United States

The Loyola University Chicago Department of Physics offers a B.S. in Biophysics program that consists of a balanced blend of biology, chemistry, and physics coursework. As a capstone experience, students must complete an upper-level biophysics course. Although the course has a a significant lecture component with a focus on molecular and cellular biophysics as well as biomechanics, the aim of the course is for students to engage in professional science activities. Classroom activities include interpreting results from journal articles, writing an NIH-style research proposal on an instructor-approved topic with peer reviews, and completing an experimental project. I will present an overview of the course, its activities, and challenges. Students are also encouraged to participate in faculty research, and my undergraduate-only lab has several student researchers conducting experiments in single-molecule DNA microscopy. I will also discuss how the lab recruits students, trains them for research, and mentors their progress.

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Transitioning Students from Learning Biophysics to Doing Biophysics

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Join AAPT and Physics Educators worldwide in developing and strengthening your professional connections by attending the 2021 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting. AAPT meetings are a great way to reflect on your teaching, recommit to best practices and re-energize your career with new research, products, and techniques.

Listen to internationally known plenary speakers, attend sessions, workshops, and special activities. Attending the virtual summer meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.

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This meeting is a great opportunity to explore sessions and workshops designed with your professional development in mind. Present your research and exchange ideas on the latest in teaching and pedagogy. Participate in a wide range of events, activities, plenaries, and so much more, connecting you with peers and colleagues who share your commitment to excellence in physics education.

QuarkNet's Cosmic Ray e-Lab provides an online environment in which students experience the excitement of scientific collaboration in this series of investigations into high-energy cosmic rays. Schools with cosmic ray muon detectors upload data and use the eLab for data analysis. The format allows schools that do not have detectors to participate in research by analyzing shared data. A brief overview of different analysis tools will be presented.

Classroom Tool for High Energy Physics Analysis: QuarkNet e-Lab

Sneak peek at data we will release publicly in 2022: the physics graduation rates of women from historically excluded groups, at all US and UK institutions. US data includes institutions that are above average, average or below average for all women; all women of color; and Black, Indigenous and Latinx women. Users can also construct custom comparison groups. UK data classifies institutions by representation of Black and minority ethnic women among the student body and faculty, rate at which Black and minority ethnic women are hired upon graduating, and Athena Swan standing. This portal will allow physics departments to track their performance; will provide vital information to women who are considering joining particular institutions; and will allow researchers to identify trends among better-performing institutions. We anticipate intense interest in the portal as soon as it is made public; this is your chance to get a preview.

Graduation rates of women in the US and UK

Serpentinization highlights the intersection of habitability and geology in comparative planetology. Its significance is enhanced for Mars from orbital nuclear spectroscopy evidence for more mafic crustal chemistry compared to Earth. This may also enable serpentinization to sequester crustal water, possibly complementing phyllosilicate minerals considered recently. However, despite numerous serpentine zones across Earth’s continents, detailed analog studies are limited to a few formations such as the ophiolites in Oman. Meanwhile, autochthonous soils at Sri Lanka’s serpentine zone provide the first laboratory evidence that perchlorates, found across in situ sites on Mars, can facilitate the release of biohazardous cations from soil into brines. The presence of variably developed soils across Sri Lanka’s serpentine zone offers a planetary end-case reference for pedogenesis in serpentinites. Furthermore, several thermal springs near this zone can elucidate fluid chemistry from meteoric waters percolating through serpentinites, significant to paleo-Martian conditions when a surface hydrosphere may have existed.

Mars, Lanka and Habitability: Serpentinization as a Thread of Life

In October 2016 the Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs issued its report, Preparing Physics Students for 21 Century Careers. This effort by AAPT and APS provided guidance to physics departments that seek to foster the knowledge and skills their students need to be successful in a wide range of careers, which might include (but are not limited to) graduate education in physics and related fields. Since that time many departments have taken up the challenge to serve their students in this way, and follow-on activities of the professional societies have provided additional resources. I will describe some of these efforts, including the EPIC (Educating Physicists for Impactful Careers) report produced by the Pathways to Innovation Physics Entrepreneurship: Launching Institutional Engagement (PIPELINE) project. I hope that learning about these activities will inspire more departments to take a piece of the PIE (Physics Innovation and Entrepreneurship).

Phys21 in 2021: Progress in Implementation

I will report the results of using student story-telling as a pedagogical technique in physics that I have applied four college courses: a two-semester Introductory Physics course, Modern Physics, and Statistical Mechanics. Students were asked to research biographies of physicists and present 5-7 minute summaries that went beyond a narration of facts and events but provide context and connections. Students were asked to focus on what motivated physicists to study physics, what challenges they faced, their contributions and hobbies apart from physics, and how they interacted with other scientists in their time. A special effort was made to promote story-telling of the background and contributions of women and minorities in physics. I will report on student responses and reactions to this effort, based on blind surveys, exam results and general observations.

Student Storytelling in Physics Courses to Promote Engagement and Diversity

Goals for inclusivity can be met in physics classrooms that focus on self-advocacy and empowerment through disciplinary practices, foci that are critical in high school physics courses and pre-service teacher preparation programs. We’ve published work demonstrating that in such learning environments, learning gains are similar for students from minority and majority groups. These data provide the foundation for PEER Physics, a curriculum-driven professional learning community for both High School physics and teacher preparation. We now evaluate these courses from a new perspective by exploring student attitudes and beliefs towards physics and their physics learning experiences, as assessed using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) and student reflections. Comparisons of student attitudes before and after their course experience suggest they came to see science in a way more similar to how experts do, and these shifts in opinion were greater among traditionally underserved student groups.

Student Attitudes When We Focus on Self-advocacy Through Disciplinary Practices

One of the important but challenging topics students face in introductory quantum mechanics is perturbation theory. Difficulties arise over questions such as validity, namely when a perturbation is considered ``small'', or what states are ``good'' in degenerate perturbation theory. We discuss a multipronged treatment of perturbation with analytical approach augmented with numerical and symbolic computation. In this approach we are able to compute and compare against exact results, sometimes analytical but most often numerical, to ascertain the effect of perturbation. Not only does computation help cut down mathematical drudgery, it also enables more in-depth study. For instance, one can find with ease good states beyond the standard 2-state treatment in degenerate perturbation calculations (see https://jwang.sites.umassd.edu/ for examples).

Perturbation: Analytical vs Numerical Treatment

Many curricula challenge students to explain discrepant events. Dual process theories can account for the tension learners experience between competing lines of thinking. When faced with a novel problem, the heuristic process generates an initial model, based on recognition. These models can be inconsistent with formal knowledge, such as Newton’s laws, learners have developed. In some cases, cognitive reflection initiates scrutiny of the initial model by the analytic process, with the possibility of formal knowledge being activated. But how readily can learners override a strongly appealing intuitive idea in favor of formal knowledge? In an ongoing collaboration, we have been developing “screening-target” question pairs that elicit normative reasoning in low distraction contexts, but trigger alternative models in related, higher distraction contexts. We have used selected pairs in interviews. This talk shares a case study of a student holding competing reasoning in tension, using dual process theory as an interpretive lens.

The Challenge of Evaluating Consistency of Competing Lines of Thinking*

Comparisons of the effectiveness of two instructional interventions in a general education physics class on improving students’ scientific reasoning skills and attitudes toward science were made. The first intervention was to have students watch short videos on scientific topics while completing worksheets. The second was to have students manipulate PhET simulations and complete worksheets based on those simulations. The instructional interventions were applied for two control semesters, three video treatment semesters, and two PhET manipulation semesters. The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey was used to assess the students’ attitudes about science and Lawson’s Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning was used to assess the students’ scientific reasoning skills. Pre and Post assessment results are presented and compared for the control semesters, video activity semesters, and PhET manipulation semesters. Initial findings showed improvements in both student attitudes toward science and students' scientific reasoning skills with both interventions.

Investigating Student Attitudes and Curricular Benefits from Two Instructional Interventions

This study investigates how college-level and high-school-level variables affect FMCE (Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation) pretest and post-test scores. The sample consists of students attending a large eastern land-grant university in the US who are enrolled in the introductory calculus-based mechanics class (N=1060). Variables examined include college performance, high school preparation, and non-academic variables such as sense of belonging, self-efficacy, personality, and demographics. Correlation analysis and linear regression were used to understand relations between these variables. High school physics preparation and student achievement in high school physics were consistently the most important variable in explaining pretest scores.

Transitioning Students from Learning Biophysics to Doing Biophysics

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Transitioning Students from Learning Biophysics to Doing Biophysics

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