Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Spring 2015 Joint Meeting of the Texas Section of the AAPT, Texas Section of the APS and Zone 13 of the Society of Physics Students
Volume 60, Number 2
Thursday–Saturday, March 5–7, 2015; Baytown, Texas
Session C1: AAPT - Physics Education Research |
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Chair: Jill Marshall, University of Texas Room: Tucker Hall Auditorium |
Friday, March 6, 2015 2:00PM - 2:12PM |
C1.00001: Teaching By Analogy Kenric Davies Activation of prior knowledge has become an important tool used by educators to help students learn difficult concepts. In many cases, the tool that is used to activate this knowledge and to aid in the connection making that follows is the analogy. Analogies are used to show the similarities between what students already know and a new, typically more rigorous, concept. After the similarities have been mapped to the new concept, differences are then used to launch a deeper understanding of the new information. This process is known by many names including Analogical Scaffolding (Podolefsky {\&} Finkelstein), Teaching with Analogy (Glynn), and Working with Analogies (Nashon). Scientists use a similar method in order to understand new information gained on the frontiers of science. Case studies on Johannes Kepler's understanding of light and gravity and the progression of electrostatics fall under a process known as Structure Mapping Theory (Gentner). Teaching with analogies is not only helping students learn new content within science, it is also teaching students how science is conducted and advanced. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 2:12PM - 2:24PM |
C1.00002: Enhancing a Physics Lab to Meet a Changing Demographic Charles Allison The physics of sound and acoustics course has expanded in size and changed in student make-up to become dominated by communication sciences and disorders (CSDO) majors. The course content offers foundational material directly relevant to CSDO, especially in the arena of audiology. The lab experiments have stayed firmly routed in the basic physics and needed some enhancement. In Spring, 2014, the opportunity arose to work with a university experiment, FIG, where a class and lab were dedicated to a specific group of CSDO freshmen and it was decided to create a modified lab curriculum creating a larger experiment done over multiple labs to create an audiology test. Students were to design a semi-automated test using the lab's new digital audio workstation (DAW) equipment and incorporate this test audio into a video to guide an operator in filling out an audiology chart based on responses from the test subject. Results were mixed but the overall was positive with several students who were initially unaware of audiology career paths deciding to consider it for their own path. The approach proved worthy of being adapted into the standard course if broken into a series of normal lab experiments and offered as options to some of the standard experiments. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 2:24PM - 2:36PM |
C1.00003: Patterns in student responses to group exams Yinebeb Zenaw, Christopher Gardner, Hunter Close, Steven Wolf There have been recent national calls echoing the need to improve instruction in the scientific practices -- scientific skills such as modeling, designing scientific experiments, and collaboration. Working together to solve a problem is one of the most fundamental skills a physicist will need to master to be effective after graduation. As our classrooms become more active and collaborative, we need to consider ways that our assessments can take on the same active and collaborative spirit that our classes have. One way that this is accomplished is through the use of group exams. Our research focuses on whether or not group reconstruction is possible given an individuals performance on exams vs.~unrestricted group collaboration on the same exam. This preliminary study will explore the different patterns in student responses on individual and group exams. Of particular interest is student performance on coherent sets of problems: multiple questions that are testing closely related ideas in the same context. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 2:36PM - 2:48PM |
C1.00004: Embodied action of small groups answering the Quantum Mechanics Survey Aureliano Perez, Martin Lawler, Hunter Close The Quantum Mechanics Survey (QMS) is a research-based assessment of student understanding of quantum mechanics in one dimension [1]. In a first upper-division course in quantum mechanics, we observed students working in isolated small groups to answer the QMS. Students in this class were instructed in an interactive lecture environment in which spatial visualization and gesture were encouraged. An understanding of the complex relative phase factor between components of a state is useful for some items on the QMS, and was meant to be enabled by the instructional use of posable pipe cleaners, which provide access to an ``out-of-the-board'' component for graphing the imaginary part of wave functions. Previous studies [2] have shown that students can make substantive use of their bodies and material surroundings to think spatially about the mathematics of quantum mechanics. In this talk we present an overview, with some examples, of students' spontaneous use of gesture and other embodied action as a means for spatial thinking during their engagement with the QMS. \\[4pt] [1] G. Zhu \& C. Singh, Am. J. Phys. 80(3), 252-259 (2012).\\[4pt] [2] H. Close, C. Schiber, E. Close, and D. Donnelly, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2013, Portland, OR, 2013. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 2:48PM - 3:00PM |
C1.00005: Conceptual blending, identity, and the 2-d rotation matrix Hunter Close We expect our upper-division physics students to move flexibly between multiple interpretations and representations of mathematics while doing physics. In conceptual blending theory, the human mind fuses two mental spaces into a blend; in this blend, various vital relations compress to allow the mind to achieve new insight by thinking within the blended space. One vital relation that is fundamental to blending is ``identity,'' through which two cognitive elements become linked. Eigenvalue problems in quantum mechanics invoke the identity idea when we conceive of an operator as transforming a state into an another that is ``the same, except for'' a scalar factor. Similarly, a matrix can be understood has having eigenvectors that it leaves ``unchanged, except for'' a scalar factor. The 2-d rotation matrix and its eigenvalue problem offers an interesting arena for investigating the identity relation in student thinking. This talk outlines a design for an observational study using teaching experiments to understand how students manage the identity relation, including their ability to flexibly reassign the identity relation, and whether this ability is associated with any other measures of success in interpreting the eigenvalue problem for the 2-d rotation matrix. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 3:00PM - 3:12PM |
C1.00006: Group formation on physics exams Christopher Gardner, Yinebeb Zenaw, Hunter Close, Steven Wolf There have been recent national calls echoing the need to improve instruction in the scientific practices -- scientific skills such as modeling, designing scientific experiments, and collaboration. Working together to solve a problem is one of the most fundamental skills a physicist will need to master to be effective after graduation. As our classrooms become more active and collaborative, we need to consider ways that our assessments can take on the same active and collaborative spirit that our classes have. One way that this is accomplished is through the use of group exams. Using a duplicate exam format, we are developing a method for analyzing group formation for a particular exam using the framework of network analysis. This method will be compared to self-reported student grouping data for verification. In the future, student participation in the network will be leveraged to study relationships between exam participation and broader student behaviors such as course grade and overall persistence in the discipline and retention at the university. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 3:12PM - 3:24PM |
C1.00007: Break
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Friday, March 6, 2015 3:24PM - 3:36PM |
C1.00008: Improving scientific thinking using Modeling John Clement It is possible to improve student overall scientific thinking using Modeling or other PER based pedagogy. Significant gain can be achieved even in a summer school two year college course, but better gain should be achievable in a regular semester course. The gain was measured using the non multiple choice Lawson Classroom Tests of Scientific Thinking. While gain is observed, higher gain should be possible. PER based materials need to be modified so as to optimize gain in thinking skills. Modeling stresses the proportional reasoning aspect of thinking, so it shows gain on that test. ~But more significantly it also shows gain in other areas of reasoning, notably combenatorial and probabalistic reasoning which are not used in the curriculum. ~This may be due to improved executive functioning.\\[4pt] References: Really Raising Standards by Shayer {\&} Adey, Science Teaching and the Development of Thinking by Anton Lawson. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 3:36PM - 3:48PM |
C1.00009: Successful Pre-testing and Early Intervention in Algebra-based Introductory Physics Rebecca Forrest, Donna Stokes, Andrea Burridge Pre-testing and early intervention measures to identify and remediate at-risk students were implemented in the algebra-based Introductory General Physics I course at the University of Houston to help improve student success rates. Pre-testing consisted of a math and problem-solving skills diagnostic exam administered at the beginning of the course. Students identified as at-risk based on their scores were encouraged to utilize on-line math tutorials. Results from 618 students enrolled in 6 sections of the course showed that at-risk students who successfully completed the math tutorial had significantly higher course grades and were significantly more likely to pass the course, controlling for course section, diagnostic exam score, and other class characteristics. The odds of passing for students who completed the math tutorials were almost 4 times higher than those who did not. Based on these results, on-line math tutorials are now made available to all students in both algebra- and calculus-based introductory physics courses at the University of Houston. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 3:48PM - 4:00PM |
C1.00010: Has Dark Matter Finally Been Detected? Lionel D. Hewett Analysis of a recently discovered 3.5 keV X-ray spectral line coming from various external galaxies suggests that its source of radiation may well be the dark matter contained in the halo of the galaxies. If this suspicion is confirmed, then the natural question is, ``What kind of particle could be responsible for this radiation?'' Several candidates have been suggested (some of which are quite exotic) but the simplest explanation could well be the quantized remnant of primordial black holes. This presentation discusses why such quantized remnants are expected to exist and why they would have precisely the properties necessary to explain not only cold dark matter but also this recently observed X-ray spectral line. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 4:00PM - 4:12PM |
C1.00011: Transformative Experience as a Construct for Understanding Attitudinal Changes in Introductory Physics Classes David Donnelly, Hunter Close, Eleanor Close Recent results assessing changes in students' attitudes in a general education Physics class have suggested that students have undergone at transformative experience. We will discuss the Transformative Experience construct, and how we feel it is applicable to the attitudinal data we have. We will also discuss ongoing efforts to assess transformative experiences in other intro courses, and future work to foster transformative experience. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 6, 2015 4:12PM - 4:24PM |
C1.00012: Rasch Analysis of Student Responses to the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey Xi Tang, David Donnelly The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) stands out for its strict items design and good performance in real investigation among all the students' science attitude assessment tools. However, we think comparing with the traditional data analysis method, the Rasch Model can help reveal new information from CLASS. To verify our hypothesis, we applied CLASS on partial Texas State University during 2010-2014. We have 652 participants from 15 sections of PHYS 1310 (General Physics I) and 385 participants from 10 sections of PHYS 1320 (General Physics II). All the participants finished this written survey during their class time. We will analyze the data by both the standard analysis tool created by University of Colorado and WINSTEP software (a Rasch Analysis software). After all the data analysis, we will compare the results we get by two different methods. This is the first time applying Rasch Analysis on CLASS data. If we prove Rasch Model is a proper way to analyze CLASS data and it is able to dig out more information from the data, it will provide the academic field a new angle of thinking of CLASS data and even CLASS itself. On the other hand it can help us to have a more comprehensive understanding of students' atitudes to science. [Preview Abstract] |
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