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For 20 years I have taught a two-semester undergraduate sequence in physics for the life sciences: Biological Physics in the fall and Medical Physics in the spring. A typical student takes the courses after completing a traditional introductory physics sequence (the two classes are independent, and can be taken individually or together in any order). The courses emphasize mathematically analyzing models applicable to the life sciences, and assume the student has at least a semester of calculus. Biological Physics covers biomechanics, fluid dynamics, exponential growth, heat, diffusion, osmotic pressure, bioelectricity, biomagnetism, and feedback. Medical Physics covers imaging, tomography, ultrasound, optics, x-rays, nuclear medicine, and magnetic resonance imaging. Most students major in physics, medical physics, or biomedical engineering, although occasionally an ambitious premed, biology, or chemistry student enrolls. A primary goal of the courses is for students to learn how to use mathematical models to gain insight into biological processes.

AAPT SM 21

Two-Semester Intermediate Course Sequence in Physics for the Life Sciences

biological physics

mathematical modeling

medical physics

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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. 


Developing post-emergency field work practices from lessons learned during 2020

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.

Connecting Simulations to The World

Ownership is a significant learning goal in many project-based lab courses. An empirical model of ownership will support educators in the practice, design, and implementation of courses that encourage student ownership. In this talk, I will present results of a collaborative, fine-grained analysis on 15 student interviews from 5 Western and Mid-Western institutions. In prior work, our research team described ownership as a relationship among students and their projects that spans three project phases: choosing a topic, executing research methods, and creating deliverables. In each phase, combinations of material, cognitive, social, and affective student interactions compose student-project ownership. This talk will feature emergent social interaction sub-themes, such as student ‘interpersonal conflicts’ and ‘troubleshooting’; and instructor ‘coaching’ and ‘articulation’. Elaboration on these themes could point toward pedagogical guidelines that support student feelings of ownership, while also avoiding negative outcomes created by unbalanced project-roles and other conflicts. 


Student Ownership of Lab Projects: The role of interpersonal interactions

In this talk I will describe a course I developed and taught for the spring 2021 semester as part of a new general education requirement on power and justice. We start by looking at the history of exclusion in physics as well as the currently existing structures and practices that push out members of minoritized groups at various stages of the academic pipeline. The latter part of the course focuses on the roles and responsibilities of physicists in public policy, culminating in an outward-facing project in which students develop policy alternatives for controversial contemporary issues. I will discuss my journey to becoming more comfortable having difficult conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as lessons I learned along the way. 


Physics and Society: a course on power, justice, and policy

In this paper, we have practically studied the effect of various resistances (frictional forces, air resistances, viscous forces, etc.) on applied force. It has been found that in every action some part of the applied force is required to overcome the effect of resistances; and when applied force exceeds that amount of applied force only then a body can accelerates. As per study, the existing Newton's equation (F = ma) calculates only the applied force of accelerated bodies and does not count the effect of various resistances till bodies stays stationary or accelerates. Hence, a mathematical expression (F = ma+r) has been provided by including a factor describing above said resistances.

Modification of Newton's Second Law of Motion

Quality IPLS courses require examples which are biologically and/or chemically authentic. Creating such examples can be challenging for faculty not trained in these disciplines. What are some tools for creating such examples? How can such authentic examples motivate the topics to include in such a course? How can such examples be used to provide overarching themes to IPLS courses? These questions will be explored in the context of a large-enrollment (300-600 student) course taught both in a lecture hall and in a synchronous-optional online course at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Centering Units on Biologically and Chemically Authentic Contexts in IPLS-II

IPLS development, while richly recorded in recent PER literature and online resources, is primarily represented within the context of either large research universities or high-profile liberal arts colleges. This talk concerns preliminary research on an IPLS-appropriate course population in an introductory algebra-based physics course at a primarily-undergraduate regional comprehensive state university in the Southern US. The author’s experience pursuing IPLS research in this environment will guide the talk with three trains of thought: first, how investigations into IPLS at a non-research university have begun from a PER perspective; second, an overview of findings for this population the limitations that affect the implementation of the research; and third, discussion of plans and issues with moving forward from the findings, within a non-research university context.

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Two-Semester Intermediate Course Sequence in Physics for the Life Sciences

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