Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2020
Volume 65, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2020; Denver, Colorado
Session U21: Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory InstructionEducation Focus Prize/Award
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Sponsoring Units: FED Chair: Gerald Feldman, George Washington Univ Room: 302 |
Thursday, March 5, 2020 2:30PM - 3:06PM |
U21.00001: From Cool Research to Cool Teaching Labs Invited Speaker: Enrique Galvez Physicists are often drawn into research when the physical world offers phenomena that show uncanny symmetry or elegant mathematical structure; a puzzling intricacy that is irresistible not to figure out; or even just plain awe at “cool” phenomena that display the beauty of the natural world. These are compelling factors that motivate investigation. Why not have instructional labs with such motivating factors? In this talk I will present some of my efforts to convert the investigation of a motivating physical problems into curricular offerings. It includes optical beams that carry puzzling structures, such as mathematical singularities, symmetrical shapes and puzzling mechanisms. Another initiative that we have worked on involves labs on the quantum mechanics of entangled photons. We have developed a suite of experiments that explore the quantum mechanics of situations involving this source of light. They let students confront counterintuitive but real manifestations of quantum physics. More recently we have been exploring a problem that hopefully will become a new lab: using light to simulate the quantum mechanics of the simple pendulum. |
Thursday, March 5, 2020 3:06PM - 3:42PM |
U21.00002: The “Compleat Physicist” seen through the lens of experiments Invited Speaker: Randall Tagg In 1653, thirty-four years before the appearance of Newton’s ‘Principia’, Isaak Walton published “The Compleat Angler”…a book that is still in print! Now in the 21st Century, how might we view the activities of the Compleat Physicist in the context of physics experiments and laboratory skills? If we look at what physicists ultimately do in life, many work in basic research but a far greater number apply physics to a wide range of human needs. How do the knowledge and skills of physics experimentation manifest themselves in these applications? Circling back to fundamental physics, what sort of versatile foundation does a broad experience in the physics laboratory provide so that an emerging professional physicist has a rich conceptual repertoire with which to approach real-world problems? And finally, how can this conceptual repertoire be matched with the nuts-and-bolts technical and computational skills needed to create actual prototypes of new devices and processes? |
Thursday, March 5, 2020 3:42PM - 4:18PM |
U21.00003: Advanced Labs in the Small Liberal Arts College Environment Invited Speaker: Nicole Ackerman The Advanced Lab course is critical for teaching many important skills to physics majors, regardless of their career trajectory. At a small liberal arts college, this course may be run with few pre-requisites, no dedicated funds, limited equipment, no support staff, and as one of many classes a single professor is teaching. While this necessitates certain changes from how the course might be structured at a large research university, the course is nonetheless an invaluable experience for students. I will present my strategies for maintaining an Advanced Lab course at my college, where our department serves a diverse student population and graduates about 6 majors (including Astrophysics) a year. My experiences shows that it is key to focus on learning outcomes and leverage the resources in the broader advanced lab instructor community. |
Thursday, March 5, 2020 4:18PM - 4:54PM |
U21.00004: Preparing Physics Majors for the Future through Intermediate and Advanced Laboratories Invited Speaker: Patricia Allen Developing and teaching both Intermediate and Advanced Lab courses contain benefits and challenges in the undergraduate program of study. An Intermediate lab provides requisite skills for students to transition from introductory lab experiences to more rigorous experiments appropriate for advanced/capstone lab courses. The AAPT Recommendations for the Undergraduate Laboratory Curriculum1 and Phys21: Preparing Physics Students for 21st-Century Careers2 reports provide learning outcomes for physics majors beyond the first year laboratory experience. While no one lab course can prepare majors for post-graduate life, be it teaching, industry, or graduate study, efforts at Appalachian State University (and elsewhere) could serve as a guide to other institutions interested in increasing laboratory experiences in their programs of study. An overview of the Intermediate and Advanced lab courses at Appalachian will be presented, along with how effective these courses are in preparing majors for their future careers, including interviews with former students. |
Thursday, March 5, 2020 4:54PM - 5:30PM |
U21.00005: Creating authentic learning experiences in the laboratory Invited Speaker: Nathan D Powers Authentic learning experiences allow students to connect what they are learning to real-world issues, develop relevant and useful technical and professional skills, and grapple with the complexities of knowledge creation. At Brigham Young University, we have been implementing project-based labs that engage students in authentic learning experiences and experimentation practices. Here I will describe our efforts to incorporate proposal writing, leadership principles, modeling, and statistical data analysis into lab courses in an authentic way. |
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