Session E23: Physics Education

How do interactive physics learning environments foster Intellectual Humility (IH)?

Students often enter the physics classroom with intuitive conceptions drawn from real life experiences or former coursework, and may be hesitant or reluctant to forego these mindsets in favor of formally instructed knowledge. The goal of introductory physics courses is not only to teach and expose students to new content, but also to cultivate students' abilities to reason through and derive content knowledge through personal inquiry. This scientific process necessitates one's abilities to be open-minded in terms of hearing evidence that contradicts his or her personal opinion, to be willing to discard any original misconceptions in the face of such alternative evidence, and to identify and pay appropriate attention to one's academic limitations. Such a mindset is indicative of the quality of Intellectual Humility (IH), defined as “the owning of one's limitations." In the present study, we utilize IH surveys, reflections, conceptual knowledge assessments, and classroom observations collected for both a traditional, lecture-style physics course and an interactive environment, problem-solving based physics course. We will present our findings from the study as we attempt to examine the role of interactive learning environments in fostering IH in physics through collaboration.   

In-class use of clickers and clicker tests improve learning and enable instant feedback and retests via automated grading

An audience response system (“clickers”) was gradually incorporated into introductory physics courses at Worcester Polytechnic Institute during the years 2011-14. Clickers were used in lectures, as a means of preparing for labs, and for collection of exam data and grading. Average student grades were 13.5% greater, as measured by comparing exam results with a previous year. Student acceptance of clickers was high, ranging from 66% to 95%, and grading time for exams was markedly reduced, from a full day to a few hours for approximately 150 students. The streamlined grading allowed for a second test on the same material for the students who failed the first one. These improvements have the immediate effects of engagement, learning, and efficiency, and ideally, they will also provide an environment in which more students will succeed in college and their careers.
  

Measuring Engagement with Scientific Practices, Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts in Physics Courses: Development of the Three-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol

In 2013, Michigan State University (MSU) launched an interdisciplinary project to transform introductory courses across chemistry, biology, and physics to three-dimensional learning (3DL) environments. As part of this effort, we have developed an observation protocol (the 3-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol, or 3DLOP) to measure the extent to which instructors and students engage in scientific practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts (the three dimensions) during class time. Simply put, the 3DLOP differs from other classroom observation protocols in that it does not only measure how active a class is, but rather, it measures how rich the activity is. Using the 3DLOP on videos of instructors, our goal is to measure the change in the amount of 3DL in gateway courses pre- and post-transformation. Protocol development and initial findings from using the 3DLOP on physics lecture courses will be discussed.   

Exploring the relationship between students' online LMS performance and attitudes in an intro physics course

Many educational institutions have adopted a variety of online learning platforms to offer online content. As students use these learning platforms, they leave behind digital footprints. We can construct a better understanding of students' behaviors and practices if we complement this observational clickstream dataset with other data sources -- such as the data obtained from survey instruments. In this project we combine CLASS (Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey)[1] results with the online learning activities on the MITx platform (a modified version of the edX platform[2]) for an on-campus introductory physics course at MIT. CLASS is a validated and popular survey instrument, which probes students' problem-solving sophistication, confidence and their conceptual understanding, among other categories. From the edX platform, we get a detailed record of students' problem-solving efforts, and the use of posted video resources. By combining these datasources and tying them to their overall course performance, we get improved insight into student behavior and motivation that could inform the course-design process and the science of teaching and learning.

[1] Adams W. K.et al., Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 2, 010101 (2006).
[2] https://www.edx.org/   

Calculus-based Physics students’ understanding on vectors: a comparison between engineering students and life-science students

Students’ understanding of vector concepts affects their learning outcome of introductory physics courses. We administrated a research-based vector survey to test how well students understood eight essential vector concepts. Students from two calculus-based physics course sequences were recruited: engineering students from a traditional physics for engineers course sequence and life-sciences students from a general physics with calculus course. We found that even though engineering students outperformed life-sciences students, these two groups of students had difficulties answering 2D vector subtraction, dot product and cross product questions correctly. We have also analyzed whether dressing a vector problem with physical context affected student performance in the vector survey and have found that physical context had a stronger impact on the questions with lower student performance than on questions where students performed better: adding a physical context made students do worse in the 2D vector subtraction question, while for questions evaluating the dot product and the cross product, adding physical context improved student performance on these questions.   

The power of physics to demonstrate the physics of power

The promise of nuclear fusion as a viable means of generating electricity remains elusive, even after more than half a century of effort. One reason for this lies in a low level of public awareness of the enormous potential of fusion, whereas greater awareness might lead to appropriate pressure on policymakers to cause an increase in funding. Educational resources developed to help encourage societal participation include material originally designed for the classroom[1], which is extended here by a new construct involving the D-T reaction. Use of this tool identifies how so much (energy) is available from so little (fuel), and an instructional approach to present the solution is also described. The definitive nature of the methodology produces successful student learning and it is readily adaptable to reach a broader audience in the public arena. A concomitant benefit of this strategy is the addition of another scenario to the library of real-world events[2-5], which are vastly superior to standard textbook problems but which are still accessible with standard principles.

[1] Announcer, 23 (4), 58, 1993; [2] *.2010.APR.Z11.7; [3] http://www.aapt.org/AbstractSearch/FullAbstract.cfm?KeyID=17763; [4] *.2012.APR.J15.8; [5] *.2018.APR.F1.7 (?) {* http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS}   

Primetime learning: collaborative and technology-enhanced studying with genuine teacher presence

While physics education research has introduced several effective instructional strategies, most of them still rely on traditional teacher roles, depend on the presence of classrooms, and cling to a summative assessment. Here we summoned all the lessons learned from science education research and developed a new, practical, and transformational instructional strategy, the primetime learning model.(1) We devised the model by organizing the basic elements of active learning into a theory-based four-step study process. The model is based on collaborative and technology-enhanced learning, on versatile formative assessment without a final exam, and on genuine teacher presence through intimate meetings between students and teachers. We piloted the model on two university physics courses on thermodynamics and optics and observed persistent student activity, improved retention, enjoyable learning experience, and robust learning outcomes. The model suits particularly well for courses that, in addition to the teaching subject itself, focus on teaching balanced study routines and strengthening social integration.

(1) P. Koskinen, J. Lämsä, J. Maunuksela, R. Hämäläinen, and J. Viiri, International Journal of Science Education (2018) 5:20   

Replacing traditional final exams with project-building in advanced undergraduate physics classes

This paper presents the implementation of project-building replacing traditional final exams in advanced undergraduate physics classes at a small liberal arts college. Students from 'Circuits' class and 'Dynamics' class built projects using the concepts learnt thorugh out the semester. Projects for Circuits class were built in teams of three and projects for Dynamics class were built by individual students. Majority are original projects. A total of 18 students built 11 projects. Students were required to present their findings, conclusions and data in a scientific paper format and an oral presentation. Students were presented with challenging and open-ended real-life problems. This paper also presents the learning outcomes, and how students successfully used the classroom concepts to solve the challenging real-life problems. This paper also presents the details of all the students projects under consideration.   

Introducing the strong nuclear interaction and many-body physics in undergraduate quantum mechanics

The standard treatment of spin in undergraduate quantum mechanics provides all the essential ingredients for introducing a number of exciting and contemporary topics which are of great interest to the condensed-matter and high-energy physics community but which are also rarely addressed in a meaningful way at the undergraduate level. Specifically, the color charge of quantum chromodynamics possesses a structure which is quite similar to the electron's spin degree of freedom. By considering a system of three color charges at fixed positions with Heisenberg-like interactions, one is able to construct a toy model of a baryon with tunable interaction strength in which the color charge components exhibit dynamics similar to those of interacting spin components. The system of three particles leads naturally to an exploration of three-body interactions, which are highly relevant to quantum chromodynamics. Moreover, the overall approach to investigating the system's nontrivial dynamics provides a digestible introduction to the technique of exact diagonalization in a novel, few-body quantum system. VPython is used to visualize the emergent dynamics, providing an interesting demonstration which is appropriate for a course on modern physics.   

Modernizing the Undergraduate Dynamics Cirriculum

The best parts of physics are the last topics that our students ever see. These are exciting topics like the bending of light by black holes, traffic on the World Wide Web, or the synchronization of global economies. A new method for teaching upper-division mechanics provides an introduction to modern dynamics by generalizing state-space and metric-space approaches at a mathematically accessible level. Given the growing importance of dynamical systems in science and technology, this approach gives students an up-to-date foundation for their future careers, embedding topics of modern dynamics—chaos, synchronization, network theory, neural networks, evolutionary change, econophysics and relativity—within the context of traditional physics founded on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian physics. The goal is to modernize the teaching of junior-level dynamics, responsive to a changing society, while retaining the core traditions and common language of the physics of dynamics.   

A program to encourage underrepresented high school students to study STEM through hands-on University-level research experience:its impact, how we did it, and what we learned

Since 2007, we have offered a course that pairs small groups of ninth grade high schoolers from historically underrepresented backgrounds with graduate student researchers from STEM disciplines to complete a five week long summer research project of the graduate students' design. Our course, 'Topics in Current Research', is located at UC Berkeley and administered with the SMASH Academy, a Bay Area non-profit. In this presentation, we detail the structure of the course; discuss lessons learned in its administration; and, present findings from 10 years of data collected from the high school and graduate students showing, among other things, that after participating in the program high schoolers were more likely to feel like they belonged in STEM and more likely to consider it for a career. We hope that this program will serve as a model and motivation for other institutions to do something similar.   

Observation of relativistic corrections to Moseley's law at high atomic number

Transitions between low-lying electron states in atoms of heavy elements lead to electromagnetic radiation with characteristic discrete energies between about 0.1 keV and 100 keV (x rays). Moseley's law is an empirical relation, described in 1914, that supported predictions of the Bohr model of the atom. It predicts that the energy of these x rays scales as Z^2 while also identifying the atomic number Z as the measure of nuclear charge. The foundational nature of Moseley's experiment has led to popularity in undergraduate advanced laboratory physics subjects. We report observations of deviations from Moseley's law in the K-alpha x-ray emission of 13 elements from Z = 29 to Z = 92. While the deviations follow the square-law predictions of the Bohr model fairly well at low Z, they become larger with increasing Z. We find that relativistic models of atomic structure are necessary to fit the full range of elements observed (p = 0.23 for the relativistic Bohr model). As has been argued by previous authors, measurements of relativistic deviations from Moseley's law are pedagogically valuable at the advanced lab level and accessible with modern but modest apparatus. Here, we show this value can be extended by using higher Z elements, where the effects are more dramatically observable.