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We teach Optics by leveraging a coherent series of hands-on laboratory engagements that connect well with classroom discussion of mathematical modeling. These labs directly explore mathematical models contained in Optics texts, commonly utilizing liquid crystal Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs), which allow simple and direct programmatic control of phase, amplitude, or polarization across the field of a beam of light. As added bonus, their use avoids the excessive burdens associated with manual alignment and re-alignment (and re-alignment and...) that would be required for systematic studies based on traditional (fixed) optical components. Again, SLMs allow direct control of amplitude and phase modulation of beams, which is useful for teaching Fresnel Diffraction, Fraunhofer Diffraction, and Fourier Optics, as well as spatial filtering, computer-generated Holograms, Aberration Correction, Laser Modes, and much, much more (e.g., encoding information, the linear momentum, spin angular momentum, and orbital angular momentum of light beams).

AAPT SM 20

The Future of Optics is Programmable

instructional labs

optics

remote labs

Join AAPT and Physics Educators worldwide in developing and strengthening your professional connections by attending the 2021 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting. AAPT meetings are a great way to reflect on your teaching, recommit to best practices and re-energize your career with new research, products, and techniques.

Listen to internationally known plenary speakers, attend sessions, workshops, and special activities. Attending the virtual summer meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.

Please log in with your AAPT account or register for the event if you haven't already.

If you are registered please note that you need to be logged in with your AAPT email / credentials in order to get access.

AAPT SM 21

technical paper

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

We are continuing a nationwide effort to develop a systemic understanding of the landscape of informal physics using an organizational theory perspective. We have collected surveys and interviews with facilitators, but this information is only from the perspective of the faculty or physics student leaders and does not tell us about the social dynamics within each program. Thus, to complement these data, we need to observe informal physics events as they occur. In this talk, we will discuss our strategy for visits to program sites to observe social interactions between program participants as well as programmatic details in action. We report on an initial site visit to a physics open house outreach event, where we took field-notes and conducted formal and informal interviews with participating personnel members. Here, we discuss findings from applying an organizational framework to the site visit data and challenges we encountered in the data collection process.

An Ethnographic Approach to Understanding Informal Physics

Although we have found that students in our Introductory Physics for Life Science (IPLS) course describe physics as more relevant to their primary interests than do their counterparts in a traditional introductory physics environment, we do not yet know whether IPLS courses better prepare life science students to use physical reasoning in contexts that extend beyond those explicitly encountered in IPLS. To answer this question of whether IPLS better prepared our students for future learning, we designed and administered a task related to fluid dynamics at the conclusion of both traditional and IPLS introductory physics courses. We describe the construction of the task and the ways in which IPLS students approached the task differently than did students in the traditional course. We interpret the results in light of the goal of the IPLS course, supporting transfer within the preparation for future learning paradigm around which our course is designed.

Assessing the impact of IPLS on physical reasoning

Previous studies have shown evidence of a gender gap in performance in introductory physics courses for conceptual assessments, course grades, exams, and homework. This study explores the relation between a student’s gender and their performance, and perception of that performance, in both calculus-based and algebra-based introductory physics sequences at Texas A&M University. Investigation of student performance based on gender is done using analysis of variance on student midterm exam grades and final letter grades from multiple instructors’ courses from 2008-2018. Student perception of their performance and inclusion in the course was measured through a survey administered in fall 2019. We present results from both parts of this study to try to better understand differences in gendered performance in introductory physics sequences.

Instructor and Student Gender's Effect on Performance in Introductory Courses

Within the last 15 years, computational thinking (CT) has emerged as a focal point of K-12 education. Numerous frameworks have outlined the practices involved when students and teachers engage in CT. These frameworks discuss how CT practices should be understood, implemented, and assessed in the classroom. While curricular expectations around this topic are becoming clearer, teachers (especially high school STEM instructors) still express a significant need for assessment strategies in the classroom. In light of this, we have begun to develop an assessment that will measure high school and early college instructors’ perspectives on CT practices. Currently, we are constructing an open-ended pilot survey that will help us understand which practices are relevant to teachers and how familiar teachers are with these practices. Once we have identified the CT practices that teachers are interested in evaluating, we will move to the next step of the assessment development: creating an open-ended free-response questionnaire to administer to students.

Navigating Computational Thinking Frameworks for Introductory Physics Courses

The Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving (AAPS) Survey has been used to analyze students in introductory calculus-based physics, introductory math-based astronomy, upper division/graduate-level physics, as well as Turkish students in high school and introductory university physics. In this study, post-test survey results from introductory algebra-based physics course sections in 2019 and 2020 will be checked for statistical relationship with the following variables: 1) students’ self-reported learning goals in introductory algebra-based physics courses; 2) students’ choice of major (in particular, life science majors dominate the student population). From prior studies regarding these two variables, it is anticipated that students that express a mastery learning goal (as opposed to a performance learning goal or otherwise) may have more expert-like views than other students; discussion will focus on the accuracy of this statement and potential explanations for results.

Attitudes and Approaches to Physics Problem Solving Survey: Life Science Majors

The Big Astronomy Project is a multi-institutional effort that aims to share the stories of the people and places that make big astronomy possible in Chile. We have developed a model, the Dome+ model, to identify best practices for extending engagement beyond planetarium shows. The model’s main component is a planetarium show, where planetarium visitors are shown NSF ground-based observatories in Chile. To support STEM identity, interest, and agency for planetarium visitors, we are creating additional resources such as weekly virtual sessions with STEM professionals, a web portal with additional content, and a suite of hands-on activities. The project strives to 1) promote awareness of the investments in astronomy being made by the US in Chile, 2) encourage interest in diverse STEM career opportunities at large observatories, 3) share knowledge of the science enabled by big astronomy, 4) increase perceptions by Latinx youth and adults about careers at observatories.

Extending Engagement Beyond the Planetarium: Big Astronomy in Chile

Diagraming physical scenarios is ubiquitous in physics problem solving and a key focus of physics education. In this talk, we discuss and compare unprompted and prompted diagrams generated by 19 physics majors (ranging from lower-division to graduate students) during one-on-one problem-solving interviews. These interviews included multiple-choice introductory-level physics problems (that neither contained nor asked for diagrams) followed by explicit diagraming tasks for similar scenarios. We discuss patterns and surprises in student-generated diagrams as well as implications for instruction and assessment.

Similarities and Differences between Unprompted and Prompted Student-generated Diagrams

There is a growing interest in the scientific practice of Developing and Using Models as it is included in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). However, often the focus has been on models that capture how a given phenomenon looks, rather than models for explaining and predicting how scientific phenomena work. We developed a curriculum focused on supporting students in creating mechanistic (or explanatory) models of magnetism that can be used to make predictions. In this curriculum, students: explore an anchoring phenomenon, create models, investigate additional magnetic properties while collecting data, revise their models, and finally, through consensus building activities, create a consensus model that they present to the class. We have found that this process allows students to create models of magnetism that are both explanatory and predictive. We will present this curriculum and show examples of student work to help participants use this in their own classrooms.

Creating Explanatory and Predictive Models of Magnetism in the Middle-Grades

There is a dramatic underrepresentation of ethnic minorities and women within physics. The reasons for this underrepresentation are not fully understood. To explore this, we have surveyed high school physics students in order to investigate their perception of the various physics career paths. We paid special attention in our analysis to how a student’s demographic data affected these variables. In this presentation, we will detail the trends we found between the students’ perception of various physics career paths, their likelihood to pursue a career in physics, and their demographics.

Physics Career Expectations and Diversity among Secondary School Students

Over the last 10 years the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University has installed a variety of science outreach displays in the main hallway leading into our building. These include hands-on physics demonstrations of electromagnetism, optics and chaos that people can try themselves. We have also installed monitors showing videos of our activities at TRIUMF and the Trottier Observatory. An additional monitor pays tribute to the generous alumni who have made donations to the department. The walls are painted with images of diagrams and equations from physics lectures, and a schematic of the TRIUMF accelerator. All of this makes for a welcoming entrance to our department that people from all walks of life, from preschool-aged children to seniors, enjoy. We will discuss how various members from the SFU Physics Dept. came together to design and build these displays, and the impact they have had on visitors to our campus.

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An Ethnographic Approach to Understanding Informal Physics

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