Session K27: Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction

Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award (2022): Challenges and opportunities in physics advanced laboratory instruction

I will describe the role played by advanced laboratory instruction as a core modality within physics education and as part of the broader enterprise of physics as a scientific profession. I will also reflect on the growth and development over the past 15 years of the professional community of advanced laboratory instructors as a coherent subfield of physics practice in its own right.   

Crafting Diverse Classroom Experiences: What is Missing and How Can we Fix it?

How do we make college science classes a place where students thrive? More than half of intended STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors switch out of STEM or leave college entirely, with first-generation college students, students from marginalized racial and ethnic communities, and female students most effected. Physics, as a discipline, represents a severe case of this larger national problem with only 21% of bachelor’s degrees going to women, and only 8.3% being awarded to students from traditionally marginalized racial and ethnic communities. For everyday instructors to have an impact on retention, we need to understand the role an individual experience plays in the retention story. The work from higher education has taught the university community important lessons about developing communities of learners and developing students’ sense of belonging in college. However, the majority of this work takes place at a large scale - across colleges and universities. What is missing from the current research is the mechanism of how programs and classrooms impact student success.

 

In this presentation I will share work that our research group has done to explore self-efficacy as a mechanism for understanding retention in STEM. I will center this work in the contexts of (1) supporting community college students through transfer to university bachelor’s degree programs, (2) designing an introductory physics for life science major class, and (3) developing curricular activities that center students’ identities as part of learning physics. I will detail our process of collecting systematic data that listens to and values students perspectives and highlight how our courses can adapt to better support diverse student learners.   

The Frontiers in Science (FIS) Program: promoting STEM graduate enrollment and training the faculty of the future.

Significant demographic disparities exist in students pursuing STEM careers, due in part to the differences in support and guidance undergraduates receive when considering future careers.  In this talk, we describe a 10-week paid summer research opportunity for undergraduates:  the Frontiers in Science (FIS) program.  Undergraduate participants are recruited from Minority-Serving Institutions and are competitively selected based on their personal statements and an interview (not GPA or test scores).  FIS interns are paired with a graduate student or postdoc mentor, who design the undergraduate research project and advise their mentee on scientific questions as well as time management.  Mentors and mentees join in a weekly guided conversation over lunch, discussing professional development topics to prepare them for success in graduate school.   Participating undergraduates have reported a statistically significant increase in interest in applying for graduate school.  Mentors state they feel more prepared to mentor students in a future faculty position and better understand students from diverse backgrounds.  The FIS program strengthens the pipeline of diverse students into graduate school in STEM fields as well as training the faculty of the future on how to be good mentors.   

The Physics of Living Systems Teacher (PoLS-T) Network: Building a community of practice to improve physics classroom outcomes

Secondary school physics teachers are often teaching out-of-field, out-of-certification and are often the only physics teacher in their school. As a result, physics teachers lack a sense of community and support in developing pedagogical content knowledge. The Physics of Living Systems-Teacher (PoLS-T) Network was established in 2020 to address salient challenges in secondary physics classrooms within a community of practice of teachers and education researchers. The Network has grown to include over 600 members across 40 countries. The PoLS-T Network organizes a Monthly Speaker Series, video resources, networking events to discuss the needs of physics teachers, and a yearly summer conference. In our presentation, we will share key insights about the type of support teachers in physics contexts need. Physics teachers in the Network care deeply about improving their students' access to quality physics education. Yet, a sense of isolation within their schools, lack of support for improving pedagogy, and equity gaps within the physics classroom limit the progress teachers can make. We plan to discuss our collaborative approach, which takes a community-of-practice model, to work with physics teachers to address specific classroom challenges and improve their students' learning.   

Lessons from a multidisciplinary advanced lab course (Part 1 of 2)

We present an overview and lessons learned from an interdisciplinary physics and chemistry instrumentation course taught at a primarily undergraduate institution of 4,500 students. This course served 3rd year students in a BS in Applied Sciences program, a multidisciplinary science major. During the first two months of the course, students performed experiments with and analyzed instruments commonly used in chemistry and physics. The focus was on data analysis and practical limitations of the techniques. In the final month, students built on this foundation with projects expanding the capabilities or testing the limits of these instruments.

Part 1 introduces the goals and methods of the course and summarizes the chemistry modules.

Part 2 summarizes the physics modules of the course and presents ideas for improving multidisciplinary lab courses.   

Lessons from a multidisciplinary advanced lab course (Part 2 of 2)

We present an overview and lessons learned from an interdisciplinary physics and chemistry instrumentation course taught at a primarily undergraduate institution of 4,500 students. This course served 3rd year students in a BS in Applied Sciences program, a multidisciplinary science major. During the first two months of the course, students performed experiments with and analyzed instruments commonly used in chemistry and physics. The focus was on data analysis and practical limitations of the techniques. In the final month, students built on this foundation with projects expanding the capabilities or testing the limits of these instruments.

Part 1 introduces the goals and methods of the course and summarizes the chemistry modules.

Part 2 summarizes the physics modules of the course and presents ideas for improving multidisciplinary lab courses.   

Students' Behavior While Doing Remote Asynchronous Hands-on Laboratories.

We present a mixed-data analysis of how students perform asynchronous hands-on labs at home and their success in achieving lab learning objectives that emphasize data sense-making and observational experimental skills. The labs use PHET simulations, the iOLab device and an electricity kit from PASCO. This is for our introductory physics calculus sequence (taught fully online before covid - since 2018) and the students are primarily adult learners with an average age usually around 27 years old. We used the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) to measure student self-regulation and other learning skills and we collected qualitative data via pre-post surveys and a "field note" document for one of our labs. The MSLQ data shows differences from earlier studies in the categories of time management/self-regulation and help-seeking. Students uniformly report times for completion of the lab that exceed the expected target (sometimes by many hours).  Many students make use of the peer-review system or other help channels to help them complete the labs. Our students overwhelmingly report that they find the labs valuable and useful to their learning (~90% of respondents). This in-depth analysis of asynchronous labs shows ways to design more effective learning experiences.   

Demonstration of dissipative coupling in feedback coupled pendulum system

Lab demonstration is considered essential in physics education. One of the ubiquitous undergraduate level demonstrations showcases coherent coupling in a spring-connected pendulum system. Using this simple system, many physics phenomena such as Rabi-oscillation and energy level anti-crossing can be observed. We have constructed a novel double-pendulum system coupled through ampere’s force. The coupling force is continuously self-adjusted using feedback current proportional to the pendulums' relative motion. The system can replicate the coherent coupling effect without a physical spring and is also capable of producing the newly discovered dissipative coupling effect (friction coupled pendulums). The dissipative coupling effect causes system energy level attraction rather than the energy level anti-crossing of a coherent coupling case (spring). When demonstrating pure dissipative coupling, the coupling strength is adjustable between negative dissipation (Gain) and positive dissipation (Loss). This system responds significantly differently under these two conditions. The oscillation amplitude can be damped when the coupling mechanism is adjusted to demonstrate positive dissipation (Loss). In this case, the system tends towards in-phase synchronization. The oscillation amplitude can alternatively be enhanced when the coupling mechanism is tuned to demonstrate negative dissipation (Gain), and this condition leads the system towards anti-phase synchronization. More importantly than its pure research benefit, our coupled pendulum system holds excellent educational value - being suitable for a novel gateway demonstration of dynamic coupling effects for both graduate and undergraduate students.