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I overview three aspects of physics lab instruction where there is a tremendous opportunity for education researchers and innovative practitioners to impact student learning. The first area is shifting the theory-centric culture of physics education to a balanced emphasis on experiment and theory, which reflects professional practice within physics. I will show why the laboratory should be recognized as a critical environment for learning complex problem-solving and as highly relevant for students&#39; career preparation. The second area is embedding scientific practices within labs. Within the growing literature there is variation in viewing practices as discrete and transferrable skills versus integrated and highly contextualized, which has implications for researchers and educators. Third, I see potential for more project-based courses to blur the boundaries between lab instruction and research experiences by integrating a range of practices and reframing the purpose of a lab, which can affect students&#39; autonomy and identity within the lab.

AAPT SM 20

Challenges and opportunities for innovation and research in physics lab education

experiment

theory

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

I overview three aspects of physics lab instruction where there is a tremendous opportunity for education researchers and innovative practitioners to impact student learning. The first area is shifting the theory-centric culture of physics education to a balanced emphasis on experiment and theory, which reflects professional practice within physics. I will show why the laboratory should be recognized as a critical environment for learning complex problem-solving and as highly relevant for students' career preparation. The second area is embedding scientific practices within labs. Within the growing literature there is variation in viewing practices as discrete and transferrable skills versus integrated and highly contextualized, which has implications for researchers and educators. Third, I see potential for more project-based courses to blur the boundaries between lab instruction and research experiences by integrating a range of practices and reframing the purpose of a lab, which can affect students' autonomy and identity within the lab.

technical paper

It is important for physics students to develop ethics knowledge, yet this is rarely taught in physics classes. We are addressing this limitation in our physics classes at Texas State University. Here, we focus on teaching about the ethics of building the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii for an observational astrophysics class. We developed resources for students to make informed decisions about this complex issue. The unit encompasses an introduction of the TMT, a local perspective in San Marcos, a history of Hawaii, and perspectives about the TMT relative to formal ethical frameworks. In this talk, we will present data from this new unit in Spring 2020 including students’ video-recorded classroom conversations and their written work. We will highlight what worked well in our design and what could be improved in order to support the community of physics educators and education researchers in teaching about ethics in physics classes.

Lessons from teaching ethics using the Thirty Meter Telescope controversy

We developed five 30-minute topical quizzes in an introductory electromagnetism course (n~150) at MIT, and administered them electronically in class. For each problem on the quiz, students were given a randomized variant from a subset of three variants. We analyzed both the self-consistency of these quizzes and their correlation with other components of the course, including the final exam. We also looked at correlations between “types” of problems on both quizzes and the final. Finally, we sought to determine what problem variants, if any, were statistically significantly different from their counterparts within a problem. Quizzes, as a category, correlated more strongly with the final exam than any other component of the course, including the midterm exam. We argue that frequent quizzes are an effective and superior assessment compared to other assessments in the course. We intend to make these materials available to instructors at other institutions.

Topical, Randomized Quizzes in Electromagnetism

Students in undergraduate introductory physics courses do not always appreciate the importance of computational skills when it comes to physics. To help motivate students in this area, I have developed a simple game that introduces students to a few essential computational constructs: loops, if-statements, and Euler-Cromer integration. The game involves physics that cannot be done on paper. Students played the game on the first day of class, and then were tasked with reproducing the game. As a class, the students generated a checklist of essential features. Each then used the checklist to program a reproduction of the game. Students worked at their own pace, with only minimal instruction on computation in the beginning of the semester. I discuss successes and lessons learned.

Hungry Hungry Hamsters: Intro Physics Students Program a Game

Students in introductory physics laboratories often do not recognize the importance of estimating uncertainties – sometimes dismissing it as busy work. In addition, they often struggle with accounting for uncertainties in their measurements when reporting their findings. Here, we describe the implementation of a new laboratory activity in the calculus-based introductory physics sequence, which was informed by an emerging body of research on laboratory instruction. This laboratory activity focuses on the impact of measurement uncertainties on the construction of a linear best-fit model, particularly when the data points have non-identical uncertainties. In this talk, we will also share preliminary results from pre- and post-laboratory assessments.

Supporting student understanding of linear fitting with non-identical uncertainties

A growing body of research in physics education indicates that the nature of human reasoning itself may impact student performance on physics questions. Analysis of student reasoning patterns through the lens of dual-process theories of reasoning (DPToR) suggests that students may struggle to engage analytical processing productively when responding to a physics question that contains salient distracting features. As part of a larger effort to investigate and support student reasoning in physics, we have used reasoning chain construction tasks in order gain insight into students’ initial perceptions of viable approaches for solving a qualitative physics question and to examine the impact of guiding students to explore alternative approaches before revisiting that physics question. In this talk, preliminary results will be presented and implications for research-based curriculum development aligned with DPToR will also be discussed.

Scaffolding student exploration of alternative approaches

Thinking like a physicist is often hailed as a goal of introductory physics. Sensemaking strategies provide an avenue for developing physicist-like reasoning. Strategies such as drawing a picture, identifying assumptions, checking units, and analyzing limiting cases can help develop students’ physicist-like reasoning. Explicit sensemaking instruction aids in expanding students’ views about sensemaking and helps them develop habits that persist beyond explicit prompting. In this talk we present ways of scaffolding and fading sensemaking strategies as well as rewarding their use in introductory physics courses.

Sensemaking Instruction in Introductory Physics

Can regular, short, beginning of class activities (ie “Bell Ringers”) favorably impact students’ science identity, pedagogical knowledge, and attitudes toward science? These types of activities are supposed to engage learners at the very start of the class, getting them on task and settled from the hallway. As this is an instructional strategy common in K-12 learning environments, their effectiveness and utility among pre-service teachers merits investigation. Firstly, treating pre-service teachers more as adult learners, these activities could be “make and take” mini lessons for teacher candidates to collect for use in their own classrooms. Secondly, though seemingly unrelated at first, the “lessons” to be learned in these activities could further build upon or augment course curriculum in subtle yet measurable ways. In this talk, I will briefly explore how these types of activities could serve other roles while presenting initial findings investigating their effectiveness.

Daily Bell Ringers: Short activities impacting science identity, pedagogical knowledge, and students’ science attitudes

Mathematical reasoning flexibility across physics contexts is a desirable learning outcome of introductory physics, where the “math world” and “physical world” meet. Physics Quantitative Literacy (PQL) is a set of interconnected skills and habits of mind that support quantitative reasoning about the physical world. We present the Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL), which is a validated instrument that assesses students’ proportional reasoning, co-variational reasoning, and reasoning with signed quantities as they are used in physics. Unlike concept inventories, which assess conceptual mastery of specific physics ideas, the PIQL is a reasoning inventory that can provide snapshots of student ideas that are continuously developing. We are exploring analysis methods of student responses on the PIQL that will allow for assessment of hierarchical reasoning patterns, and thereby potentially map the emergence of mathematical reasoning flexibility throughout the introductory sequence, and beyond. (NSF DUE-1832836, DUE-1832880, and DUE-1833050)

Assessing mathematical reasoning:The Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL)

The previous talk introduced and elaborated on the theoretical framework of shared resources in the context of students solving problems about spherical unit vectors in upper-division E&M. In this companion talk, we discuss additional examples that we have identified from three small group think-out-loud interviews on the same topic, and go into greater detail about how these resources speak to their ability to navigate through some of the difficulties of this extremely challenging concept. We conclude with some implications for possible instructional strategies.

Shared Resources in Student Understanding of Spherical Unit Vectors: One Example

Introductory physics labs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign make use of Undergraduate Learning Assistants (LAs) to assist with the implementation of reformed lab activities. As the reformed lab program has been scaled up to include a greater selection of introductory courses, the high initial demand for LAs in calculus-based lab sections has led to expert LAs (ELAs) from the algebra-based introductory physics courses being recruited to teach in lab sections beyond their course experience. In this presentation, the attitudes and traits of the ELAs that choose to make the jump to the calculus-based introductory physics labs will be discussed, along with the provisions made within the lab course to aid with the transition.

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Challenges and opportunities for innovation and research in physics lab education

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