online.

AAPT SM 20

Engaging Physics Students with Quizizz

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Join us in exploring emergent themes in PER as a scholarly endeavor and as a research community!  Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?
Following the lead of AAPT for the summer meeting, PERC 20/20 was virtual. Enjoy browsing the content.

PERC SM 20

Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?

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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.


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. 

Building on prior analyses of how introductory physics experiences affect student attitudes, preliminary evidence suggests that IPLS students, more so than their counterparts in traditional introductory physics courses, express the attitude that physics is relevant to their primary biological interests. We report on the durability of these attitudes. We present results from interdisciplinary attitude surveys given to students a year (or more) after their initial experience in IPLS, as well as immediately after that experience. By tracking the evolution of student attitudes over time, we assess whether attitude improvements due to IPLS are in fact stable and long-lasting. We also explore how students’ subsequent coursework in biology or other disciplines may influence these attitudes.

Exploring the Durability of Student Attitudes Toward Interdisciplinarity

During the anthropogenic disaster of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID19), all courses at universities across the country switched to online modalities mid-semester. At the University of Nebraska Omaha, we have used the Communities of Inquiry (COI) framework as the basis for recreating the interplay between instructor, content, and student presence present in the reformed versions of our face-to-face introductory physics courses. In this presentation, we discuss the COI, the various types of important interactions necessary for high-impact instruction, and specifics on recreating these interactions online for a physics course including a laboratory component. We also present preliminary results showing no significant decrease in student learning resulting from the mid-semester change of format.

Communities of Inquiry: Recreating Important Learner Interactions in Online Courses

Interpreting and understanding the way students use and understand the mathematics used in physics is a central theme in Physics Education Research. Physical phenomena described by partial differential equations (PDEs) provide a promising context to study how students combine physics and mathematics. An example is the description of heat flow and temperature distribution in a one-dimensional rod, which can be described by the (1D) heat equation, together with an initial condition (IC), and boundary conditions (BCs). In this contribution, we present data from an interview study where we gave students the mathematical description of a system (PDE, IC and BCs) together with the analytical solution. We asked to describe the time evolution of the system, both in mathematical and physical terms. Our analysis shows that students’ reasoning is mainly mathematical with little reference to the underlying physics and that most students do not connect their mathematical statements to physical processes.

Technical-Vocational Education (TVE) Students’ Mental Models about Electric Circuits

Undergraduate physics students are often required to take a course in computational methods. I will describe an approach to presenting this course in a flipped format. The background lecture for each topic are moved outside of the classroom, in the form of YouTube videos embedded in interactive Jupyter notebooks. A Jupyter notebook is an open-source web application that combines formatted text, executable code, images, videos, and interactive widgets. A plugin for the notebook, called nbgrader, provides for automated grading of coded assignments. In class, students work in small groups to complete programming challenges, applying the techniques described in the videos. The first two assignments each week included built in automated tests, while the more challenging third assignment does not. This approach provides students with immediate feedback as they develop their coding skills, while also encouraging them to think of ways to debug their own code. Students also complete two larger group projects in place of a midterm and final exam. Surveys of student attitudes showed a preference for the flipped presentation when compared to a traditional section of the course, while learning outcomes were equivalent.

Teaching Computational Methods in a Flipped Format

The essence of laboratory experiences is the gathering of data, analyzing data, forming hypotheses, comparing with models and theories, discussion sources of and estimating statistical and systematic uncertainties, and drawing conclusions, usually in the form of a lab report. All of these components have been replicated in a complete set of first- and second-semester laboratory online experiments at Michigan State University, which can be used to enable undergraduate students to obtain authentic laboratory experiences while staying off campus. The availability of these online labs is crucial, even in universities planning to resume on-campus teaching in the fall, because groups of students in high risk groups need accommodations to remain sheltered during the pandemic. All of these experiments do not need special software, can be run on a web-browser on any computer, tablet device, or even smartphone, and in this way do not contribute to widening the digital divide.

Hands-on Lab Experiences With Social Distancing

Numerical modeling is used extensively in astrophysics and -- when used in a classroom -- allows students to explore how models are built in physics in general and how model building is facilitated by computational methods in particular. It also exposes them to ubiquitous tools such as Python and Runge-Kutta. Using a relatively simple N-body simulation students are able to go beyond the usual Kepler's Third law introductory descriptions of orbital dynamics and examine 3-body and chaos effects. I will show some cases where students encounter questions which are central to the current state-of-the-art in planetary dynamics research.

Python N-body simulation of solar system dynamics

We have implemented a framework for personalized remote learning in an introductory algebra-based physics course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. This framework, developed to address issues related to equity and inclusion, is based on a combination of strategies from physics education research and best practices in online learning. Our approach centers around the Gameful Learning pedagogy. Within this framework, we have incorporated several interventions including (1) the adaptive learning platform ALEKS for mathematical remediation (2) activities in metacognition and (3) a physics teaching-assistant managed “virtual help desk”. The implementation of this framework, materials developed, and experiences delivering the curriculum to a diverse student population during COVID-19 will be discussed.

Applying “Gameful Learning” in a Remote Introductory Physics Course

The Newton´s laboratory is an app created under Unity development platform (C and C ++ language) implemented to COLAF (Colombian Air Force) Cadets, whom allow them to go further in the researching field, improve their skills on the basic fundamentals of physics (Newton´s Laws) for applications in aerospace projects. Military personnel are undergraduate students who are subjected to a rhythm of life of constant physical demand, discipline, stress and mental development that are simultaneously complemented by academic training. The impact of the interaction of the cadets with this implemented tool, the contribution to their professional development and the future influence on the use of new technological applications in the training of the Colombian aerospace leaders are evaluated and the results are presented. This app was implemented as a way of supporting the education system due to the ongoin global pandemic.

Newton´s Laws app in Military School

We present our pedagogical experiences and practitioner recommendations for introductory physics undergraduate laboratories using the Scale-Up methodology, in the context of the sudden adaptation to the online teaching environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we focus on the challenges of implementing focused critical-thinking labs with a diverse student population and graduate teaching staff ill-prepared for such a quick and forced transition. Given the task of achieving pre-COVID-19 learning objectives without providing physical access to laboratory materials, we examine the demonstrated benefits and disadvantages of several tools, such as technology, university resources, communication methods, and leadership skills.

Remote Delivery of Introductory Physics Labs During the COVID-19 Transition Period

Canadian Universities suspended regular in-person classes around mid-March due to the growing concerns about the pandemics. At my Department, the switch to the emergency remote teaching proceeded relatively smoothly, with remote classes up and running within one week. The synchronous lectures and office hours were conducted via zoom. It helped that the asynchronous online homework already existed as a part of a regular course. Not surprisingly, the real challenge turned out to be a remote testing part. The talk will discuss the challenges of running a traditional exam remotely, and the pressing need for the meaningful alternative ways of evaluating the students while teaching remotely.

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Engaging Physics Students with Quizizz

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