Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2017
Volume 62, Number 4
Monday–Friday, March 13–17, 2017; New Orleans, Louisiana
Session B40: Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory InstructionInvited Prize/Award
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Sponsoring Units: FED Chair: John Stewart, West Virginia University Room: 387 |
Monday, March 13, 2017 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
B40.00001: Advanced teaching labs in physics -- celebrating progress; challenges ahead Invited Speaker: Richard Peterson A few examples of optical physics experiments may help us first reflect on significant progress on how advanced lab initiatives may now be more effectively developed, discussed, and disseminated - as opposed to only 10 or 15 years back. Many cooperative developments of the last decade are having profound impacts on advanced lab workers and students. Central to these changes are the programs of the Advanced Laboratory Physics Association (ALPhA) (Immersions, BFY conferences), AAPT (advlab-l server, ComPADRE, apparatus competitions, summer workshops/sessions), APS (Reichert Award, FEd activities and sessions), and the Jonathan F. Reichert Foundation (ALPhA support and institution matched equipment grants for Immersion participants). Broad NSF support has helped undergird several of these initiatives. Two of the most significant challenges before this new advanced lab community are (a) to somehow enhance funding opportunities for teaching equipment and apparatus in an era of minimal NSF equipment support, and (b) to help develop a more complementary relationship between research-based advanced lab pedagogies and the development of fresh physics experiments that help enable the mentoring and experimental challenge of our students. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 13, 2017 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
B40.00002: Redesigning an Advanced Lab Course to Promote Experimental Design Invited Speaker: Melissa Eblen-Zayas The advanced lab course can provide students with an opportunity to develop experimental design skills. However, students often struggle with the challenges and potential for failure that come with designing their own experiments. I will describe how we used results from the Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS) to explore student attitudes about experimental work in a course designed to promote the development of experimental design skills and how we have modified the course through the introduction of metacognitive activities in response to E-CLASS results. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 13, 2017 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
B40.00003: A Flipped Modular Skills-Based Introductory Electronics Course Invited Speaker: Eric Ayars After enjoying good results with a flipped introductory physics course, I decided to flip our department's sophomore-level ``Electronics for Scientists'' course and associated lab. The course redesign got out of control, though, and the course ended up a collection of interdependent modules through which students could progress at their own pace, along multiple paths of their own choosing. This redesign has shown some distinct advantages and disadvantages. Better students are not constrained by the speed at which lectures progress through the material, and struggling students can pare the modules down to a manageable subset of the total class material. Students throughout the class can pick interesting personal goals and immediately see what modules they need to learn to reach those goals. On the other hand, this redesign is not in any sense a time- or labor-saving course change! Overall, the redesign has been a positive change. Student response has been entirely positive, and the quality of student work and overall understanding has generally improved. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 13, 2017 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
B40.00004: AAPT Lab Recommendations: Past, Present, and Future Invited Speaker: Joseph Kozminski The ``AAPT Recommendations for the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Curriculum'' was endorsed by the American Association of Physics Teachers Executive Board in November 2014. This set of curriculum recommendations focuses on developing skills and competencies that will prepare students for research in graduate school and for jobs in the STEM sector, education, and many other employment sectors. The recommendations can be used to guide changes in laboratory curricula, to assess department laboratory curricula during program reviews, and to educate university officials about the importance of laboratory experiences. The recommendations offer many potential opportunities for collaboration between physics education researchers and laboratory instructors in studying skill development in the lab and how various elements of the laboratory curriculum can best be assessed. There are also discussions underway to create an online resource for laboratory instructors to share implementation ideas and resources. This presentation provides an overview of these recommendations and their development, how the recommendations are currently being used, and opportunities for expanded use of the recommendations going forward. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, March 13, 2017 1:39PM - 2:15PM |
B40.00005: Adding Interdisciplinary Exploration to Teaching Laboratories using AFM and Biophysical Samples. Invited Speaker: Ashley Carter Biophysics and nanotechnology are promising areas for the next generation of physicists to make an impact. To prepare students for these opportunities, we can add interdisciplinary exploration to our teaching laboratories. Here we describe several biophysical experiments that could be done in the undergraduate teaching laboratory using an AFM. In each laboratory, we image a biological sample and quantify a biophysical parameter: 1) imaging cells to determine membrane tension, 2) imaging microtubules to determine their persistence length, 3) imaging the random walk of DNA molecules to determine their contour length, and 4) imaging stretched DNA molecules to measure the tensional force. In addition, each experiment acts as a gateway for further interdisciplinary exploration in the teaching laboratory or beyond. [Preview Abstract] |
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