Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS March Meeting
Volume 54, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 16–20, 2009; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Session D29: Focus Session: The Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshops I |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Robert Hilborn, University of Texas at Dallas Room: 333 |
Monday, March 16, 2009 2:30PM - 3:06PM |
D29.00001: A Dozen Years and a Thousand Participants: The Workshops for Preparing New Faculty in Physics and Astronomy Invited Speaker: Beginning in 1996, an annual workshop for newly hired faculty in physics and astronomy has been held under the organizational leadership of AAPT, APS, and AAS. To date more than 1000 faculty have participated in this workshop, representing approximately 25{\%} of the new hires at all U. S. institutions that award a baccalaureate in physics or astronomy, from 4-year colleges through research universities. The original motivation for the workshops was to improve physics teaching by introducing new faculty to instructional strategies and innovations that had been shown to be effective in a variety of contexts. The need for such a program was suggested in part by the belief that a national mentoring workshop could effectively address a commonality of physics and astronomy teaching challenges that transcended institutional characters and types, and also in part by the reaction to a significant decrease in the number of baccalaureate physics degrees awarded in the U. S. in the 1990s, which many believed was due to ineffective and uninspiring teaching at the undergraduate level and especially in introductory courses. Based on surveys of the participants (and their department chairs), we have found that a large fraction of the participants have become adopters of innovative teaching techniques and that they rate the workshops as the most significant cause of the improvements in their teaching. This talk will summarize the development of the workshop program since its inception, the measures of its success in improving teaching, and the plans for its future. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 3:06PM - 3:18PM |
D29.00002: Teaching New Dogs New Tricks: The Next Generation of Physics Faculty Gerald Feldman I was privileged to attend the first New Faculty Workshop (NFW) in 1996, and that was the spark that kindled my keen interest in teaching methodology, learning assessment, and Physics Education Research (PER). Following Eric Mazur's introduction to Peer Instruction, I became a strong advocate of \textit{ConcepTests} in class, implemented an electronic student response system before they were widely in vogue, and emphasized conceptual understanding on the same footing as numerical computations. This led to a research project on the efficacy of in-class \textit{ConcepTests}, and further, to the linking of conceptual and numerical aspects in a ``thinking skills'' curriculum for introductory physics at George Washington University (GWU). After ``dabbling'' in PER for some years, several of us at GWU now have a credible research program and our first Ph.D. student in PER. The methods espoused by PER have extended to other members of the Physics Department, and even beyond, to other science departments on campus. Following this trend, we have most recently (Spring 2008) implemented a SCALEUP collaborative classroom modeled after the work of Bob Beichner at NC State. Overall, the teaching climate in the GWU Physics Department has changed considerably over the past decade, and it is clear that these changes ultimately trace their origins back to the impact of the NFW on the faculty members who have attended over the years. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 3:18PM - 3:30PM |
D29.00003: Effects of the New Faculty Workshop at WFU Freddie Salsbury Two members of the Wake Forest University Physics department have attended the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop and have implemented many of the lessons learned in their classes and in the department. In particular, the impacts on teaching introductory and upper-level physics, and developing a biophysics track will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
D29.00004: Twenty semesters later: how NFW helped us to multiply majors A. Alan Middleton In the Fall of 1997, I missed my daughter's first Halloween to attend the NFW. Though that was disappointing, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were a number of people who thought about teaching and had very constructive ideas to share. I immediately applied what I had learned in the large lecture class that I taught for a few years, with success for my students and my career. I then spent 7.5 years as the Director of Undergraduate Studies: the contacts and insights provided by the NFW and subsequent occasional attendance at AAPT meetings were most helpful in improving our program (the number of graduating majors increased from about 3 to over 15 per year), along with the help of a few dedicated faculty at Syracuse. The specific pedagogical viewpoints and tools introduced at the NFW were helpful in my teaching and administrative work, but the most useful part of the experience was the license granted to seek improvements in both teaching and the undergraduate program and providing contact with others who took such issues seriously. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
D29.00005: The Best of Both Worlds Elizabeth H. Simmons Thanks to the New FacultyWorkshop, I now have dual identities: as a professor in a research-focused university physics department and as Dean of a teaching-focused undergraduate residential science college within that university (Lyman Briggs College). I'll talk first about how the NFW changed my perspective on education and outreach -- and how that affected the climate in the department I was in at the time. Next, I'll comment on how this shift of perspective eventually led to new professional opportunities, including my current dual position. The lessons from the NFW have contributed directly to my acquiring the skills required of a leader in an interdisciplinary college that encourages its faculty both to be active disciplinary researchers and to take a scholarly approach to teaching. Finally, I'll mention how being part of the college's community of teacher-scholars has helped my teaching to continue evolving in directions compatible with the aims of the New Faculty Workshop. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
D29.00006: ReDUCE: Rethinking Directions in Undergraduate Curriculum Experiences Carlos Wexler, Deborah Hanuscin, Matthew Mower, Haskell Taub There is a major emphasis in higher education on rethinking undergraduate science instruction, particu-larly in introductory courses. In Fall/2007 a collaborative team at the University of Missouri formed and was given a ``green light'' to start an overhaul of the curriculum and instruction of (algebra-based) Physics I and the associated laboratory/recitation, a course taken by $>$ 500 students/yr. Earlier, we had identified problems with the current status of the course: the number of topics ``crammed into the syllabus,'' disconnectedness of laboratories to each other, and lack of conceptual coherence between laboratory, recitations and lectures. In Spring/2008, the group was awarded an interdisciplinary grant from the College of Education to begin work on realigning the lecture, lab, and recitation components of the course around a coherent curriculum that builds towards ``big ideas'' in the discipline (a ``narrow but deep'' approach). In Fall/2008 we implemented the first pilot test by combining exploratory labs, ``take-home-minilabs,'' and the use of Tutorials (in one section of the lab of this course, ca. 20 students). In this talk I will discuss early results and conclusions of this experiment, the next steps in the academic transformation, funding issues, and hurdles faced towards implementation on larger scale. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
D29.00007: JiTT and Peer Instruction in the General Physics Sequence at Dominican College: A One-Year Retrospective Kathleen Hinge Energized by the New Faculty Workshop of November, 2007, the author returned to Dominican College of Blauvelt with dreams of colossal gains on Force Concept Inventory (FCI) scores. Replicating the reported successes at Harvard and the US Air Force Academy would be difficult at Dominican: More than one-third of Dominican's physics students are minority, and an even greater portion of students come from secondary education without the ability to synthetically apply concepts. Undeterred, the author was committed to overhauling the General Physics sequence around NFW tenets. Beginning in January, 2008, material presentation went from traditional lecture format to a combination of Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) and Peer Instruction. This paper presents a one-year retrospective on this process, with emphasis on lessons learned, the impact on student learning and satisfaction, and next steps. Student response to the change has been uniformly enthusiastic. The actual FCI gain achieved in this first year was G=0.31, a modest advance over the 0.25 reported for traditionally taught courses. Spurred by this early success, implementation of JiTT has spread to courses in Biology and Mathematics. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
D29.00008: A Tale of Two Curricula: The performance of two thousand students in introductory electromagnetism Michael Schatz, Matthew Kohlmyer, Marcos Caballero, Ruth Chabay, Bruce Sherwood, Richard Catrambone, Marcus Marr, Mark Haugen, Lin Ding Student performance in introductory calculus-based electromagnetism (E\&M) courses at four large research universities was measured using the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). Two different curricula were used at these universities: a traditional E\&M curriculum and the Matter \& Interactions (M\&I) curriculum. At each university, post-instruction BEMA test averages were significantly higher for the M\&I curriculum than for the traditional curriculum. The differences in post-test averages cannot be explained by differences in variables such as pre-instruction BEMA scores, grade point average, or SAT scores. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 4:30PM - 4:42PM |
D29.00009: Improving clicker questions for enhanced learning in the interactive physics classroom Ertan Salik Classroom response systems, or clickers, have become widely used in physics classes in the last decade. Physics education research has demonstrated clearly that it is not the clicker as an electronic tool, but the interactive learning that occurs through clickers is what improves student learning. For clickers to work as expected, however, many subtle details need to be addressed. An instructor can start using many questions developed for the purpose of peer instruction. For a particular student population, and for a particular learning environment and constraints of the educational institution, questions used and the instructor's teaching style may need to be altered over time. We will present a systematic way of improving clicker questions and one's own teaching style utilizing data collected during clicker sessions. In addition, by adding a small writing component to some clicker questions, one can simply peek into student reasoning in order to determine preconceptions and misconceptions. Such direct knowledge of student reasoning in one's own class may be very revealing, and help improve learning ultimately. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 4:42PM - 4:54PM |
D29.00010: Propagations of the AAPT New Faculty Workshop: A case study of the infusion of student-centered technological and pedagogical innovations in the introductory physics program at West Point Bryndol Sones Since 2002, the Department of Physics at West Point has been the fortunate recipient of yearly attendance at the AAPT New Faculty Workshop. This sustained involvement has contributed directly to enhancements in our two-semester introductory physics program. Two aspects of West Point's environment make our involvement with the workshop especially fruitful: our diverse students and our frequent faculty turn-over. We teach to over 1100 students with majors across the entire spectrum. The majority of our faculty is an active duty Army officer here for just three years. At West Point, we rely on the workshop as a wellspring for faculty development, technological innovation, and pedagogical refinement. In the past few years, we have incorporated aspects of peer instruction, activity-based learning, and tutorials for student discovery. On the technological side, we now have TabletPCs for faculty, rf response cards (TurningPoint), high speed video analysis (LoggerPro) projects, and video tutoring capabilities (Camtashia). Student achievement is measured through our traditional course evaluation tools as well as nationally recognized standardize tests. Results will are discussed in the presentation. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 4:54PM - 5:06PM |
D29.00011: Instilling best educational practices into future physics professionals and faculty Philip G. Collins A primary aim of the New Faculty Workshop (NFW) has been to communicate best educational practices in faculty beginning their teaching careers. However, further amplification of NFW goals is achieved by providing similar content and training to Ph.D. candidates working as Teaching Assistants (TAs). NFW experience led to the successful creation at UCI of a relatively extensive, 30-hour training course now required of every graduate student in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy. Half of the training occurs before the first week of classes, and focuses on peer instruction, active learning, and results from Physics Education Research. This orientation segues into peer evaluation as first-time TAs and soon-to-be TAs practice teaching styles for each other and evaluate videos of each other teaching their actual courses. This course directly trains 25-30 graduate students each year, indirectly affecting dozens of discussion sections and the experience of nearly 2000 students per quarter. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 5:06PM - 5:18PM |
D29.00012: Applying New Faculty Workshop Lessons Learned to Intermediate-Level Physics Courses Melissa Eblen-Zayas Although much innovative work on physics teaching techniques and curriculum has been carried out at the level introductory physics, there has been less focus on the intermediate-level physics courses. Since my participation in the new faculty workshop, I have been particularly interested in finding ways to implement peer instruction and other active learning strategies in sophomore and junior level physics classes. Many curricular resources are available for introductory physics, but finding appropriate materials for courses beyond the introductory level is more challenging. I will discuss the use of comPADRE resources as well efforts to develop original activities to promote active learning and conceptual understanding, and I will highlight the successes and challenges of integrating these types of activities in intermediate-level physics courses. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 16, 2009 5:18PM - 5:30PM |
D29.00013: From Syllabus To Diagnostic Exam: Learnings from the New Faculty Workshop Applied In the Intro Physics Classroom Michael Tanoff Kalamazoo College offers a ``one-size-fits-all'' concept-based introductory physics sequence. The widely varying demographic composition of the class --- including majors in biology, chemistry, pre-med, physics, and math, along with occasional humanities majors --- adds obvious challenges to the successful learning experience. As such, educational techniques that apply across the demographic are required. Several ideas presented at the Fall 2005 New Faculty Workshop apply to the needs of this broad range of students at Kalamazoo College, including an ``organic'' course syllabus that has been allowed to grow to whatever extent necessary to address recurring student concerns and misunderstandings about course expectations, policies, and guidelines, and to provide advice on recurring themes; peer instruction for maximizing classroom value; and hiring teaching assistants with first hand experience in the course and the labs. Details on implementing these techniques, including developing a syllabus with unusual section headings such as ``Attendance and Homework Dramas'' and ``Introductory Physics Survival Requirements,'' will be presented. Success of the techniques, as evidenced by performance on diagnostic exams, class attendance, and comments from course evaluations, will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
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