United States

During the Spring 2020 semester, classes at a medium-sized regional rural university transitioned from face-to-face (FTF) to fully online instruction following Spring Break due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning assistants teaching in STEM disciplines experienced difficulties during this transition unique to our student population consisting of many nontraditional and first generation students living in rural areas. We conducted a phenomenological study about these LAs experiences using a Community of Practice (CoP) theory lens. Through interviews with 10 LAs, novel conversations about moving from FTF courses to a virtual setting emerged. In response to the interruptions of the CoP, LAs discussed their new learning opportunities. In this paper, we highlight the opportunities and challenges as encountered by the LAs. Considerations and concerns for instructors with similar student populations are presented.

PERC SM 20

The transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic at a regional, rural university: The experience of learning assistants

learning assistance

remote learning

remote teaching

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AAPT WM 21

poster

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.

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?

Student difficulties with fluid statics and dynamics concepts often persist with conventional instruction. A curriculum was developed using a simulation to improve student understanding of fluid statics and dynamics taught in an introductory algebra-based physics courses for life science students. Screen capture videos were made of students completing a 20-minute guided inquiry tutorial that used the PhET simulation Fluid Pressure and Flow. These videos were studied using qualitative thematic analysis to identify common actions and patterns of actions as students worked through the curriculum. Patterns observed from this analysis are compared and contrasted with the patterns made by experts working with the simulation. Additionally, pre- and post-activity assessments of student knowledge of fluid speed and pressure in pipes were made. These data were examined to establish what connections exist between actions made while working with the simulation and changes in students conceptual understanding of fluids.

Thematic analysis of the PhET simulation "Fluid Pressure and Flow"

We present the results of a survey of 220 faculty members at selective liberal arts colleges who teach introductory STEM courses. The survey was designed to learn how these faculty support student quantitative skills development in their introductory courses and what high-school quantitative skills are the most challenging for their incoming introductory students. In particular, we wanted to identify the skills that students struggled with across different disciplines in order to explore the possibility of developing shared online modules to support student quantitative skills review and practice in many different introductory STEM courses. Five priority topic areas emerged -- graphs and tables, descriptive statistics, exponents/logarithms, intercepts/slopes of lines, and confidence intervals/standard error -- although there were significant disciplinary differences.

Supporting student quantitative skills across introductory STEM courses: faculty approaches and perceived needs

Physics education researchers sometimes conduct research on physics faculty change; we also write about faculty when we do research on implementing reforms in physics classrooms, or when we talk about how faculty affect students understanding. This study classifies mentions of physics faculty in PERC and PhysRev-PER journals in order to study implicit frameworks used by the PER community when viewing and writing about faculty. Furthermore, mentions are categorized to give a sense of what aspects of instructors are most often commented upon. While no overall tendency towards positive or negative mentions was found, in the category of faculty beliefs, mentions were significantly negative, while in the category of faculty goals, mentions were significantly positive. We report this as a starting point for PER researchers to analyze the way we view and talk about other faculty.

Physics education research's implicit views of physics faculty

"In a society characterized by STEM sciences the knowledge about Nature of Science (NOS) is deemed an important part of students education.
Although there are a couple of studies about students beliefs about NOS available in some states in Germany, due to the differing school curricula in each state generalizations are to be avoided. Therefore, we have conducted a study which explores the development of lower high school students conceptions of NOS during one school year in the state of Hesse (N=101). For this study parts of an existing questionnaire of NOS were combined with aspects of the control-of-variables-strategy and five of the six original scales could be confirmed. On the poster we will present the methods and instruments as well as an overview of our results."

Do Hessian High Schools Foster Understanding of Nature of Science? (PERC)

Problematizing is a physics practice involving the articulation of a gap in understanding into a clear question or problem. Inquiry-based labs may be conducive to problematizing behaviors, as students often collect data that do not agree with simplified models or their intuitive predictions. In this study, we analyzed video of students performing a lab in which they find the acceleration of an object in flight to be different from what the presented models predict. We aimed to identify the various activities that groups engaged in upon recognizing this inconsistency. Common problematizing behaviors included explicit discussions of physics concepts, proposing a new experiment or calculation, and checking experimental calculations. We found that each group's sequence and duration of behaviors was quite unique, highlighting a diversity of approaches taken to address this inconsistency.

Problematizing in inquiry-based labs: how students respond to unexpected results (PERC)

Interactive video-enhanced tutorials (IVETs) involve web-based activities which lead students through a solution using expert-like problem-solving approaches, such as those needed for solving problems using Newtons Second Law. The IVETs, which are based in part on the tutorials created at the University of Pittsburgh, are designed using multimedia principles of learning and research on human learning and memory. The tutorials are adaptive and provide different levels of scaffolding depending on students needs. They are also affect-adaptive, such that they respond to students affective states, including confusion, frustration, boredom, or anxiety, while completing the IVET. This paper presents the general design characteristics of the IVETs with concrete examples and results for one specific IVET.

Promoting Problem-Solving Abilities through Web-based Interactive Video-Enhanced Tutorials

Families are an important context for learning astronomy, one that researchers on astronomy teaching and learning have largely overlooked. At public observatories, families have an opportunity to learn both the substance and practices of astronomy together. However, the typical structure of public observations (one visitor looking through a telescope while an expert explains what they see) creates tension with families engaging in the disciplinary practice of building disciplined perception through collaborative sensemaking. In this paper, we report on a preliminary study in which a family pilot tested new activities to encourage collaborative sensemaking. Key factors that supported the familys collaborative learning include (1) using activities that shift authority and control to each member of the family, (2) Having a variety of activities that can be deployed at strategic times rather than a fixed schedule, and (3) Being responsive to the family dynamics, including the emotional needs of each family member.

From “having a day” to doing astronomy: Supporting families learning together

We investigate student comfort with the material in an upper-division spins-first quantum mechanics course. Pre-lecture surveys probing students' comfort were administered weekly, in which students assigned themselves a "discomfort level" on a scale of 0--10 and provided a written explanation for their choice. The weekly class-wide average discomfort level was effectively constant over the semester, suggesting that the class found no single unit especially jarring nor especially easy. Student written responses were coded according to their reported source of discomfort---math, math-physics connection, physics, and notation. The relative prevalence of these categories varied significantly over the semester, indicating that students find that different units present different challenges, and also that some of these challenges fade in importance as the semester progresses. Semi-structured interviews with students in a similar quantum mechanics course at a different institution provided additional context and insight into these results.

Characterizing and monitoring student discomfort in upper-division quantum mechanics

The physics education and computer science researchers at Ithaca College collaborated to develop a mobile application to provide students with a dynamic experience studying electric fields, a notoriously difficult topic. This study is the first in a longitudinal study comparing the impacts of the mobile application and paired worksheet activity to other learning tools including a laptop simulation and a worksheet-only activity. Participants include health science majors enrolled in an algebra-based physics class. The normalized gain in performance on a diagnostic administered prior to and after interacting with one of the three activities was used to measure the impact of each activity on student understanding. Student attitude was measured using a questionnaire in the post-activity diagnostic. The results show students prefer laptop activities as physics learning aids and students in the two sections, mobile application and laptop simulation, produced higher average gains in learning than those in the worksheet-only section.

Analyzing the impacts of a new mobile application on student understanding of and attitudes toward electric fields

What motivates a student to learn and how they perceive their classroom structures have a significant effect on learning. In an introductory physics course, we find that in particular students tend to focus on superficial markers of success and not on mastering central concepts. For a foundational course, this is of particular concern. In this study, we present narratives from students highlighting their differing orientations towards achievement and learning, which we roughly categorize as mastery or performance. Our preliminary analysis is the first step towards a framework for student motivation and achievement strategies in introductory physics, and complements work in belonging.

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The transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic at a regional, rural university: The experience of learning assistants

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Thematic analysis of the PhET simulation "Fluid Pressure and Flow"

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