Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2021 Joint Spring Meeting of the Texas Sections of APS, AAPT and Zone 13 of the SPS
Volume 66, Number 2
Thursday–Sunday, April 8–11, 2021; Virtual
Session D14: AAPT/APS: Physics Education |
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Sunday, April 11, 2021 2:00PM - 2:12PM |
D14.00001: Applications of an approach for comparing student populations using item response curves Paul Walter, Ed Nuhfer, Connor Richardson, Trevor Smith, Crisel Suarez We report on three separate cases applying a metric to compare two populations' item response curves (IRCs). Each IRC plots the percentage of students selecting a particular answer choice on an item as a function of their overall score on the concept inventory. First, we compare the IRCs of different demographic groups using data from the Science Literacy Concept Inventory. Next, we use the metric to compare American and Japanese students' IRCs used in Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann (2017) for the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation. We also compare the IRCs of each group to the IRCs of a separate American data set. Lastly, we compare the pre-instruction IRCs to the post-instruction IRCs for a matched data set of students completing the Force Concept Inventory. The metric is a measure of the IRCs' similarity, and we have used it to identify items that may exhibit bias or demonstrate differences between populations. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 11, 2021 2:12PM - 2:24PM |
D14.00002: Igniting Hispanic Students' Science Literacy skills at a Community College in the 21st Century Martha Casquette, Diana Cortez-Castro The fundamental role of science in our everyday lives places unique demands on future educators.~Although science literacy is vital it proceeds to be an emerging global concern. The overwhelming amount of change, ``fake news'' and misinformation that has unfolded since 2020 due to COVID-19 places new demands on educators. We believe, more than ever, that we need to reinforce and advocate for science literacy in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) community. The vision of the project is to improve science literacy of future teachers (pre-service teachers) with the goal that they will take this information to their students and the community. An important part of this vision is to stimulate interest in STEM fields in the RGV that is 94{\%} Hispanic and where one-third of the population lives below the poverty line. The FUSION (Fostering the Ultimate Science-based Integrated Outreach Network) Program at Texas Southmost College (TSC) is a community outreach project funded by the American Physical Society (APS), under the APS Public Outreach Mini Grant. The project brings together two distinct TSC student cohorts: students registered in Education and Physical Science courses. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 11, 2021 2:24PM - 2:36PM |
D14.00003: Culturally Relevant Teaching in a Physics Classroom -- A glimpse at positive change Toni Sauncy, Jennifer Mata, Kevin Tate Much work has been done in the realm of culturally relevant pedagogy in a range of academic disciplines and levels. Likewise, physics researchers have worked to revise and reshape physics education practices as more is discovered about learning physics. As part of a recent NSF IUSE:HSI award, a multidisciplinary team has worked to engage STEM faculty at Texas Lutheran University in a conversation about the role of culturally relevant teaching to better engage students in the classroom and make positive impact on resilience and persistence to degree completion. There are many reasons not to add more to the curriculum, but just as many reasons to revise the ways we as educators respond to the undeniable presence of cultural intersections in our learning spaces. We will discuss the principles developed as part of a workshop series for STEM faculty, with a focus on challenges and strategies for physics educators. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 11, 2021 2:36PM - 2:48PM |
D14.00004: A Simple Nuclear Lab for Measuring the Rest Mass of an Electron Daniel Marble In Advanced Lab courses, students often perform nuclear counting and spectroscopy labs as well as a series of labs to measure fundamental constants including the Millikan Oil Drop and Thomson cathode ray experiments to find the charge and mass of the electron. This traditional approach has some draw backs including requiring multiple different experimental setups, long data collection times, high voltage supplies, etc. These requirements often limit the labs that smaller physics departments or high schools can perform. We have previously demonstrated that an inexpensive x-ray fluorescence lab using exempt radioactive sources and a NaI based nuclear counting system can eliminates the need for a Millikan Oil Drop setup.$^{\mathrm{1}}$ In this talk, we will present a method using the same nuclear counting system for determining the rest mass of the electron. The lab is simple to perform and eliminates both the space and cost of having multiple experimental setups to measure the charge and mass of the electron. With the commercial availability of Internet accessible multichannel analyzers, it is also easy to setup remote data acquisition for students to perform this and other nuclear labs as part of a college's advanced lab course as well as high school outreach opportunities to support quantum initiatives. $^{\mathrm{1}}$ D.K. Marble, ``An Inexpensive XRF Lab for Undergraduates and Other Educational Activities at Tarleton's Nuclear Laboratory'', AIP Conference Proceedings 2160, 050021 (2019). [Preview Abstract] |
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