Bulletin of the American Physical Society
14th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Section of the APS
Volume 57, Number 7
Thursday–Saturday, October 18–20, 2012; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Session H5: Physics Education |
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Chair: Joss Ives, University of the Fraser Valley Room: SFU Harbour Centre 1600 Canfor Policy Room |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 1:30PM - 2:06PM |
H5.00001: Promoting Students' Proportional Reasoning Using Invention Tasks Invited Speaker: Andrew Boudreaux To many students, introductory physics may seem a fast-moving parade of abstract, mysterious quantities. Most such quantities are rooted in proportional reasoning. Using ratio, physicists construct the force experienced by a unit charge and characterize motion with the change in velocity for a unit time. While physicists reason about these ratios without conscious effort, students may resort to memorized algorithms and struggle to match the appropriate algorithm to the situation encountered. Dan Schwartz and colleagues at Stanford University have developed invention instruction as a means to prepare students for future learning. Invention tasks present open-ended situations in which students must invent a procedure or quantity in order to make meaningful comparisons. Through creative thinking and struggle, students are primed to make sense of the accepted scientific solution. A collaboration between Western Washington University, Rutgers, and New Mexico State has developed sequences of invention tasks to promote proportional reasoning. Central to our work is the development of assessments to gauge student learning. This talk presents an overview of the coordinated research and curriculum development project together with selected examples. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 2:06PM - 2:18PM |
H5.00002: Measuring the Effectiveness of Simulations in Preparing Students for the Laboratory Mark Paetkau, Dan Bissonnette, Colin Taylor For the past few years we have been using online simulations to help students prepare for their Introductory Physics labs. We have created online animations allowing students to simulate the lab before arriving, which, ideally, more effectively prepares students for the lab. To test whether the simulations are more effective than traditional pen-and-paper questions as pre-lab exercises, we attempted to measure the ``level-of-preparedness'' of our students. Using our preparedness measure, we compare the preparedness for the two forms of pre-lab exercises. A statistically significant change in ``preparedness'' is found with the use of online simulations over the pen-and-paper pre-labs. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 2:18PM - 2:30PM |
H5.00003: Student Performance on Conceptual Questions: Does Instruction Matter? Paula Heron As part of the tutorial component of introductory calculus-based physics at the University of Washington, students take weekly pretests that consist of conceptual questions. Pretests are so named because they precede each tutorial, but they are frequently administered after lecture instruction. Many variables associated with class composition and prior instruction could, in principle, affect student performance. Nonetheless, the results are often found to be ``essentially the same'' in all classes. Selected questions for which we have accumulated thousands of responses, from dozens of classes representing different conditions with respect to the textbook in use, the amount of prior instruction, etc., serve as examples. A preliminary analysis suggests that the variation in performance across all classes is essentially random. No statistically significant difference is observed between results obtained before relevant instruction begins and after it has been completed. The results provide evidence that exposure to concepts in lecture and textbook is not sufficient to ensure an improvement in performance on questions that require qualitative reasoning. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 2:30PM - 2:42PM |
H5.00004: Examining student understanding in quantum mechanics Gina Passante, Paul Emigh, Peter Shaffer A solid understanding of quantum mechanics is an important component to an undergraduate physics degree. While many quantum mechanics students can successfully solve complicated mathematical problems, they are often unable to answer qualitative or conceptual questions and have trouble with some very important foundational concepts. The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington is working to develop a set of tutorials to supplement traditional instruction and improve students understanding of many important quantum mechanical concepts. Preliminary findings and examples will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 2:42PM - 2:54PM |
H5.00005: Science Rocks! Summer Program Cara Boerner In this talk I will discuss the University of the Fraser Valley's Science Rocks! summer program. The success of the program will be discussed as well as how the program has been adapted over the years. I will also talk about me own experience with the program as I have been a facilitator for the last two years and how it has benefited the facilitators as much as the children who are taking part in the program. I will also be looking at how this program is largely science based and how that affects all parts of the day that the children are present for. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
H5.00006: The AIP Career Pathways Project: Learning the Effective Practices of Physics Departments Preparing Graduates with the Bachelor's Degree for STEM Careers Thomas Olsen, Kendra Redmond, Roman Czujko Forty percent of students graduating with the bachelor's degree in physics seek employment immediately upon graduation. The AIP Career Pathways Project, funded by NSF, seeks to learn by site visits the effective practices of departments in preparing these students to successfully secure positions in STEM and to make these practices known by presentations, publications, and workshops. This talk will review AIP Statistical Resources data on the careers of physicists with the bachelor's degree, provide preliminary insights from the site visits, provide some advice for graduates seeking employment, and describe the upcoming workshops. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 3:06PM - 3:26PM |
H5.00007: BREAK |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 3:26PM - 4:02PM |
H5.00008: Onward and Upward in the Physics Studio Invited Speaker: Neil Alberding Since the fall of 2005 we have been offering a two-semester, Calculus-based first-year physics course at Simon Fraser University's Surrey campus. This course includes lecture, laboratory and laboratory components of the course in 6 hours of class time per week. During the following years we've evolved our methods of presenting the material, the equipment and our facilities have evolved. In addition other colleges in the lower mainland have started offering the same or similar courses. In this presentation we'll discuss what we find works, doesn't work, what difficulties we have encountered and our attempted solutions. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 4:02PM - 4:38PM |
H5.00009: Applying results from Physics Education Research in a large first-year service course Invited Speaker: Daria Ahrensmeier First-year service courses are among the most challenging teaching appointments, due to factors such as lack of motivation, lack of academic preparation, and huge class size. I will describe how the Labatorial Project at the University of Calgary strives to apply results from Physics Education research on inquiry-based learning, addressing misconceptions, peer instruction etc. to the small group sections of these courses. After a brief overview of the design and implementation of the labatorials for a first-year course for engineering students, I will focus on the aspects of change management and sustainability: how one initial change led to a sequence of related modifications, from the lectures to the exams and TA training, accompanied by a natural process of faculty professional development. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 20, 2012 4:38PM - 4:50PM |
H5.00010: Undergraduate and Graduate Opportunities in Nuclear Science at Simon Fraser University Corina Andreoiu, J.-C. Brodovitch, J.M. D'Auria, K. Starosta The Departments of Chemistry and Physics at Simon Fraser University offer a Nuclear Science Minor at undergraduate level. The program, which is unique in Canada, attracts students from all departments of the Faculty of Science, and, occasionally, from other departments such as engineering and business. Students graduating with this minor have the opportunity to get employment in academia and a variety of industries ranging from nuclear power to nuclear medicine, safety, accelerators, etc. At the graduate level, the Nuclear Science group in the Department of Chemistry attracts students to its in-house program and also in collaboration with TRIUMF, Canada's Laboratory for Nuclear and Particle Physics. The graduate program offer a rich plethora of topics in experimental nuclear science ranging from understanding the matter at subatomic level and its role in astrochemistry to applications of nuclear science in radiation measurements and monitoring, nuclear instrumentation, etc. The academic components of the program, its goals and future developments are presented in this paper along with enrolment statistics for the last ten years. [Preview Abstract] |
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