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During a recent discussion in PICUP (Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics), it was noted that once a simulation is in hand, students don’t necessarily see the connection between the simulation and the “real world”. This presentation will demonstrate several examples of making that connection of simulation to world. As a first step, a simulation can be calibrated for digital world consistency, e.g., is a pixels-per-second animation visually accurate? As a next step, when a known physical system is modeled, is the model true to the system? And a further, most powerful step is to run simulations side-by-side with the corresponding physical system. Representative examples will be presented of simulations coded up in Python by high-school physics students, and issues discussed.

AAPT SM 21

Connecting Simulations to The World

high-school

experience

python

simulations

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While the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have grown in the past twenty years, the proportion of women in these fields has not seen the same growth. This article researches how inquiry-based instructional approaches can better support gender-equity in classrooms. It will look at the effects that confidence, group work, and Socratic questioning have on women in STEM courses, and how small changes in instruction can have large impacts on the experiences women have in STEM courses.

Supporting Gender-Equity in the STEM Classroom

Traditional high school physics curricula focused on meeting the Next Generation Science Standards and specific state standards do not typically address issues of racism and sexism in physics. In the 2020-2021 academic year, I facilitated discussions centered on five units from the Underrepresented Curriculum in three high school physical science classes. The curriculum was modified to focus on issues relevant to and valued by my students, (80% black or African American, 10% Hispanic/LatinX, and 10% white or Caucasian), such as taking into account their racial and ethnic background, gender, interests, and reading levels. I will offer insight into how the Underrepresented Curriculum can be modified to better relate to students, authenticate physics and center students’ learning on social justice.


Reflection on Underrepresented Curriculum Implementation in an Urban K-12 Setting

This research focuses on the experiences of three undergraduate women majoring in physics and astronomy. Specifically we conducted semi-structured, empathetic interviews which reveal how uncomfortable physics environments inside and outside of the classroom exclude undergraduate women. The women give accounts of the behaviors of their male peers and instructors that influenced the physics culture. We use standpoint theory to focus on the experiences of undergraduate women to provide a holistic perspective of physics as well as identify key issues that these women faced in their undergraduate physics program and potential strategies to implement in the future to support undergraduate women in physics. Some of their suggestions include providing mentoring for women, training sessions, and establishing a code of conduct.

Negative Impacts on female physics majors of Cold Physics Environment

This study examines survey data from 2,129 women undergraduates at CUWiP (Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics) in order to classify what led them to study physics. We use expectancy-value and self-efficacy theory to create a coding framework based on different types of value and efficacy expectations in order to group responses. We find that the most common attractions are social persuasion, which is due to pressure or persuasion from people around the students, and intrinsic value, which is related to the inherent value of engaging in physics.

Investigating the Relationship Between Motivation and Retention in Women Undergraduates

Informal physics programs can play a vital role in supporting student learning and sense of community beyond the formal settings of a classroom or laboratory. This work builds on a recent study of the impact of facilitating informal physics programs on students’ physics identity, sense of belonging, and career skills development by narrowing the focus to speciﬁcally examine effects on female students who are underrepresented in physics. We found a signiﬁcant shift in conﬁdence of choice of major when compared prior to and after facilitating informal physics programs. All female students who were interviewed discussed a positive effect of participating in informal programs on their interest and motivation with regards to the ﬁeld of physics and the development of characteristics indicative of a growth mindset.

Impact of Informal Physics Programs on Female Students

Bridgewater State University is continuing to grow an undergraduate physics teacher preparation program during the pandemic using various strategies. In the Spring of 2020, we began teaching a one credit seminar course called Physics Teaching Methods which runs on a four-semester rotation of topics. The course is designed to attract students early in their undergraduate career, retain their interest in teaching, build physics teacher identity and community, and teach the foundations of physics pedagogical content knowledge. Our course has seen steady enrollment throughout the pandemic even as we switched to an online, synchronous format as well as increasing numbers of enrolled students working as peer tutors and learning assistants in our introductory physics courses. I’ll share our experience developing and teaching this course as well as our successes and challenges.

Recruiting Undergraduate Pre-Service Teachers with a Physics Teaching Methods Course

A variety of pressures are felt by teachers to integrate programming and computational thinking into science classrooms. These pressures primarily arise from the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards and recent increases in emphasis on computer programming and computational thinking as methods of conducting investigations. Yet many preservice teachers are ill equipped to engage in investigatory computational practices and they often lack strong orientations or beliefs that doing so is valuable. This presentation will outline the preliminary results of an interpretation-based workshop where preservice elementary teachers interpret block coding rather than writing it in order to collect data about simple experiments.


Changes in Preservice Elementary Teachers' Attitudes Toward Computational Thinking

What started as an impersonal podcast to generate discussions for student journal responses, quickly became replaced with a series of short videos created on DaVinci Resolve and posted on Youtube. Students accessed the videos, and posted their responses, through our class page on the Flipgrid App. The purpose of these videos were three-fold: 1) as inspiration for discussions to elicit critical thinking, reflection, and higher level thinking in small and large-scale aspects of teaching physics, 2) as visual context to pique interest in the content to be covered in the upcoming week, and 3) as an inviting way to engage in flexible and asynchronous conversations, where students were both heard and seen. Videos ended with a prompt that each student responded to using Flipgrid. Join me as I share examples, questions posed, and conversation highlights from this strategy to engage preservice teachers in our physics pedagogy course.

Video Killed the Radio Star: Flipgrid for online physics pedagogy.

The Physics Teacher Preparation Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a collaboration between the STEM Education Center and the Physics Department that leverages significant PhysTEC resources that have emerged over the past two decades since PhysTEC started. As a PhysTEC supported site, WPI has been able to implement several key components identified as effective practices at other PhysTEC sites, such as a Teacher-in-Residence to serve as a role model and mentor to students in the program. The PTEPA rubric has allowed our team to strategically plan the next steps in building a thriving physics teacher preparation program. Other elements we will discuss include the Peer Learning Assistant program that includes pedagogical training, a regional physics teacher network, and utilization of the Get the Facts Out resources. In addition to generating interest in high school physics teaching careers, an interest in Physics Education Research has also emerged.

PhysTEC at Worcester Polytechnic Institute

The most dramatic teacher preparation program shifts during the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic for our rural liberal arts institution, Colgate University, landed in the arena of field work. Five pandemic era interventions are expected to take hold as embedded future practices. The pandemic afforded greater opportunity to connect with urban educators via teleconferencing technology of both remote and hybrid classrooms. New technologies also engaged pre-service teachers in novel ways through the use of simulation software and video banks of quality teaching from both internal and national sources. Identification of campus wide allies with parallel outreach priorities allowed for the sharing of resources, community contacts, and ideas for transfer to the digital sphere. Close attention to community was accomplished through the use of watch parties and periodic Zoom meet ups with students and alumni from outside geographies. Measures of intervention success will take the form of interviews, surveys, and performance assessments. 


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