United States

Understanding how physicists solve problems can guide the development of methods that help students learn and improve at solving complex problems. Leveraging the framework of cognitive task analysis, we conducted semi-structured interviews with theoretical physicists (N=11) to gain insight into the cognitive processes and skills that they use in their authentic research. Among numerous activities that theorists described as integral to their work, here we elucidate how theorists utilized analogies. We found that theorists used analogies to generate new project ideas as well as overcome conceptual challenges. Theorists deliberately sought out or constructed systems to use as a source of knowledge, indicating this is a skill students can practice. When mapping knowledge from one system to another, theorists sought to use systems that shared a high degree of mathematical similarity; however, these systems did not always share similar surface features. We conclude by offering potential applications to instruction.

AAPT SM 22

Making expert processes visible: how and why theorists use analogy

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technical paper

This study investigated student difficulties reading electric field diagrams and the effect a visual change to these diagrams had on students’ ability to interpret these diagrams. Electric field diagrams are often drawn with a uniform line thickness and color. We modified the electric field diagrams to use variations in line thickness, line continuity, and arrow shape to indicate the strength and direction of the electric field. These changes, which are consistent with theories of visual attention and grounded cognition, exploit students’ innate ability to perceive line variations and arrow styles to communicate the electric field strength and direction. Students were randomly assigned to compare electric field strength and direction for points on traditional or modified diagrams. Results show correctness gains of 12.3% for magnitude and gains of 7% for direction using the modified diagrams. Overall correctness gains of 10% were observed for the modified over the traditional diagrams.

Investigating introductory student difficulties reading electric field diagrams

“How to start/set up the problem?” “What to do next?” The list can go on and is painfully familiar to virtually all students and not only. If left unanswered, these questions can easily turn students away from Physics, making problem solving a torture rather than fun and disengaging students rather than stimulating them to learn more. The author shares some approaches, methods, and materials that might help in resolving this situation based on 30+ years of learning and teaching Physics at different levels. They have been tested with hundreds of students and proven to help many of them. The material briefly described in this presentation is available for students and teachers. It was published in full last year in a two-part book with the same title.

Tools and Logic of Problem Solving in Physics

We investigate the different cultures of introductory university physics pedagogy of the United States and China through case studies at Kansas State University and Chongqing Jiaotong University. We look at the effects of different educational system backgrounds, social and cultural backgrounds, university systems and student characteristics on teaching status and pedagogy. In the US, the introductory physics curriculum pays more attention to quantitative reasoning and ethical significance of science, while that of China emphasizes the results and the materialistic worldview more. These differences are supported by greater resources in teaching time, lecture demonstration development, and supporting students’ learning. However, these increased resources in the US also lead to more diversity of teaching methods and increased efforts to assess students. We close with suggestions for improving the general education of physics in the universities of the two countries.

Comparing introductory physics courses in the US and China

"I did not realize [it] was missing from my life." The Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking Faculty Online Learning Community (NextGenPET FOLC) was created to support faculty teaching the NextGenPET curriculum. Since 2017, fifty adopters of NextGenPET have met regularly in small groups by videoconference to discuss practical issues, teaching strategies, and student learning. The FOLC provides a sounding board for ideas, space to share experiences and challenges, affective support, and a venue for troubleshooting. The opening quote is one participant’s description of the value of talking with others about their teaching. Beyond immediate impacts on their NextGenPET teaching, faculty participants have described significant professional growth, a sense of community, engaging in educational research, and increasing their leadership roles. This talk will discuss the development and evolution of the FOLC, describe emergent faculty outcomes, and offer lessons for other faculty development efforts.

Emergent outcomes from a faculty online learning community

The Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (NextGen PET) is a proven research-based curriculum that centers the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and has been shown to significantly impact both future teacher content knowledge and understanding of how students learn science. In a recent project*, we developed a hybrid lecture-lab implementation of existing materials and wrote new materials that targeted the NGSS scientific practice of Planning and Conducting Investigations (PCI). Then COVID hit. In this talk, we report on how this recent format change helped us manage the shift online. The students were resilient, based on their course evaluation comments. We examine whether their content learning, attitudes changes, and knowledge of PCI (using materials developed for this purpose) was as resilient with data from before, during, and after the online course. Results of pre-post instruction analyses between groups and evaluation responses are discussed, as are implications for future instruction.

Student Resilience in COVID: Advantages of a Hybrid Adaptation

The Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking curriculum has been developed through years of research and development to teach physical science to pre-service elementary school teachers and other non-science major undergraduates. I will give an overview of the curriculum and the breadth of topics in physics and chemistry that it explores. This curriculum design has been extended to other areas of science with "Life Science and Everyday Thinking" and "Matter and Energy in Earth Systems," though neither has a corresponding faculty online learning community. I will describe how, in a hybrid environment (lectures and labs), and using common threads such as energy conservation, an integrated science course has been created that prepares students for their elementary education certification in a way that is inquiry-based, prioritizes active learning, and provides students with the tools to continue their own scientific learning as they become in-service teachers.

The NextGenPET Curriculum and Beyond: Integrating the Sciences

The SmartPhysics project stems from the collaboration between students and faculty at the University of Padova in Italy and the City University of New York. We explored the benefits of using the sensors which are available on commercial smartphones as laboratory equipment in introductory college/university physics courses. As a sample of our explorations, we discuss two experiments that were developed and tested during the academic year 2021-2022. Both activities make use of the phyphox app. The first one is a revisitation of a classic experiment and aims at measuring the gravitational acceleration using a pendulum and a proximity stopwatch. The second one targets the concept of energy dissipation and measures, by means of acoustic stopwatch, the energy lost by a bouncing ball through a series of inelastic collisions with a hard surface. While these activities can be performed in a traditional laboratory setting, we present at-home adaptations for online courses.

Smart Physics: a path to innovate laboratory physics experiences

This presentation will describe a novel laboratory activity where the acoustic frequencies produced by the resonant vibrational modes of coins are measured using a smartphone’s microphone and analyzed in real-time using free mobile applications. The resulting resonant acoustic spectra allow for unique characterization of coins with different physical properties. The activity provides the opportunity to develop student skills in a very simple, yet elegant, experimental design, be exposed to a wide range of fundamental physics phenomena and use powerful visualization tools. In addition to the STEM benefits, students will investigate coins that convey a story of art, society and history creating additional student interest. This presentation will include examples of resonant acoustic spectra for a range of coins and describe a wide range of opportunities for investigation that has been used in introductory high school physics or can be extended to challenge advanced physics majors in universities.

Resonant Acoustic Characterization of Coins: An Inquiry-Based Learning Activity

This presentation will take a thermodynamic approach to presenting concepts about climate science. It is appropriate for presentations to teachers and is the basis for preparing presentations to students in grade six through 12. The presenter has numerous presentations appropriate for students in those grades and is willing to share them with teachers who wish to make climate science presentations to students. The climate emergency is a great threat to the future of our culture. It is important that students be made aware of what needs to be done to insure their future.

Climate Science for Teachers

Critical thinking is an important skill for students, particularly in the climate change debate. Students need to be able to distinguish between facts and misinformation. In order to access students’ critical thinking skills semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight students aiming to become future physics teachers as well as with five students from Saxonian high schools. The interviews were based on five competences of critical thinking defined by Halpern (verbal reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, likelihood and uncertainty, problem solving and decision making) as well as content knowledge about climate change (such as greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, etc.). All interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative content analysis by Kuckartz. The results from the interviews form the base for the development of the test on critical thinking on climate change, as well as teaching materials to enhance critical thinking skills. The results from the interviews will be presented.

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Making expert processes visible: how and why theorists use analogy

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