Bulletin of the American Physical Society
81st Annual Meeting of the APS Southeastern Section
Volume 59, Number 18
Wednesday–Saturday, November 12–15, 2014; Columbia, South Carolina
Session KA: Physics Education |
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Chair: Lili Cui, North Carolnia State University Room: Lexington |
Saturday, November 15, 2014 9:00AM - 9:36AM |
KA.00001: Preparing Teaching Assistants for Student-Centered Learning Invited Speaker: Alice D. Churukian For the Fall 2014 semester, we adopted a lecture/studio methodology for all introductory physics courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this approach, students attend one hour of lecture and two hours of studio twice per week. In this fashion we were able to offer large lecture sections for efficiency, but retain smaller, more intimate studios for hands-on, minds-on problem-solving and laboratory activities. While the lectures are taught by faculty, the majority of the studios are led by teaching assistants (TAs). Thus, for this endeavor to be successful, it is necessary to have well prepared TAs. How we prepare our TAs, and the difficulties we have encountered along the way, will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, November 15, 2014 9:36AM - 10:12AM |
KA.00002: PhysTEC: Focusing on Learning Assistants (and some others) Invited Speaker: David G. Haase The PhysTEC program (http://www.phystec.org/) supports some projects that target one aspect of the PhysTEC model for encouraging more students to consider teaching physics in high school. NC State's PhysTEC program (http://phystec.wordpress.ncsu.edu/) enlists physics and engineering undergraduates to serve as Learning Assistants in the recitation sections for freshman mechanics, in the SCALE-UP classroom and in the Physics Tutorial Center. Beginning LA's also participate in a weekly seminar Introduction to Teaching Physics. The seminar is co-taught with a STEM Education faculty member and mixes activities that cover high school and college teaching. Each fall semester the new Physics graduate Teaching Assistants take the course, as well, so the classroom becomes a multinational mixture of undergrads and grads with varying educational backgrounds. We are pleased that each semester we have more LA applicants than we can employ and that several LA's have chosen to enroll in education courses. The LA activities have increased collaboration among all of these people responsible for our service courses. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:12AM - 10:24AM |
KA.00003: The del squared V club, and the Kapitza club Ronald Edge Two famous physics graduate student societies were founded in Cambridge in the last century, but are now defunct. Why did they vanish? The earliest of these was the del squared Vclub. This was inaugurated in 1900, probably by GFC Searle, (who had anticipated Einstein about the terminal velocity of light). with the objective of furthering knowledge in physics. Experimental physics was discussed in the Kapitza club, which Peter (or Pyotr) Kapitza started. In setting up the Kapitza Club in 1922, he had shaken his postgraduate colleagues out of their lethargy and persuading them to attend a weekly seminar on a topical subject in physics. The speakers, normally volunteers from the club's members, spoke with the aid only of a piece of chalk and a blackboard and they had to be prepared for a series of interruptions, mediated by Kaptiza with the quick wit and elan of a modern-day game-show host. Ultimately, in 1934 Kapitza was held after a Russian visit. He remained sequestered for the next twenty or so years, although visitors from the west (such as Schoenberg and Dirac) kept him up to date. The Kapitza club ended at a meeting in 1966 with the return of Kapitza, Dirac and Cockcroft being present. [Preview Abstract] |
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