Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2007 APS March Meeting
Volume 52, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 5–9, 2007; Denver, Colorado
Session S21: Physics Education and Outreach |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Margaret McMahan, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Room: Colorado Convention Center 106 |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2:30PM - 2:42PM |
S21.00001: PhysicsQuest: Sparking Middle School Interest in Physics Jessica Clark, Kendra Rand The National Academies' ``Rising above the Gathering Storm''\footnote{ More details can be found at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html/toc.} report names the improvement of K-12 science and mathematics education as its highest priority recommendation. This recommendation includes enlarging the pipeline of students preparing to study STEM subjects at university by increasing the number of students who take advanced high school level science courses. To this end, the American Physical Society's Public Outreach department offers PhysicsQuest, a free program designed to engage middle school science students in a learning adventure. The core idea of the program is to provide a fun and exciting way for students to encounter physics, thereby eliminating some of the fear often associated with the subject and making them more likely to take high school physics courses. In the end, the students do learn some physics, but, more importantly, they have a fun experience with physics. This talk further describes the PhysicsQuest program, including feedback and results from the 2005 project and initial data from the 2006 project. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2:42PM - 2:54PM |
S21.00002: Adopt-a-Physicist: Connecting Physicists with High School Students Kendra Rand, Jessica Clark We often tell students that they can do anything with a physics education, but when students are asked to draw a picture of a scientist they frequently draw Einstein-looking figures working alone in a lab. Many students - and even physics teachers - are unsure about exactly what it is that physicists do and where they work. In order to expose high school students to the variety of careers available to people that study physics and to combat misconceptions about what physicists ``look like,'' the American Physical Society Public Outreach team has created the Adopt-a-Physicist program. Through this program high school physics students find out first-hand about the careers, educational backgrounds, and lives of physics graduates (defined as having bachelor's degrees or higher). Each class can ``adopt'' up to three physicists by registering for their online discussion forums hosted by compadre.org. Classes can view profiles of all of the registered physicists and choose those whose interests align with theirs. Students are free to ask their physicists anything, within good taste, during the three-week period when the discussion forums are active. Results and outcomes from the preliminary sessions will be discussed in this talk. More details are available at \underline {http://www.adoptaphysicist.org} . [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
S21.00003: Curriculum that incorporates good physics and good math -- AT THE SAME TIME! Derek Weisel Anyone with experience in physics education knows there is considerable consternation about how much trouble students can have during their first experience with physics. It is a common opinion that many students struggle in physics because of a weak math background. Recent research has shown that this is not always the case. Many students who have shown a tested proficiency in mathematics still struggle in physics. It is an important question to ask how a student who excels in mathematics can still struggle in physics. If this question can be answered it may open up new methods of instruction to aid all students. After discussion of this question, examples of curriculum that simultaneously meet common standards of physics and common standards of math will be shown. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 3:06PM - 3:18PM |
S21.00004: Preparing graduate students to be educators Edward Price, Noah Finkelstein We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and a course, Teaching and Learning Physics, are designed to be mutually supportive, address these broader graduate roles, and support the development of the field of physics education research. While voluntary, PFP has attracted the participation of roughly half the physics graduate students at each of two large research institutions. Compared to the national rate, these students are roughly twice as likely to report an interest in pursuing future roles as educators. While less than one in five of participants surveyed reported education being valued by the research community in physics, more than 90\% reported intentions to incorporate the results of research in physics education in their future teaching. Experience with the synergistic program, Teaching and Learning Physics, demonstrates that it is possible to replicate earlier successes of the program initiated at a different institution, including increasing student mastery of physics, developing student interest in education and teaching, and engaging students in research projects in physics education. In addition to introducing these programs, we identify some of the critical features that contribute to their successes. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 3:18PM - 3:30PM |
S21.00005: Who Benefits from PER?: PER as a component of teacher preparation Brian Pyper At BYU-I, we have been able to provide authentic PER experiences for about a half-dozen undergraduate pre-service science teachers. Although some interesting experiments have come out of this research group, perhaps of more interest is the impact these experiences have had on the preparation of these students anticipating careers in public education. This presentation will focus on discussing the initially very positive results of this experience and future plans for the possibility of providing this experience for as many of our pre-service teacher candidates as possible. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
S21.00006: Teaching Interventions to Increase Outside Class Study Hours of Non-Science Majors Taking Physical Science Courses Liang Zeng, G. Herold Poelzer, Matthew Cowan This quasi-experimental study, conducted in the Physics and Geology Department at a predominately Hispanic university in South Texas, measures the change in average outside-class-study- hours per week of non-science majors taking physical science courses. The experimental group received four teaching interventions that were implemented to motivate these students to increase their study hours: Frequent oral encouragement, the Study Hour Formula sheet, the Weekly Priority Task list, and The Attributional Rating Form for Test Scores that was handed to students after each of four regular physical science tests. Both the experimental and comparison groups kept detailed logs of their outside-class-study-hour sessions, handed in to the instructor on a weekly basis. A pretest was administered to both groups at the beginning of the semester, and the same test will be administered at the end of the semester. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance is used to determine whether the increase in achievement between the pretest and posttest was greater for the experimental group. In addition, trends of individual weekly outside-class-study- hours per week and quality of study hours were examined in relation to improvement in test scores throughout the semester. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
S21.00007: Correlating students' beliefs about physics with learning, retention, and recruitment Katherine K. Perkins, Wendy K. Adams, Mindy Gratny, Steven J. Pollock, Carl E. Wieman We have developed and used a new survey instrument -- the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS)$^{1}$-- to extensively study the importance of students' beliefs about physics and about learning physics to physics education. Since Fall 2003, we have surveyed over 10000 students in 50 physics courses ranging from courses for non-science majors to graduate courses in physics. In this talk, we will present the important, and sometimes surprising, results emerging from this study regarding the relationships between students' beliefs about physics and learning physics and: their conceptual learning, their interest in and pursuit of science study, and classroom teaching practices$^{2}$. 1. W.K. Adams, K.K. Perkins, N. Podolefsky, M. Dubson, N.D. Finkelstein and C.E. Wieman, ``A new instrument for measuring student beliefs about physics and learning physics: the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey'', Phys. Rev ST: Phys. Educ. Res. 2, 1, 010101 (2006). 2. See \underline {http://per.colorado.edu} for relevant papers. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
S21.00008: Do Students Know What Physicists Think About Physics? Kara E. Gray, Wendy K. Adams, Carl E. Wieman, Katherine K. Perkins The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS)$^{1,2}$ is a 42 statement questionnaire designed to elicit student beliefs about physics. Previous results from the survey have shown that students do not agree with the attitudes of physicists and that their opinions do not change (or more often move farther away from the altitudes of physicists) after a semester of instruction. These results have raised the question of do students even know what physicists believe about how to learn physics. In this study, students were asked to choose their opinion (from a five-point Likert scale) and their opinion of what a physicist would believe. Students from three introductory physics classes (spanning engineers, pre-meds, and non-science majors) were surveyed. Results on student opinions of physicists' beliefs will be compared to their personal beliefs, and to the beliefs of physicists. 1. W.K. Adams, K.K. Perkins, N. Podolefsky, M. Dubson, N.D. Finkelstein and C.E. Wieman, ``A new instrument for measuring student beliefs about physics and learning physics: the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey'', Phys. Rev ST: Phys. Educ. Res. 2, 1, 010101 (2006). 2. See \underline {http://per.colorado.edu} for relevant papers. [Preview Abstract] |
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