United States

APS has recognized that physics programs and departments have increasingly come under threat in the current climate in higher education, a circumstance exacerbated by COVID. This has particularly impacted regional public institutions and private colleges. In response, APS tasked the authors to develop a resource that could aid departments experiencing such pressures. We conducted over 50 interviews with faculty and administrators, gathering practices that worked, or did not work. These practices served as feedstock for the resulting web-based resource: the Toolkit for Departments Under Threat. The Toolkit provides guidance on effective practices, and presents these findings in structures that can easily be adopted by departmental leaders. While each individual program constitutes a unique ecosystem, thematic elements emerged, forming the backbone of the Toolkit. We will describe the structure and content of the Toolkit, and invite any feedback.


AAPT SM 21

Toolkit for Departments Under Threat

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toolkit

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technical paper

In 2019 we conducted a nationwide survey (n=3,769) of teaching practices in introductory undergraduate math, physics, and chemistry courses. Survey results identified departments in the top quarter of their discipline in terms of class time spent on non-lecture activities in their introductory courses. We interviewed 29 instructors from 18 of these departments (including 11 physics instructors representing 6 departments), sampling from a range of institution types, in order to identify factors contributing to their success. We found that departments with high use of active learning in intro courses have local champions of teaching reform who are very knowledgeable about pedagogy and are supported concretely by institution and departmental resources and culture. In this talk, we focus on the variety of institution and department level characteristics that were present in departments with high use of active learning in their intro courses and how they differentially supported teaching reform.

Department and institution factors supporting active learning in intro courses

Research has shown that elementary school teachers report an intention to integrate engineering education into their classrooms (Uğraş & Genç, 2018; Kang, Donovan & McCarthy, 2018); however, they also report low confidence in their ability to teach engineering (Trygstad, 2013). In response, we developed curricular modules that include both physics and engineering instruction through a Research Practice Partnership with a local interactive science center. Each module includes four activities that include an investigation about a physics phenomenon and introduces the engineering design process across the classroom and museum learning spaces. In this paper, we analyze post-module interviews with K-6 grade teachers to understand their view of engineering activities. Using the Didactic Triangle to guide our work, we present a snapshot of teacher perceptions and suggestions for supporting teachers when engaging students in physics-based engineering design activities. These findings are also useful for other physics outreach programs that work with elementary teachers. 


Teacher views of physics-based engineering activities

Change efforts in higher education are increasingly focused at the department-level, allowing for the benefits of a grassroots approach while also incorporating top-down implementation. Two models for departmentally-based change are the Departmental Action Team (DAT) Project and Teaching Quality Framework (TQF) Initiative. In both models, externally-facilitated working groups meet regularly to work on projects relevant to their departments, though the focus and scope of teams’ work differs. To better understand how these models of institutional change operate and their implications for change work in higher education, we interviewed individuals from both efforts, including facilitators and grant PIs. Our results indicate that differences between the models have connections to the theories underlying each, and they have implications for participants’ experiences and working groups’ outcomes. We present these differences in the working group process in the two change models, the potential impact of these differences, and implications for others doing change work.

Fostering departmental change through collaboration: an analysis of two approaches

Facilitating discussions on pedagogy and content among high school teachers with different backgrounds can be a challenging undertaking. By becoming attuned to the mechanisms by which discourse moves in expert-novice teacher pairs successfully elevate conversations about content and pedagogy, facilitators of physics teacher professional development (PD) can better design activities and support teacher groups in advancing toward a conversational mode in which all parties feel comfortable contributing. Last summer, the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) partnership offered intensive PD workshops for high school teachers. This talk presents a case-study of an expert-novice pair solving problems from a Content Knowledge for Teaching Energy (CKT-E) assessment. Via video analysis, we examine the question: What conversational moves facilitate conversations about physics content and pedagogy between teachers with different backgrounds? In the case study, moves by both teachers minimize apparent disparities in power, creating conversational space and setting the stage for content-specific discussion.

Enabling content-specific discussions among expert-novice teacher pairs: A case study

I have been serving as an AAAS-Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Undergraduate Education for the last two years. I will share lessons learned from this experience about communicating with government officials. Specifically, I will focus on reframing STEM education and education research as multifaceted tools for science advocacy. I will also discuss program and project evaluation as underutilized tools for the promotion of STEM. Improving the way educators and educational researchers collect and share project and program results can facilitate communication among researchers, educators, nonprofits, and government and assist these entities in promoting STEM and STEM education.

STEM Education and Education Research as Tools for Science Advocacy/Communication

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) provide independent, science-based, non-partisan policy advice to federal agencies and Congress. The Committee on Planetary Protection (CoPP), a discipline committee of the Space Studies Board, provides advice to NASA on the critical issue of planetary protection. Planetary protection includes measures devised for robotic spacecraft and human exploration missions to protect the biological and environmental integrity of extraterrestrial bodies for future scientific studies as well as life on Earth against potential “backward” contamination. Through discussions with scientists across the world, the CoPP endeavors to ensure that space missions can answer fundamental questions about life and the history of our Solar System without jeopardizing future science through harmful contamination of pristine extraterrestrial sites. I will discuss how CoPP and similar committees demonstrate science advocacy and communication with government officials, and how CoPP uses science to promote and protect future studies and exploration.

NASEM's Committee on Planetary Protection: Advocating With and For Science

As with any form of communication, advocacy for science and science policy requires identifying key audiences and opportunities. In this presentation, some of the main opportunities for advocacy with the Executive and Legislative Branches are identified and illustrated. As a preface and because of the tight coupling with advocacy opportunities, the Federal budgetary cycle is briefly reviewed. The speaker participated in science advocacy and policy development from multiple perspective as a member of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and with responsibility for university federal relations at Northern Illinois University.

Perspectives from Inside and Outside: Advocating for Science and Policy

In this presentation, simulations of some physics experiments will be presented. The simulations are based on mathematica.

Simulation lab with mathematica

The APS Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) project team surveyed department chairs nationwide to assess the status of physics-degree-granting departments. The results give insight into how chairs view the current state of their undergraduate programs. The findings cover a range of areas, including the problems departments face, the departmental cultures of assessment, and attitudes towards program review. Recruitment and retention of minoritized students and overall student enrollment and preparation were the most prevalent and severe departmental problems reported. Note, pandemic related issues were not addressed as at the time of this survey as it was unclear what the total effect of the pandemic would be. Additionally, there is substantial misalignment between chairs’ current and ideal departments, indicating room for improvement in departmental practices and change processes. In this talk, I will share these survey results and discuss the implications for the EP3 project and the larger physics community.

Department chairs report misalignment between their current and ideal departments

Collecting effective practices across all areas of a physics department’s operations is a daunting task for any chair or faculty member bent on improving their program. EP3 (Effective Practices for Physics Programs) is a community-sourced guide to help chairs and members of their department improve. The guide includes sections on topics including recruitment, retention, introductory-courses, laboratory and computational skills, undergraduate research, culture and climate, equity and inclusion, leadership, program review, capstone experiences and much more. Guide development is ongoing, but a substantial portion is now available at EP3guide.org and the national task force is set to complete all sections by early 2022. This talk will provide an overview of the guide, its design, and how to begin to use the practices. Our interactive session will provide an opportunity for attendees to provide feedback on design and content, and to see how you can use the guide most effectively.

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Toolkit for Departments Under Threat

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Department and institution factors supporting active learning in intro courses

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