Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2021
Volume 66, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 15–19, 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session V62: Teaching Computation and Data Science within the Physics CurriculumEducation Invited Live Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FED GDS Chair: Catherine Crouch, Swarthmore College Jie Ren, Merck & Co. |
Thursday, March 18, 2021 3:00PM - 3:36PM Live |
V62.00001: Teaching computation for large student class sizes Invited Speaker: Silke Henkes Teaching computation to large groups of students is a challenge that is made harder by the COVID pandemic which necessitates that we also teach remotely. I will present our 2nd year course 'Mathematical Programming' in the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol as a case study. Our course, which is running for the 2nd time this year, has a headcount of 260, and is delivered through a combination of remote and in person teaching. |
Thursday, March 18, 2021 3:36PM - 4:12PM Live |
V62.00002: An Introduction to Cloud-Based Data Science Tools Invited Speaker: Mohammad Soltanieh-Ha Teaching methods for programming and data science-related topics have been evolving faster than ever before. This has been heavily influenced by the fast-growing popularity of cloud-based tools. In this talk, I will provide an overview of tools and techniques that can improve both the learning experience of the students and the instructor’s ability to manage the class and materials. I will discuss the best practices to manage and distribute code and data, as well as the platforms used in a data science project. Among a vast space of competitive solutions, I use Google products as the primary platform, but the concepts are transferable. Google Colaboratory (Colab) will be introduced as a solution to run and share the code. Beyond Colab, I will present an end-to-end data science project on a cloud-based ecosystem, using Google Cloud. In addition to the essential elements of Google Cloud, I will cover ways to tackle big data problems using Hadoop and Spark, as well as utilizing containerized applications for large scale parallel processing. I will illustrate how I have used cloud computing in my classes at Boston University and share feedback from the students. |
Thursday, March 18, 2021 4:12PM - 4:48PM Live |
V62.00003: Data science competencies for physics education Invited Speaker: Amir Shahmoradi Data Science is an emerging field that has witnessed exponential growth and popularity over the past decade. Despite the popularity, there is frequently a disconnect between skills that employers desire and the university curriculum. Moreover, the Data Science job title and its competencies are still not well-defined. Here I will describe our continued efforts at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) to bridge the existing gaps between the training of undergraduate students in the Data Science program of UTA and the data-science technical and soft skill competencies that are desired by the job market. We do so by investigating the patterns of required skills, the domain of science, and the characteristics of employers and jobs in the current job market. I will explain how this knowledge leads to the identification of gaps between academic preparation and competencies that employers seek. This continuous gap analysis and feedback can be then dynamically incorporated into the university curricula to ensure the academic programs are aligned well with the needs of society and the job market at all times. |
Thursday, March 18, 2021 4:48PM - 5:24PM Live |
V62.00004: Teaching data science and Bayesian statistics for physical sciences Invited Speaker: Uros Seljak I will describe the development and teaching experiences of the new course in UC Bereley physics department covering Bayesian statistics and machine learning applications in physical sciences. The course covers a broad range of topics including Bayesian uncertainty quantification and hypothesis testing, supervised and unsupervised machine learning, optimization and sampling methods, regression and classification methods, Fourier analyses etc. I will present several of the juptyer based homeworks and projects, where the methods are applied to examples in physics and astronomy. |
Thursday, March 18, 2021 5:24PM - 6:00PM Live |
V62.00005: PICUP resources for integrating computation in the online and in-person classroom Invited Speaker: Marie Lopez del Puerto The Partnership for Integrating Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP, www.gopicup.org) runs workshops, hosts an online collection of curricular materials, organizes webinars and virtual conferences, and supports a growing community of interested faculty with the goal of making it easier for faculty to integrate computation into their courses. In this talk, I will share my experience integrating computation into the Introductory Physics sequence and an upper-level Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics course. I will highlight materials in the PICUP collection that I adapted, discuss how those materials fit into and enhance the courses, talk about how I typically integrate computation into in-person courses, and how my students and I adapted to teaching and learning online. I will present different approaches used by faculty who integrate computation into physics courses in a variety of institutional settings, so attendees can see how they might integrate computation in their own introductory courses. Finally, I will point out the many resoursces and support available through PICUP. |
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