Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2020
Volume 65, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2020; Denver, Colorado
Session L36: {$PICUP}: Integrating Computation in Introductory and Upper-Level Physics CoursesEducation Invited Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FED DCOMP Chair: Amy Liu, Georgetown University Room: 601/603 |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:00AM - 8:36AM |
L36.00001: Integrating computation using materials from the PICUP collection in Introductory Physics Invited Speaker: Marie Lopez del Puerto The Partnership for Integrating Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP, www.gopicup.org) runs workshops, hosts an online collection of curricular materials, and supports a growing community of interested faculty with the goal of making it easier for faculty to integrate computation into their courses. In this talk, I will share my experience integrating computation into the introductory physics sequence. I will highlight materials in the PICUP collection that I adapted, discuss how those materials fit into and enhance the course, and talk about how I integrate computation into a workshop-style course. I will then present different approaches used by faculty who integrate computation into introductory physics courses in a variety of institutional settings, so attendees can see how they might integrate computation in their own introductory courses. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:36AM - 9:12AM |
L36.00002: Enhancement of Student Experience and Content Coverage in Physics Courses Through Integration of Computation Invited Speaker: Kelly Roos Integrating computational activities into undergraduate physics courses adds educational value to the physics curriculum through providing deeper conceptual understanding of physical principles, introducing marketable skills, enhancing problem-solving, and expanding topical coverage. In this presentation, I shall provide a few examples of these computational activities that add educational value to the undergraduate physics curriculum in introductory and upper level courses, and offer suggestions (based on more than 25 years of “trying things”) on how to effectively implement such activities into the traditional course format, i.e. the conventional lecture-lab mode of physics instruction. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 9:12AM - 9:48AM |
L36.00003: Title:Upper-Division Computational Physics at Syracuse and its Lasting Impact on Students Invited Speaker: Walter Freeman The value of incorporating computational physics into the undergraduate curriculum is now widely accepted, both because it facilitates student learning of core physical concepts and because computational skills are needed in graduate research and industry. However, computation doesn't just let us train the same sort of physicists more efficiently; students with computation as a core part of their training develop a richer, more insightful, more fundamentally grounded, and ultimately more fruitful perspective on physics as a discipline. In short, they become a different sort of physicist -- one with a clearer view of what physics shows us about the world and with more freedom to apply their knowledge to understand physical phenomena. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 9:48AM - 10:24AM |
L36.00004: Modern Computer Applications in the Advanced Laboratory Invited Speaker: Daniel Borrero-Echeverry While computers have long played an important part in Physics laboratory instruction, the scope of their use is often limited to relatively simple data processing tasks like fitting experimental data to well-established analytical models. While these applications are obviously important, they are not representative of the full range of ways that computers are used in modern physics research laboratories. In this talk, I will discuss how the Physics department at Willamette University has created engaging laboratory experiences that tightly integrate experiment, theory, and computational modeling and incorporate modern computational tasks like data visualization, simulation of experimental systems, and computer-aided design of experimental apparatus. These activities have reduced the time that faculty spend training undergraduates to work in their labs allowing students to make more significant research contributions, while also helping them acquire crucial computation skills that they will need as they join the 21st century workforce. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 10:24AM - 11:00AM |
L36.00005: Normalizing computation through continuous student engagement in the undergraduate physics curriculum Invited Speaker: Yogesh Joglekar Physics is, by definition, the most fundamental empirical science. Broadly construed, the laws of physics allow us to explain phenomena and predict outcomes on scales that range from astronomical to the microscopic. And yet, anecdotal surveys show that high-school and undergraduate students largely perceive physics as “theoretical” with little to no day-to-day consequences. This gap between the reality and the perception is fueled, in part, by undergraduate curriculum where majority of the courses mostly focus on examples that have the distinct advantage of being analytically solvable. In this talk, I will present a department-wide initiative to normalize computation across the physics curriculum – an intervention that is designed to bridge the gap by enabling students to explore realistic physics and engineering examples. It consists of a meta-course comprising computational modules developed by the departmental faculty for every course in the undergraduate curriculum, a redesigned “Introduction to Computational Physics” course, and a sustained engagement of students through assignments and exams that involve computational problems. I will present preliminary results of surveys from each semester under intervention. |
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