United States

The APS Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) project team surveyed department chairs nationwide to assess the status of physics-degree-granting departments (modeled in part on the DELTA survey design pioneered by Ngai et al 2020). These results inform the development of the EP3 Guide on effective departmental change, assessment practices, and program review. The respondents (N=310) reported perceiving the assessment of student learning and departmental program outcomes as currently largely driven by compliance and not leading to valuable change. The chairs also indicated that their vision for an ideal department was significantly misaligned with their current modes of operation. The change strategies with the most potential for improvement were 1) engaging multiple stakeholders and 2) using data effectively. These gaps highlight opportunities for growth where leaders’ motivation to align their department practices with their ideal values may be channeled toward supporting cultures of assessment and effective change.

AAPT WM 21

Cultures of Assessment and Change in US Physics Departments

practices

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change

Join us in exploring emergent themes in PER as a scholarly endeavor and as a research community!  Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?
Following the lead of AAPT for the summer meeting, PERC 20/20 was virtual. Enjoy browsing the content.

PERC SM 20

Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?

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AAPT® is a strong professional physics science society dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in physical science education.

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- discuss innovations in teaching methods
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To improve the teaching practices used by STEM graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who lead student-centered lab and recitation&nbsp;sections, STEM departments need to improve the training GTAs receive. In our study, seven physics “mini-studio” (combined recitation and lab) GTAs participated in three to four practice teaching sessions with a mixed-reality classroom across two semesters. During each practice session, GTAs were prompted to practice implementing student-centered teaching strategies into their discussion about a lab or recitation (tutorial) activity&nbsp;with a virtual class of five avatar-students. To assess the effectiveness of the simulator training, we also observed GTAs teaching in their real classroom two to three times each semester. In this talk, we investigate which teaching strategies GTAs implemented in two different classroom settings (recitation&nbsp;and lab). We also discuss the frequency of each teaching strategy used and provide examples to inform GTA professional development.

Comparing GTAs’ use of teaching strategies in recitations and labs

The APS Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) project team surveyed department chairs nationwide to assess the status of physics-degree-granting departments (modeled in part on the DELTA survey design pioneered by Ngai et al 2020). As part of this survey, department chairs were asked to reflect on threats, unrelated to the Covid-19 pandemic, to the continuity of their programs. These threats included financial strain, reductions in personnel, and deprioritization by administration. Of the survey respondents (N = 310), 45.2% reported experiencing a moderate or severe threat, which is substantial and concerning. A majority of departments facing threats were unlikely to consult outside resources when addressing the threatened actions. Resources developed by professional societies paired with collective responses from the larger physics community may be needed to support these departments in addressing threats.

Prevalence and Nature of Threats Facing U.S. Physics Departments

Access to high-quality, advanced physics instruction in high school can open pathways for students to attain university STEM degrees by preparing them for gate-keeping undergraduate physics courses. However, access to advanced high school physics instruction is not universally available. In response, the Physics Education Research Group at University of Illinois at&nbsp;Urbana-Champaign&nbsp;created the&nbsp;partnership program&nbsp; Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS), bringing together Illinois high school physics teachers to participate in intensive PD experiences structured around award-winning, university-level instructional materials (such as the iOLab wireless lab system, and web-based, “flipped” platform, smartPhysics ). Within the framework of a community of practice, teachers adapt, adopt, and integrate high-quality, university-aligned physics instruction into their classrooms, with the goal of opening more equitable, clear and viable pathways for students into engineering. This talk provides an overview of the partnership program and presents preliminary findings from the first intensive summer teacher PD session.

Opening Engineering Pathways: A University and High School Physics Partnership

Teaching is rewarding but lot of hard work for new teachers. It makes it more difficult for immigrant teachers who speak English as a second language. I will address different teaching practices in Sri Lanka in comparison to the US. Physics is a natural&nbsp;science where there are many real-world examples that one can bring into the classroom when teaching a certain Physics concept. However, this can be challenging if you are a person who didn’t grow up in the US. In my personal story, I will address the challenges I have faced and also my successes, how I was able to incorporate my traditional background and language into teaching and relationship building which is often difficult for some non-American teachers. I will also address actions I have taken to improve my teaching and to adapt to US styles of teaching and learning.&nbsp;

My Journey as a Physics Educator in US

Inquiry-Based Learning is a trend in science classrooms. However, bringing Inquiry-Based Learning to Colombian classrooms has been a slow process. Most of the professional development programs for teachers in Colombia are large, short-duration workshops with very ambitious goals and with a focus on tools (such as Moodle, sensors in smartphones, etc.). Only a few workshops are about methodologies, and most of these are focused on theory with reduced context.&nbsp; Over the past few years, we have designed and delivered teacher workshops in several Latin-American countries, as well as the United States, to support teachers to integrate Inquiry-Based Learning. This presentation will summarize insights from these experiences and discuss the design of a new teacher professional development program to support teachers in Antioquia, Colombia in the adoption and implementation of Inquiry-Based Learning methodologies in K12 science classrooms. The activities designed include the use of free PhET simulations and low-cost experiments. &nbsp;

Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning in Antioquia Colombia through Teacher Training

Asian/Asian American physics students lack ample representation in physics identity studies and in the broader STEM sociological literature. This may be due to their perceived “overrepresentation,” the “model minority” myth, or their treatment as monolithic. These misconceptions obscure the diversity amongst Asian students. How do these students understand and form their physics identity? Through in-person interviews, we have gathered data on the experiences of self-identifying Asian/Asian American undergraduate physics majors. For our analysis, we draw from previous physics identity research and use the Critical Physics Identity framework developed in a recent paper on Black physicists’ identities. 1 We present results from the Ideational Resource code and emergent codes generated from the data, such as Transnational Context and Asianization.

The Intersection of Physics Identity and Asian Identity

Standards based reform has been one prominent feature of the current educational landscape in the US since 1980s. High-stakes testing (HST) is key to the administration of standards as it holds schools accountable to meet the standards, changes the behavior of teacher and students in desirable ways, and monitors student achievement required by standards. High-school physics education (HSPE) in China is driven by the HST of college entrance examination, also known as Gaokao. I will compare HSPE between the US and China in reference to sample questions from Gaokao in China and their counterparts in the US. I will illustrate how HSPE in the two systems prepare students for the tests. Finally, I will analyze the longitudinal impacts of the two systems on students’ physics learning in college. I intend to give an insight into what is taught and how it is taught about physics in an HST-oriented context.

Examine high-school physics education driven by high stakes testing

Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice, shown to engage STEM students and increase retention, especially in underrepresented populations. Providing educational access to a diverse student population, community colleges are a vital part of the STEM pipeline, so it is critical to develop research skills as early as possible in their academic career. Colorado Space Grant Consortium has allowed our students and faculty access to excellent research opportunities at an affordable price, including payloads on high altitude balloons and sounding rockets. However, the cost of doing research on suborbital rockets, even through COSGC, can be prohibitive. In order to facilitate a student designed and built payload flown on a sounding rocket, Red Rocks Community College and Arapahoe Community College partner, combining resources both financial and advisory. The project is extra-curricular, allowing a wide range of student backgrounds and interests to participate and acquire a wide array of engineering and scientific skills.

Undergraduate Suborbital Research: Increasing Student Engagement Through Community College Partnerships

We all know what student behaviors lead to success in the long run: work steadily, review homework solutions and in-class problems, organize equations and concepts, work practice problems.&nbsp; The challenge is that some of our students enter with particularly weak backgrounds in science and mathematics. &nbsp;If&nbsp;these strategies don't work quickly enough to allow students to succeed in their introductory course, they drop out and switch majors.&nbsp; The solution: give students an alternate path, a “grade guarantee.”&nbsp; Students who complete all these successful behaviors are guaranteed a grade of C on each test, and therefore have a clear path to success in the course, and exit the course well prepared for the next course. &nbsp;This talk will describe how this grade guarantee can be put into effect without creating an undue burden on students or faculty.

Providing a Path to Success in Introductory Physics

Building an inclusive culture takes time and training.&nbsp; This is a curriculum using the strageties proposed&nbsp;in Sue et al's 2019 paper "Disarming Racial Microaggressions" (American Psychologist 74, 1, 128-142).&nbsp; The goal of the training is to practice responses to microagressions that are likely to occur in physics and future job settings.&nbsp;&nbsp; The goal is to give students options when they encounter a microaggression occurring in the future.&nbsp; In this presentation, we explain the pre-class set up, trigger warnings, in class discussions, and post-class practice and reflections.&nbsp; It is particularly important to remove the expectation that students of color are somehow responsible for educating the rest of the class, this is an unfair burden that will take away from their study of physics.

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