Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session L8: Excellence in Physics Education Award |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Arthur Bienenstock, Stanford University Room: Governor's Square 17 |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 3:30PM - 4:06PM |
L8.00001: Excellence in Physics Education Award Talk: Physics at the Community College Invited Speaker: During the 1989 Critical Issues in Two-Year College Physics and Astronomy Conference, it became obvious to many attendees that there was a need to know more about physics programs at the community college and what could be done to impact their physics programs. To find out more about physics at the community college, a number of initiatives were implemented during the last two decades that have dramatically changed many physics programs at community colleges. Most of these initiatives were conducted through or were associated with the American Association of Physics Teachers. One initiative that has had a tremendous impact in this process has been the Two-Year College (TYC) Workshop Project. This presentation will provide more details on the initiatives that have occurred during the last two decades and the impact that they have had on physics programs and current and future physics faculty at community colleges. Details on the development and implementation of the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism, a variety of microcomputer-based laboratories activities, and associated TYC curriculum projects will also be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 4:06PM - 4:42PM |
L8.00002: Excellence in Physics Education Award Talk: Revitalizing Introductory Physics at Community Colleges and More Invited Speaker: This project started because many community college physics instructors wanted to improve the learning and understanding of their students in physics. However, these teachers, at that time, were isolated from many of the emerging developments in physics education research and computer technology such as MBL (microcomputer based laboratories). While there were some opportunities within the American Association of Physics Teachers to learn about recent educational developments, there was nothing targeted directly to the unique needs of the two-year college physics community; nor did many of the curriculum developers have much knowledge about this group. The initial goal of this project was to design and provide hands-on workshops to introduce new computer technology, software, curricular materials and approaches arising from physics education research to community college physics teachers. They would then have the background to decide if these new ideas were worthy of adoption and feasible at their institutions. NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education supported these workshop efforts by funding seven different grants from three different programs. These grants have led to 61 workshops with 52 workshop leaders, which were held at 23 community colleges in 14 states for over 1300 participants. This presentation will provide more details about these workshops, and about the subsequent development of the Conceptual Survey on Electricity and Magnetism, and a book on Ranking Tasks edited by us, but written by many participants in the early workshops. In addition, grants were received from NSF for the acquisition and development of computer lab technology that was later featured in some of the workshops. Finally, three NSF grants were received for the development of new educational materials called TIPERs (Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research) that will be described. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 4:42PM - 5:18PM |
L8.00003: Excellence in Physics Education Award Talk: Promoting Incremental Research-based Instructional Innovation Invited Speaker: One guiding principle from the start of the Two Year College (TYC) Workshop project was that since, as the clich\'{e} states, ``you teach as you were taught'' most instructors are not equipped to adopt newer techniques, especially those involving major changes in approach. Some of the TYC workshops and curricular materials were designed to address this difficulty by providing tools for instructors to make incremental changes to their teaching approaches. The research-based approaches and materials presented in the workshops were often ones that an instructor could incorporate as small changes in a single class period, or a single laboratory activity. This presentation will review some of the physics education research results indicating the need for change from traditional lecture and cookbook based laboratories, where students are focused on producing answers, to alternative approaches where students are focused on having the physics make sense to them. Then I will describe some of the materials, such as Ranking Tasks, What, if anything, is Wrong Tasks, and Working Backwards Tasks, developed in the project to help instructors construct sense-making learning environments for their students. I will also describe how these materials, while developed with TYC instructors, are flexible enough to be of use to any secondary or college instructors who wish to make incremental changes in their instructional approaches. [Preview Abstract] |
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