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Much of physics involves the construction and interpretation of equations. Sherin designed the symbolic forms analysis to describe students construction of equations in physics. A symbolic form includes two components: the symbol template to represent the externalized structures of the equation and the conceptual schema to represent the acontextual mathematical justification of the symbol template. We incorporate symbolic forms into a conceptual blending framework to describe the ways in which construct and understand equations. Our model treats the conceptual schema as the underlying generic space of conceptual blending that frames the combination of the contextual information and the symbolic structure. We present this model in the context of student construction of non-Cartesian differential length vectors. We illustrate the affordances of the model by drawing further connections between the frameworks and expanding this approach to other contexts within our research.

PERC SM 20

Modeling the construction and interpretation of equations: Incorporating symbolic forms into a conceptual blend

vector calculus

equations

conceptual blending

symbolic forms

equation

mathematics

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.

technical paper

Our department has undertaken a multi-year effort to make computational methods central to our physics curriculum. Our students should graduate with the attitude that computational approaches are a normal part of physics, used every day, and for a multitude of tasks. To accomplish this, our current objective is to make 25% of all work done by students in our upper division courses computational. This talk will begin with an overview of the history and change process of this initiative. What lead us to this decision, and how we have chosen to implement it as a department. It will then present an instrument developed in-house to measure students' attitudes and self-efficacy with respect to computation. This discussion will include both the process by which the instrument was developed, and what we have learned from the first few semesters of data. IUPUI is an urban public institution graduating 10-15 majors each year.

Introducing computational physics across the curriculum

Student issues with both understanding electrical potential and difficulties with interpreting diagrams have been well explored. A prior study showed equipotential diagram modifications of line thickness and color significantly increased student gaze times at the diagrams without increasing students' correctness. Students' awareness and understanding of electric charge sign and its role in electric potential is a major issue. An investigation of modifying traditional equipotential diagrams based on theories of visual affordances to improve students' recognition of electric change sign when ranking electric potential was undertaken. In this study different modifications of color and line style were made to equipotential lines to increase visual salience of charge sign. Students were randomly assigned to traditional or modified diagrams and asked to compare electric potentials for indicated points on given diagrams. Pre- and posttest comparisons and the results of student interviews are presented to clarify the specific issues students have reading equipotential diagrams.

Changes to equipotential diagrams to improve student ranking of electric potential (PERC)

As part of our effort to develop a concept inventory for statistical mechanics, we have interviewed a number of students who have taken a thermal physics course, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, about their understanding of the statistical mechanics topics taught in the thermal physics curriculum. The questions asked during the interviews were formulated with input from experts in the field, and will later be fleshed out into multiple-choice questions. Here, we report some of our intermediate findings about the students understanding of some of the topics.

Insights into student understanding of statistical mechanics (PERC)

Designing experiments by students is an important scientific skill and increasingly an explicit goal in the creation of new research-based activities. In this work, we studied the use of student design actions in research-based activities. Our definitions of student design tasks are: 1) Describing an experimental procedure invented by the student, 2) Improving a previous experiment, 3) Making hypothesis by students, 4) Choosing questions by students for investigation, and 5) Asking students to design, state, invent, or improve a mathematical or quantitative procedure. We analyzed 66 research-based activities from 11 different design groups to categorize them according to the frequency with which students are asked to complete design tasks

Investigating student design engagement in research-based activities

Scaffolding student mechanistic reasoning about static and dynamic liquids-

How learning environment predicts male and female students’ physics motivational beliefs in introductory physics courses - Poster

This study will inform the Physics Education Research (PER) community about patterns of partnerships and collaborations between authors and patterns of funding sources for the PER community over the last ten years. The study involves a text-based analysis of all Physics Education Research Conference (PERC) proceedings between 2010 to 2019 to identify funding sources and to determine patterns. PERC proceedings were selected given the central role of PERC to the PER community. PERC proceedings represent the community across scope of projects from small to large, across stage of projects from beginning to finished, and across investigator experience from new to established researchers. Findings are contrasted with those from the Learning Sciences community to provide context for understanding the significance of patterns. The goal of this work is to provide insight into the community's history and ten-year trajectory and thus enable the community to move forward in new and better directions.

Investigating partnerships and funding for the Physics Education Research community (PERC)

The AIP TEAM-UP report identifies the structural and systemic causes explaining why African Americans have not experienced the growth in bachelor's degrees in physics the way they have in other fields or as other minority groups have experienced in physics over the past two decades. Solving these problems requires changing not only the way physicists train students, but how they think about training students. Research on change in higher education suggests the need for physicists and astronomers to recognize and question the norms, values, and culture of their fields. The TEAM-UP report, SEA Change, and the new APS-IDEA all seek to stimulate and sustain a cultural transformation in the profession.

Modeling the construction and interpretation of equations: Incorporating symbolic forms into a conceptual blend

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Introducing computational physics across the curriculum

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