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What happens to aspiring engineers who do not pass their introductory mechanics class? At UIUC, approximately 11 percent of introductory mechanics engineering students earn a D, F, or W. Just 31 percent of these students go on to earn an engineering degree, compared with the 87 percent of students who pass the course on their first attempt. While most students who perform poorly in their introductory physics class choose a non-engineering major or leave the university altogether, there is a unique subset of initially struggling students who choose to persist in an engineering major. We interviewed engineering seniors in this group to learn about their experiences as engineering students who overcame an initial setback. In this talk, we will discuss big-picture outcomes for students who retake this fundamental course as well as insights into the difficulties some students face and what resources may help them succeed.

AAPT SM 20

When the Gatekeeper Says No: Mechanics Students&#39; Resilience and Success

undergraduate engineering

course retakes

interviews

introductory mechanics

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?

When the Gatekeeper Says No: Mechanics Students' Resilience and Success

technical paper

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. 

We discuss a simple and novel method due to Müller-Plathe to compute the thermal conductivity and viscosity in a molecular dynamics simulation. The method is easy to explain and provides insight into nonequilibrium steady state processes. The method is discussed in the added chapter to the forthcoming second edition of our text on thermal physics.

Molecular dynamics calculation of thermal conductivity and viscosity

We address two major issues in the methods PER has historically used to interpret student outcomes on research based assessments (e.g., the FCI). First, PER has historically used normalized learning gain (g) as a normalizing factor to interpret student outcome scores. This is problematic because g has no statistical basis and is biased in favor of high pre-score groups. Second, instructors have been comparing their student outcomes to those in the published literature. This is problematic because the published literature overrepresents outcomes from courses in highly-selective institutions. In this talk we will offer two alternative methods for interpreting student outcomes based on our analysis of a large-scale dataset with representation across the spectrum of institution types. Specifically, we recommend interpreting student outcomes using either a scatter-plot of a large-scale course pretest and posttest scores or an effect size measure (e.g., Cohen’s d of Hedges g).

More representative and less biased methods for interpreting student outcome data

Teaching labs during a pandemic:  Lessons from Spring 2020 and an outlook for the future

The presenters will describe a course that was developed to explore themes related to science and religion. The course — “Science and Religion: Anomalies and Miracles” — was team taught by professors of physics and religious studies, and was designed around a unifying question that motivated the course content and discussions: Historically, how have practitioners of science and religion dealt with unexplained or unexpected events? How do particular worldviews inform the way they receive, interpret, or reject novel ideas? We will present a big-picture overview of the course content, as well as some specific lessons and discussions that illustrate the unique approaches that the team-taught structure permitted. We will also discuss the results of a student survey about the course and explore what students described as the enduring understandings, more than ten years later, that they retained from the experience.

Anomalies and Miracles: Revisiting an Undergraduate Science and Religion Course

Like many institutions during Spring 2020, our university quickly switched to online instruction, and we will share our experiences. We wrestled with how to turn the remaining labs into online labs and tried different methods in our Introductory Physics 1 and Physics 2 Labs. We also deliberated on whether or not to reduce the number of labs required for the semester and how to keep the Teaching Assistants employed. Additionally, we made plans to improve the quality of our online labs in the possibility of a return to virtual instruction in the Fall 2020 semester.

Online Introductory Physics Labs During Covid-19

This talk describes some events designed to share culture among students and faculty. In order to enhance the participation of women and minoritized students and to elevate the experiences of all students, we must find ways to allow students to bring their whole selves into their studies. The illusion that Physics has no culture is damaging especially those who do not feel welcome. By discussing culture and sharing our culture we can strengthen connections between students and faculty.

Cultural Exchange Events

Given the development of the Covid-19 global pandemic during the Spring semester of 2020, proctoring an in person, comprehensive, written final was no longer an option. While I considered the alternatives, I began to question the learning goals of the course and the value of a traditional final exam. I want my students to continue to think about the course material outside the classroom, to gain a deeper appreciation of the subject, and to reflect on the course as a meaningful and influential life experience. To bring meaning, there must be elements of community, civic responsibility, and personal growth. To that end, students were matched with local seniors, those more vulnerable to loneliness due to the pandemic. They met with their senior via Zoom to discuss connections between course material and the current social, economic, and political context as well as the current coronavirus pandemic and public health in general.

Covid-19: An Opportunity to Drive the Undergraduate Introductory Physics Curriculum toward Change

Classes with multiple teachers is a challenging way for teaching science. The hard part is, teachers have mostly chosen their teaching styles, and blending teaching styles after years of development can be daunting. This limits opportunities to try new approaches. However, co-teaching provides the opportunity to teach with different approaches and group work strategies, which can be a little hard but exciting. We decided to follow the same lesson plans, lab tools, quizzes and grading strategy for three introductory calculus-based mechanics classes for one quarter, including combining the classes in our Learning Management System, Canvas. We were all equally responsible as the course instructor in our in-class instruction and our online presence as well. In this experience, we improved our teaching and collaboration skills and students learned how to engage in co-taught a class with many students and multiple teachers.

Co-teaching an Introductory Mechanics Course; An Opportunity to Teach or Learn?

Many studies have shown that engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher level critical thinking skills, and promotes meaningful learning experiences. In this talk, I will share a way that I engage the students in the classroom setting and with online instruction using free a online tool called Quizziz. Quizizz is a free tool. It works on almost any device or web browser. You can access hundreds of learning quizzes that other instructors have created or you can create your own. This is a great way to promote student engagement and fun competitive learning especially when teaching online.

Engaging Physics Students with Quizizz

Building on prior analyses of how introductory physics experiences affect student attitudes, preliminary evidence suggests that IPLS students, more so than their counterparts in traditional introductory physics courses, express the attitude that physics is relevant to their primary biological interests. We report on the durability of these attitudes. We present results from interdisciplinary attitude surveys given to students a year (or more) after their initial experience in IPLS, as well as immediately after that experience. By tracking the evolution of student attitudes over time, we assess whether attitude improvements due to IPLS are in fact stable and long-lasting. We also explore how students’ subsequent coursework in biology or other disciplines may influence these attitudes.

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When the Gatekeeper Says No: Mechanics Students' Resilience and Success

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Molecular dynamics calculation of thermal conductivity and viscosity

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