Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2015 Annual Meeting of the APS Mid-Atlantic Section
Volume 60, Number 14
Friday–Sunday, October 23–25, 2015; Morgantown, West Virginia
Session B7: Physics Education II |
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Chair: Seth Devore, West Virginia University Room: Waterfront Hotel Salon H |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
B7.00001: Factors Affecting STEM Retention Inside and Outside the Physics Major Gay Stewart The University of Arkansas -- Fayetteville implemented changes in its undergraduate physics program beginning in 1994 that dramatically increased the number of students graduating with a major in physics from an average of 1-2 students per year for most of the years from 1990-1998 to 27 graduates in 2012. With the selection of the department as a PhysTEC program in 2001, the number of physics students entering high school teaching also began to dramatically increase. Upon joining the West Virginia University physics department, we began to quantitatively investigate the effect of physics classes on the retention of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) majors. Exceptional variation between instructors in the introductory physics sequence produced strong fluctuations in final grade distributions and conceptual learning. Differences in physics classes were also related to changes in students' beliefs about their own abilities, their self-efficacy, and their feelings of belonging within the university, the major, and within study groups. Happily, and counter to public expectations, the personality profile of STEM students was consistent with that of the general population. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
B7.00002: Group Quizzes with Instant Feedback and Self-Correction Gerald Feldman We have instituted a novel and dynamic method for quizzes that combines individual student accountability with the benefits of collaborative group learning. Quizzes consist of multiple-choice questions, with half the points based on individual work and half based on group work. The latter portion of the quiz employs IF-AT scratch-off cards (see www.epsteineducation.com), which are similar to lottery tickets with five covered answer boxes. Students discuss the questions in their groups and then get instant feedback by revealing the box corresponding to their collective choice. If incorrect, they continue to discuss and then scratch off a second (or third) box for reduced credit. While there is some pressure in the individual portion of the quiz, it is mitigated by the added points in the group phase which are earned through fruitful exchanges with the other group members. Students find the group interactions highly engaging and the suspense of revealing the answer boxes quite stimulating. They take the answer selection very seriously (for fear of losing valuable points!), and this helps focus their attention on the relevant components of the questions. This feedback loop, coupled with the group discussion and self-correction option, provides a powerful learning experience for the students. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
B7.00003: Nobel Prize Material in the Introductory Physics lab Curriculum Wathiq Abdul-Razzaq Introductory physics lab provides a unique experience for students to learn physics kinesthetically.~ Learning in this style may help students who do not learn as effectively from lectures, reading assignments, and written homework.~ Lab is also a stage for improving physical intuition which is invaluable to the aspiring scientist or critical thinker. Unfortunately, the benefits of physics lab are often insufficient to hold the attention of students in introductory physics courses.~ Well-designed Nobel-Prize-material experiments can help breed curiosity within the students by providing a useful context for students to learn about exciting science.~ A curious nature is extremely valuable toward engineering studies, medical studies, science studies or any other study.\textbf{~ }Nobel Prize material can be made digestible to an undergraduate student and this narrows the gap between science learned in college courses and science performed by professionals. Nobel Prize material is the best that a field of study has to offer, and learning about these novel ideas promotes a creativity and curiosity about science that traditional introductory physics lab curriculums cannot produce. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
B7.00004: Tie Goes to the Runner: the Physics and Psychology of a Close Play David Starling, Sarah Starling There is currently a push toward the multidisciplinary sciences at the undergraduate level to meet the changing nature of industry and academia. In this talk, we propose the game of baseball as a rich platform for studying the combination of physics and the cognitive sciences. In particular, we ask the question of how well an umpire can determine a close call at first base. Umpires must focus on two events: ball/glove and foot/base connections. From the physics perspective, we consider the transmission of information from these two events to two ideal detectors in an inertial reference frame. From the perspective of the psychologist, we relax the ideal detector assumption and consider the physical and cognitive limitations of a human umpire. Surprisingly, we find that standard umpire training techniques would fail for ideal detectors due to the large discrepancy between the speeds of light and sound. This would result in the runner being preferentially called safe (i.e., tie goes to the runner). On the other hand, the disparity in human processing time for sight and sound may counteract this effect, resulting in adequate precision. In this way, we find that baseball umpires are capable of making accurate calls within the horizon of simultaneity. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
B7.00005: Self-efficacy and belonging in introductory STEM majors Rachel Henderson, Seth DeVore, John Stewart A survey measuring students' feelings of self-efficacy and belonging within multiple environments within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and the campus community was administered to introductory, calculus-based physics classes at a large public land-grant university yielding 481 complete responses. The sense of belonging and self-efficacy varied significantly between broader environments such as the institution and major to more narrow environments such as the physics class or lab group. Strong gender effects (p\textless .001) were identified; these were highly class dependent. Exploratory factor analysis identified 2 underlying self-efficacy factors and 3 belonging factors. [Preview Abstract] |
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