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Due to COVID-19, introductory physics lab courses were shifted to an online format. The online implementation of the labs involved a shift in emphasis in learning goals and involved a range of activities, including PhET simulations, video data collection, analysis of data sets, and open-ended free response conceptual questions. We contrast student perceptions of the online labs and learning outcomes for asynchronous and synchronous implementations.

AAPT WM 21

Student Perceptions and Learning in Online Labs

online labs

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technical paper

Virtual reality (VR) physics labs that employ fictitious physical phenomena to provide students an opportunity for authentic physics model development are under development at the University of Washington. In these labs’ remote incarnation, one member of each group of 6-7 students attended in person to operate VR hardware. The in-person student collaborated with their group via video call. This hybrid format lent itself well to VR labs. An in-VR student communicates with their partners only by voice whether instruction is virtual or not; thus the remote adaptation of this approach made minimal functional difference in collaborative group dynamics. Our findings suggest that VR technology can enable robust student collaboration in remote experimental physics lab contexts. In this talk I will compare and contrast the student in-person VR lab experience to its virtual counterpart, and identify implications for the design of remote physics laboratory curriculum.

Collaboratively Developing Experimental Physics Skills in Hybrid Virtual Reality Labs

We physics teachers seek the latest education research findings, new curricular ideas, and inspiration to buoy our spirits and imagination.&nbsp; But we live busy lives; it is hard to find time for reading and researching new ideas.&nbsp; Meanwhile, podcasts are a rapidly growing form of media; not just for entertainment, but for learning about the world.&nbsp; What if there were a podcast dedicated to physics education?&nbsp; Now there is!&nbsp; Physics Alive is a podcast where I speak with teachers who employ innovative and active learning styles, researchers and textbook authors on the frontiers of physics education, life science and health professionals who use physics on an everyday basis, and students who want the most out of their education.&nbsp; In this talk I share major themes of the podcast and how I hope to disseminate excellent research.&nbsp; I also seek your input for making it better!&nbsp; Visit physicsalive.com

Physics Alive: Sharing Education Insights and Research through a Podcast

We review key lessons learned when taking our small group active learning classes online, both in synchronous and asynchronous modes. We considered engagement with the material, the instructor and with other students. Five key techniques emerged as being most important: Clarity, technology, opportunity, feedback, and flexibility. Since communication of course structure and expectations are always important, and because each campus relies on different Learning Management Systems, our talk will focus on different ways to provide engagement and ideas for both providing and receiving feedback. Once feedback is flowing, flexibility will allow you to adjust or review whatever is needed to keep your students on track and engaged.This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496.

Keys to Keeping Students Engaged

The new Smart Cart Motor from PASCO scientific opens a wide variety of possibilities for the study of motion. It can be used to generate many novel motion profiles by responding to inputs from the attached Smart Cart. It can respond to inputs from any PASCO sensor using PASCO Capstone or SPARKvue's software's built-in Blockly programming. This unleashes student creativity to control motion based on temperature, light, sound, magnetic field, and the actions of another Smart Cart. Computational thinking in the classroom has never been so engaging and exciting. Several applications will be demonstrated during this talk and sample code and lab activities will be distributed. The Smart Cart Motor will become your new favorite PASCO scientific product!

The New Smart Cart Motor from PASCO scientific

Building strong undergraduate communities effectively is important to student success. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and current social distancing guidelines, colleges and universities have had to adapt many of their normal activities, such as classes and club gatherings, to virtual platforms.&nbsp; This may have students feeling more disconnected than normal, which has led the Society of Physics Students (SPS) to strategize building a sense of community within its members more now than ever.&nbsp; With increased social media presence, utilizing the SPS Discord channel, organizing virtual talks, and more, SPS has worked to interact with our students and members to promote community engagement virtually. Learn about the SPS virtual initiatives and how you can get involved or implement them in your own community.

Community Building with SPS - Virtually

A challenge that engineering students usually face when moving forward from an introductory physics course into a statics course concerns the resolution of trusses. The challenges include applying basic concepts on statics, such as identifying forces and drawing free-body diagrams on the trusses joints. This study explores students’ use of a visuohaptic truss simulation in a statics lab using three different modalities: visual, visuohaptic, and sequenced haptic+visuohaptic. While the visual simulation allowed students to observe the force’s magnitudes and directions, the visuohaptic simulation also allowed students to feel the forces acting in the members of a truss. Findings suggest that by providing visual and haptic feedback, students get to experience rich embodied experiences,&nbsp; fostering the development of richer mental representations of the topic, and transfer it to truss resolution. Learning through the haptic device fosters conceptual understanding and the correct use of force direction while solving exercises with trusses.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Visuohaptic Simulations enhancing learning in an applied physics course

A group of secondary students, learning geometrical optics using a computer simulation, was followed. The aim was to observe the students learning progression with a focus on their ability to draw correct rays in the formation of an optical image. The teaching was based on activities focused on testing hypotheses, supplemented by computer simulations. Each session started with the students individually predicting the answer of the task by drawing a ray diagram and explaining their reasoning in words. As the students were followed longitudinally, they increasingly exhibited signs of having developed&nbsp;a physically correct understanding.&nbsp;Their increased understanding of the formation of&nbsp;image&nbsp;points was exhibited in the students´ discussions. The students construction of rays improved&nbsp;from them being able to handle single rays, towards mastering multiple ray construction.&nbsp;The students discussions, transcribed from video recordings, show&nbsp;that the students&nbsp;focused on solving the tasks&nbsp;using multiple rays.

A case study of learning geometrical optics using multiple representations.

We discuss new experimental and analytical studies of the familiar pair of spring-coupled-pendulua (SCP). This system is frequently used to introduce eigenvalue analysis and coupled differential equations (1). We extend the tutorial value of the SCP by measuring and modeling energy “flow.” Specifically, we follow the time behavior of the system energy as it flows between kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, and spring potential energy. We follow three different states: symmetric motion, the first normal mode, antisymmetric motion, the second normal mode, and mixed-mode motion modeled as a linear combination of the two normal modes. We compare our modeled behavior with experimental measurements we make using a simple, effective, and low-cost system (2).&nbsp; We use these studies to supplement an Applied Linear Algebra Course that involves hands-on measurement of dynamical systems and explorations that go beyond what is found in most textbooks.

Energy Flow in Spring Coupled Pendula: Measurements and Analysis

We present several ideas for alternative assessments in courses taught virtually. We will discuss video and photo assignment alternatives to exams, such as mini-lessons, photo blogs, and community-based learning, that allow students to engage with, and demonstrate their mastery of, course concepts. This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496.

Assessment Options for Remote Learning: Alternatives to Traditional Exams

In online or flipped courses, instructors often assign asynchronous online lecture videos. However, in-classroom and synchronous lectures frequently include interactive elements such as clicker questions. The goal of this project is to create a set of Interactive Online Lectures that foster active learning in an asynchronous format. Six lecturers at four diverse institutions are creating and sharing the lecture videos and interactive elements for the first semester of an introductory calculus-based course. Each lecture consists of several short (5 to 8 minute) video lecture segments interspersed with required multiple-choice "clicker questions" designed to help students understand the lecture content. After submitting each answer, the student sees an explanation of why the answer is correct or incorrect. The lectures are currently being used at five institutions either as primary or supplementary materials. Sample lectures and instructions for signing up to use the lectures at no cost can be found at https://ivet.rit.edu/IOL.

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Student Perceptions and Learning in Online Labs

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Collaboratively Developing Experimental Physics Skills in Hybrid Virtual Reality Labs

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