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I will report on three practices I implemented in upper division electromagnetic theory courses to improve the impact of homework on student learning. The principal innovation was to adapt some of the principles of calibrated peer review, which has been demonstrated to be beneficial in writing assignments to common physics homework assignments. The other two innovations involved having the students complete the assignments using templates in Jupyter notebooks. This gave them an opportunity to present their homework in a professional manner and to check their symbolic answers against answer verification software running on a server. These innovations improved student persistence until mastery, encouraged students to study alternate approaches to problems, and increased the time students spent on analyzing what they did incorrectly on problems. I will report formal and informal feedback I received from students on the effectiveness of these innovations.

AAPT SM 21

Improving Upper Division Homework Effectiveness

online homework

calibrated

upper division

peer review

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technical paper

I describe a directed reading course intended for Physics and Astrophysics majors on causes of, manifestations of, and ways to address underrepresentation. Students examined their own identities, and designed community projects to promote inclusivity in our department.

Engaging Physics Majors in DEI Work Through a Half-credit Course

Phoebe Sarah Marks was born on 28th April 1854 in Portsea, UK and was one of eight children. Sarah had a hard childhood but was very gifted and was helped by several benefactors. She attended Girton College, Cambridge studying mathematics; she passed her Tripos in 1880 but Cambridge did not award her a degree. While at Cambridge, she invented a sphygmomanometer. She obtained a London University degree a year later and began teaching. In 1884, she started a course on electricity at Finsbury Technical College, presented by Professor William Edward Ayrton; they were married a year later. Her career flourished and she made other valuable inventions. She was a committed suffragette. She died of blood-poisoning on 26th August 1923. 
It is now only two years to the centenary of her death, so we may expect to hear much more of her remarkable life in the near future.


Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923): physicist, inventor, engineer and suffragette.

As a teen, I read biographies and mysteries. I loved reading about scientists, my favorite was book "Madame Curie" by Eve Curie. One of my happiest times was when I actually attended a talk by Marie Curie's granddaughter. I got to hear firsthand stories from the granddaughter who has two Nobel Prizes in the family! I currently direct an LSAMP program at my university where many students in the program are Hispanic. Do my students know of others in physics that look like them? Do they know their stories? Moreover, do the non-Hispanics in my department know about these persons? Do you? I will share the contents of a poster(s) that will reflect Hispanics in the physical sciences, particularly physics. Hispanic students should read about the lives of their role models in history and about those that are currently successful in the field.

Hispanics in Physics for Today's Students

Many high-profile contemporary physicists have aligned themselves with paranormal skepticism, as espoused by organizations like the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Yet this attitude has not always been universal for physicists, nor do we need to reach back to the era of alchemy for counterexamples. In the modern era, we find prominent physicists who were members of the Society for Psychical Research, proponents of synchronicity and ESP, and believers in all manner of quantum spookiness. In this talk, I will review recent work from historians of science on the complex connections between experimental physics and paranormal belief, and argue that an appreciation of this history may help physicists to communicate their subject in a way that is more inclusive to diverse viewpoints.

Historical Flirtations with the Physics of the Paranormal

Whitewashing science goes back hundreds of years. An early victim was the medieval Arab scientist Ibn al-Haythem. His work combining experimental investigations with mathematical modeling anticipated by many centuries the rise of European science, and his breakthrough theory of light and perception was the first to be both physically grounded and mathematically rigorous. In the late medieval period his theory of light and perception became widely accepted throughout Europe, influencing the development of Renaissance art and providing the foundations for modern geometric optics. In the process, however, his name and ethnic background were obscured—likely due to racial or religious prejudice—and even to this day he is not given due credit for the significant contributions he made to physics. In this talk I will briefly review his work and how it entered into the European cannon while denying him due credit.

The Uncelebrated Arab Genius

The Islamic Golden Age was a time of great cultural and intellectual exchange lasting from approximately the 8th to the 14th century, located in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of Europe. This time period was also characterized by major developments in science and medicine. Even words like “algebra” and “algorithm” can trace their origins back to this period. However, the importance of this era to the development of modern science ought to be better known. This talk will cover some of the background history of the Islamic Golden Age as well as some of the major contributions in mechanics, optics, and astronomy.

Importance of the Islamic Golden Age for Physics and Astronomy

Diversity in physics remains low despite a social shift towards STEM inclusion. According to AIP’s Statistical Research Center, women have seen some increases in representation at the post-secondary level, however that has stagnated even with consistent, equitable participation in high school. Moreover, among underrepresented minority groups, less than 15% of all physical science bachelor degrees awarded in the US are to African-American or Latino/a individuals. After decades of work promoting STEM inclusion, why does this disparity remain? The answer may lie in our marketing, and how we as teachers not only sell the course, but the truth that anyone and everyone can belong. In this talk, we will use the following questions to guide our discussion. What is the current state of diversity in physics? What is identity and how do we define the self? How can teachers better prime their students to see themselves in science careers?

Priming Young Scientists: Identity and Physics

In recent years, addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM fields, including physics and astronomy, has received growing attention. To effectively promote equity and social justice, we need to acknowledge the role of oppression in disciplinary cultures and thus transform these cultures to be created by and for people of all identities and lived experiences. These actions will improve the teaching and learning of academic content. Here, we propose a culturally responsive framework for astronomy education that incorporates asset-building, reflection, and connectedness, and we present a sample curriculum created using this framework. Students learn astronomy content, such as about Solar System dynamics through physical modeling and simulations, as well as participate in discussions that problematize cultural norms and develop potential solutions. Our approach guides students to critically engage with the content and empowers them to become change agents for making astronomy equitable.

Promoting Equity and Social Justice through Culturally Responsive Astronomy Education

I show some uses of Projective Geometric Algebra for solving problems in geometric optics.

The Equations Match the Drawings: Geometric Algebra for Geometric Optics

Quantum mechanics instruction has remained unchanged for at least 75 years, following a coordinate-space-based formalism that requires significant class time for instruction on the mathematical background for the Frobenius method, delta functions, Fourier transforms, etc. This mathematics instruction, greatly limits the amount of physics that can be included. In this talk, I will tell you how to reverse this trend. In Fall 2020, I taught a one-semester quantum mechanics course at Georgetown that worked within a representation-independent formalism (emphasizing operators, not wavefunctions). It is mathematically simpler and frees up time for discussing conceptual and physical ideas. I discuss important experiments such as Stern-Gerlach, delayed choice, EPR, Bell inequality tests, Hong-Ou-Mandel, Pickering-Fowler lines, discovery of deuterium, proton radius, electron momentum spectroscopy, time of flight, hyperfine interactions and radio astronomy, cyclotron resonance and MRI, single-photon detection, homodyne detection, and LIGO. Come see how you can adopt this for your class too.

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Improving Upper Division Homework Effectiveness

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