Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2010
Volume 55, Number 1
Saturday–Tuesday, February 13–16, 2010; Washington, DC
Session Z11: Approaches to Mentorship, Collaboration and Education |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd AAPT Chair: Yuhfen Lin Room: Maryland C |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
Z11.00001: Exploring the doctoral experience through the advisor-advisee relationship Geoff Potvin, Kim Kreutzer, Robert Tai This work explores the graduate experiences of PhD-holders by examining the advisor-advisee relationship. Using regression analysis on survey data taken from 1084 practicing professional physicists, we find a number of factors that influence an individual's satisfaction with their personal and professional relationship with their dissertation advisor, including: the primary reason for choosing an advisor, mutual expectations towards making contact with respect to research, having too frequent (or not frequent enough) contact, and the nature of an advisor's support with respect to research direction. Note also that gender was not a significant predictor of satisfaction, nor was time-to-degree or an advisor's academic rank. The long-term impact of the advisor-advisee relationship will also be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
Z11.00002: Professional Development Graduate Courses and a Masters of Arts in Physics Education with Web Based Course Components Richard Lindgren, Stephen Thornton Professional development courses offered in physical/Earth science and physics by the Department of Physics are delivered by different venues to accommodate the needs of the K-12 teaching community. The majority of teachers take our courses off-site or through our distance-learning web-based program on the Internet for endorsement or recertification, but with a gradually increasing number enrolling in our 30 credit Masters of Arts in Physics Education degree (MAPE) program. The purpose of the Masters program is to provide increased physics content to those teachers who feel inadequately prepared to teach high school physics. The increase in numbers and success of this program is partly due to the convenience of taking online web-based courses which is made possible by using the latest communication technologies on the high speed internet. There is also a residential component of the MAPE program, which requires the candidates to earn 14 credits of calculus-based core physics in residence in the summer at the University. We have graduated a total of 91 teachers since the program began in 2000. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
Z11.00003: Development of a case--study based undergraduate course on astrobiology Lior M. Burko, Sandra K. Enger The case--study approach has been gaining popularity in the sciences in recent years, but is still not in wide use in the physical sciences, such as physics and astronomy. We propose to create an entire course ---at the introductory undergraduate level--- on astrobiology, the study of formation, proliferation and evolution of life in the universe. We will teach an entire course at the University of Alabama in Huntsville using an array of cases spanning many types of cases, and after formative and summative feedback revise the cases, and repeat. The end product of this effort will be a collection of cases, available to the wide community of instructors free of charge, to be used in their own courses. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
Z11.00004: Methods of Efficient Study Habits and Physics Learning Nouredine Zettili We want to discuss the methods of efficient study habits and how they can be used by students to help them improve learning physics. In particular, we deal with the most efficient techniques needed to help students improve their study skills. We focus on topics such as the skills of how to develop long term memory, how to improve concentration power, how to take class notes, how to prepare for and take exams, how to study scientific subjects such as physics. We argue that the students who conscientiously use the methods of efficient study habits achieve higher results than those students who do not; moreover, a student equipped with the proper study skills will spend much less time to learn a subject than a student who has no good study habits. The underlying issue here is not the quantity of time allocated to the study efforts by the students, but the efficiency and quality of actions so that the student can function at peak efficiency. These ideas were developed as part of Project IMPACTSEED (IMproving Physics And Chemistry Teaching in SEcondary Education), an outreach grant funded by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. This project is motivated by a major pressing local need: A large number of high school physics teachers teach out of field. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
Z11.00005: For the Love of Science: Learning Orientation and Physical Science Success Zahra Hazari, Geoff Potvin, Robert Tai, John Almarode An individual's motivational orientation serves as a drive to action and can influence their productivity. This study examines how the goal orientation of students towards the pursuit of their graduate degree in physics and chemistry influences their future success outcomes as practicing scientists. Two main orientations are focused on: performance (or ego/ability) orientation and learning (or task/mastery) orientation. The data was obtained as part of Project Crossover, which applied a mixed methodological approach to studying the transition from graduate student to scientist in the physical sciences. Using regression analysis on survey data from 2353 PhD holders in physics and chemistry, we found that individuals exhibiting a learning orientation were more productive than those exhibiting a performance orientation in terms of first-author publications and grant funding. Furthermore, given equal salary, learning-oriented physical scientists produced more first-author publications than average. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:30PM - 4:42PM |
Z11.00006: An Investigation of Tools for Collaboration in Big Science Daniel Pisano It is both an economic and political reality that collaboration is essential in carrying out Big Science. A review of the literature of collaboration supports the view that it increases productivity. There are a number of tools available today on the Internet which foster collaboration. The author will present the results of an investigation of the utilization and effectiveness of these tools. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:42PM - 4:54PM |
Z11.00007: High-Precision Diagnosis of Malfunctioning Apparatus allowed by Serendipity Saami J. Shaibani ``An electric brake has a resistance of 376 ohms and operates at 90 volts. If the only supply available is 115 volts, show how the brake can still be made to work.'' The preceding exercise is the theoretical counterpart of a practical problem involving a platform elevator for the physically-challenged. The elevator brake had been inoperable for a considerable period due to an intractable ambiguity, even after two independent technicians working together had established that some components might have been installed improperly. It so happened that the author was on hand\footnote{note: during a visit to the educational institution concerned.} and he suggested an experimental approach for a remedy that could be checked if some standard equipment were provided. Once this item was located, his testing confirmed the viability of the proposed remedy, resulting in a prompt repair and a much-needed return to service. This good outcome was achieved by integrating theory and practice to produce maximum synergy. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:54PM - 5:06PM |
Z11.00008: A New Dirac Delta Function Formalism Shows that the Self Energy of a Classical Charged Point Particle is Zero Kenneth Brand A new formalism for the Dirac delta function is presented. An important feature of this formalism is that it enables coordination among different delta functions. Using this method to find acceptable forms for the standard, non-covariant and covariant scalar electromagnetic green functions leads to constraints on these representations. Applying appropriate representations of the green function to the problem of finding the classical electromagnetic self energy of a charged point particle shows that the self energy is not infinite but actually zero. [Preview Abstract] |
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