United States

The field of quantum computing is presently gaining tremendous attention from governments, researchers, engineers, academics and investors. There is an ongoing push for the development of quantum computers, advances in information technology, and the development of a quantum workforce. This needs to be accompanied by the development of quantum computing courses and curricula and the development and adoption of evidence-based materials and pedagogies to support the education of the next generation of quantum information scientists At Texas Tech University (TTU), we have introduced a course in Quantum Computing and have begun to research student understanding of topics in this field. Our goal is to develop evidence-based materials for the course. We did a series of interviews to identify students’ strengths and difficulties in these topics. We report on the results of these interivews and our initial work on the development of supplementary materials for the course.

AAPT SM 22

Investigating Students’ Strengths and Difficulties in Quantum Computing

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This talk will focus on ways to assist high school physics teachers in incorporating 21st century physics side by side with classical topics. The talk will compare the QuarkNet approach with the seven characteristics of effective professional development developed by Linda Darling-Hammond et.al.

21st Century Physics Integrated into the High School Physics Curriculum

Models like string theory inspire exciting questions about physics in higher dimensions. Fundamental concepts like energy and momentum generalize to extra dimensions easily, but angular momentum as traditionally taught depends on the cross product: an intrinsically three-dimensional concept. Instead, even introductory rotational physics can be taught just as easily in terms of "bivectors," which can be visualized as "tiles" with area and orientation whose components form an antisymmetric matrix. Bivectors have historically been discussed mostly in specialized contexts like spacetime classification or geometric algebra, but in most ways they are just as easy to understand as vectors, and they generalize naturally to extra dimensions. Imagine never again watching a student struggle to master yet another right hand rule, never again worrying about the subtle trap of a left-handed coordinate system. Teaching rotational physics in this language opens the door to exploration of higher dimensions, and it's more fundamental as well.

Lessons from Extra Dimensions: Rotations Were Bivectors All Along

The von Neumann theory of quantum measurement involves uniquely entangling the eigenstates of a self-adjoint operator with the pointer states of the experimental apparatus. Then, either wavefunction collapse, or decoherence (due to the macroscopic pointer states) fixes the measurement of the apparatus. Unfortunately, most, if not all, quantum experiments don't operate that way. Instead they are counting experiments, where properties are often inferred from the geometrical set-up of the experiment. In this talk, I will focus on how momentum is actually measured, which usually follows a time-of-flight strategy, that infers the momentum by measuring the position. I will provide examples for how this works and explain why we need to teach a proper measurement theory within undergraduate quantum mechanics classes. Only in this fashion, can we properly prepare our students for future careers in the quantum-enabled workforce, particularly in the area of quantum sensing.

Teaching Measurement to Prepare for Quantum Sensing

Physical science standards on electromagnetic and gravitational interactions are sometimes relegated to a chapter in a textbook and may feel to middle and high school students like topics that are old and stale, in other words, settled science. Approaching these standards from a different direction - using current searches for dark matter as a storyline - can spark students' curiosity and engage them in seeing science as a process that is always evolving. Now that we are face-to-face again, we will take the opportunity to explore hands-on activities developed or adapted by the Education and Outreach Department at the Sanford Underground Research Facility around the topics of evidence for dark matter and current dark matter searches.

Dark Matter Activities as a Phenomenon for MS/HS Standards

Hypersonic flight is a domain that is generally considered to include anything traveling five times or more the speed of sound. At these speeds, unique challenges arise that influence vehicle design. Hypersonic flight is also of national defense interest for most international actors. However, there is little in the way of curriculum to support hypersonic instruction at the K-12 level. I will report on the initial curriculum development results for teaching concepts about hypersonic flight. This curriculum development is being completed through a partnership of the Indiana Univeristy-Bloomington School of Education and the education outreach office at Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center.

The Development of a Hypersonic Curriculum: Initial Results

Inequitable outcomes in physics courses point to systemic inequities in higher education for students with historically disadvantaged backgrounds and investigations focusing on these can be useful to provide support and create an equitable and inclusive learning environment. Specifically, student grades and motivational outcomes in introductory physics courses can influence their retention in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines and future career aspirations. This study uses data at a large public research institution to investigate the grades earned by students categorized by four demographic characteristics: gender, race/ethnicity, low income status, and first-generation college student status. We find that on average across all years of study, underrepresented minority (URM) students experience a larger penalty to their STEM GPA than even the most disadvantaged non-URM students. In order to further understand inequitable outcomes in introductory physics courses, we discuss an investigation of students' motivational beliefs that show a gender gap.

Not all Disadvantages Are Equal: Investigating Grades and Motivational Beliefs

This presentation synthesizes several strands of quantitative analysis of the relation of membership in a demographic group underrepresented in physics classes on course outcomes (course grades and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation post-test scores) as well as university outcomes (graduation). Differences are explored by gender, underrepresented ethnic or racial minority status, status as a first-generation college student, and rural or urban status. Mediation and moderation analysis show that many differences in course outcomes are largely explained by prior preparation (with some important exceptions), but that the factors influencing differences are not the same for all groups. Survival analysis shows that the patterns of risk of negative college outcomes are not the same for all groups suggesting retention efforts need to be tailored for different demographic groups to maximally retain all students.

The Effect of Prior Preparation on Students Underrepresented in Physics

We present the process and outcomes of introducing a capstone project to the first semester of calculus-based Introductory Physics sequence suitable for both in-class and remote learning. At the end of a semester, students are offered a variety of physics situations to thoroughly investigate and explain by using the knowledge, tools, and techniques that they have gained during the first semester of physics lectures and mastered in laboratories. Topics for the project are curated to provide a possibility of multiple insights by utilizing energy considerations, force-acceleration approach and numerical simulations, and investigated through videos suitable for video analysis. Students are encouraged to work in small groups to boost the peer to peer learning. The project culminates in a poster presentation which provides a summative assessment of the learning gains. The project is introduced as a part of the general course redesign funded by the Affordable Learning Georgia grant.

Using a Capstone Experience in the Introductory Physics Classes

Many undergraduate students find it difficult to visualize 3-D concepts in physics and engineering courses. There is a need for context-specific spatial visualization activities to help students connect 2-D representations to 3-D models. We have assembled an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate physics/computer science research students together with physics and PER faculty to create 3D augmented reality (AR) models of physics concepts for astronomy, kinematics, mechanics, electricity, magnetism and mathematical physics. AR models provide students with an opportunity to convert 2-D representations to 3-D visualizations. Students and instructors can utilize these AR apps in a variety of situations including for use within lectures, problem solving sessions or labs either within in-person or remote instruction.

Augmented Reality Models of Physics Concepts

Acquiring an unnecessary radioactive source inventory is discouraged in the 21st century. A laboratory using radioactive sources present in our environment was developed to observe nuclear decay and transport phenomena. Progeny of radon-220 and radon-222 were collected using electrostatic techniques and observed with both a NaI(Tl) well counter spectrometer and a cloud chamber. The spectrometer recorded six ten-minute spectra, followed by four five-hour spectra, which were used to identify radon progeny based on decay emissions' characteristic energy and radionuclide half-lives. Radon progeny deposited on the end of a wire formed a short-lived, pointlike source of high energy alpha particles for the cloud chamber. Radon-220 itself was introduced into the cloud chamber, so that gas diffusion, linear energy transfer, and radioactive decay chains could be observed and discussed. A video presentation of these experiments was created for remote instruction during the pandemic.

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Investigating Students’ Strengths and Difficulties in Quantum Computing

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21st Century Physics Integrated into the High School Physics Curriculum