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In the Fall of 2019 with support from a HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant, the Physics Department at Davidson College changed how our introductory physics courses were taught. The traditional format of 3 one-hour lectures and 1 three-hour laboratory per week was converted into a studio format of 3 two-hour class meeting per week in an integrated laboratory-classroom setting. Unlike the standard studio format, our courses use an “experiment-first” approach to each class meeting. In this talk we will discuss the how this approach has worked, focusing on inclusivity, how the approach worked during pandemic-affected semesters, and how these changes are being adopted throughout our entire physics curriculum.

AAPT SM 22

An Experiment-First and Inclusive Approach to Teaching Introductory Physics

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. This meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.



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Issues related to why women are underrepresented in physics have been investigated from various angles. Motivational factors, such as physics self-efficacy have also been shown to influence students’ persistence and retention in physics. In this presentation, I will summarize our quantitative and qualitative findings showing that inclusiveness of learning environment plays an important role in promoting equitable academic and motivational outcomes. Our findings highlight the role of instructors in creating an inclusive and equitable learning environment. An ecological-belonging intervention will also be discussed to illustrate the viability of an ecological approach to fostering equity and unlocking student potential.

The Importance of Inclusiveness of Learning Environment in Promoting Equity

This talk will include an overview of the AIP TEAMUP research project, "The Time is Now", which provides systemic changes to increase African Americans with Bachelor's Degrees in Physics and Astronomy. As the report enters its third year of publication, it has influenced academia and national policy and continues to serve as a guide for faculty, administrators, and others who want to make impactful changes. Highlights from the report's recommendations offer best practices that can be implemented on campuses, with student organizations, within departments, and in the classrooms to address equity issues in physics.

TEAMUP: The Time is Still Now...Two years later

In 2017, students from Portland Community College performed the Modern Eddington Experiment during the total eclipse crossing the nation, and became the first students in history to measure the curvature of space by determining the Einstein Coefficient. Now in 2024, with even better equipment, teams are being recruited for performance of the experiment at a wonderful spot in central Mexico in April 2024. With four teams committed already, you to can involve your students in this extraordinary international research experience. We plan to perform the experiment more accurately than ever done before! This talk will show you how to do this. The long range plan is to make the Modern Eddington Experiment a routine experiment in general relativity for the Advanced Lab courses at many schools during the future eclipses in 2026 and 2028 and beyond.

Modern Eddington Experiment

The Big Astronomy Project created a planetarium show and extended engagement activities with the intention to promote learning both in and beyond the dome. The project was designed with a specific set of learning goals to be addressed across the different project elements: 1) the importance of Teamwork in astronomy 2) how Chile is important to astronomy 3) the Multi-wavelength aspect of astronomy 4) the importance of Indigenous Knowledge. Data was collected from interviews and surveys taken from both virtual 360-degree YouTube streams and in-person planetarium shows. The show was successful in conveying the learning goals based on how audiences responded to questions about what they learned from the show and live events. We also explore if there are any differences between in-person and online audiences.

Does a Planetarium Show Achieve its Learning Goals for Audiences?

When assigned textbook reading in introductory physics, few students read before coming to class. This work examines the use of Perusall at a public urban university. Perusall is a collaborative reading of the textbook where students write comments, ask questions, and reply to their classmates. Students are graded on their engagement with the text rather than their comprehension as is done with traditional reading questions. The comments can then be used in a JiTT way and brought to class to focus the classroom discussion and learning. This study covers six sections of calculus-based introductory physics led by four faculty members. Student survey data shows that the students are more likely to read with Perusall compared to traditional reading with questions. Further, MPEX results show an increase in students’ attitudes towards reading and the textbook. Finally, we will also report on conceptual learning as measured by the FCI and CSEM.

Utilizing Perusall Collaborative Reading to Facilitate Learning in Introductory Physics

Computer-based graphing and analysis of lab experiments at the high school/introductory level can be challenging. Spreadsheet programs are not designed for scientific graphing, while software from equipment vendors can be costly. In either case, valuable classroom time may be spent learning how to use the tool. nPlot is a free, web-based graphing and analysis program that runs on any platform. It offers a simple user interface that students learn quickly. Features include robust auto-scaling, easy selection among standard fitting models, a curve tangent finder, and error bar plotting. Up to three data sets can be displayed at once to compare different iterations of the same experiment. The graphs produced are professional quality, and can include Greek letters and sub- and super-scripts. The finished plots can be saved on the student’s device, or downloaded as an image for inclusion in a lab report.

Graphing and Curve Fitting for Introductory Physics

Project-based labs provide significant opportunities for students to engage in authentic experimental practices. Over the past several years, we have been shifting from concept-based, verification labs toward project-based labs. Our approach is to choose a sandbox in which students have a strong enough foundation of principles to develop a model but in which there are outstanding questions to be explored. I will discuss our approach to identifying these sandboxes and how we adapt course materials and equipment to support student exploration.

Choosing a sandbox for project-based labs

The Next Generation Science Standards call for science teachers to integrate engineering into science instruction. Many teachers address this using integrated STEM units built around engineering design challenges. An important challenge in these units is making sure that students draw meaningful connections between their science learning and the engineering design challenges. In this talk, I will share a framework for evidence-based reasoning, based on the claim-evidence-reasoning framework, that I use to support students in explaining how their engineering design decisions are supported by their science learning. I will also share research on integrated STEM instruction that informed the design of this framework as well as how I apply it in my classroom. When using this framework, I have found students see the engineering design challenges as a meaningful opportunity to apply their science learning.

Evidence-Based Reasoning for Integrated STEM

Complex multiple-choice questions are commonly used to test for physics knowledge, appearing on course exams, concept inventories, and the physics GRE. These questions are assumed to measure more complex thinking than standard multiple choice questions do because students must determine which set of statements is true (e.g., A only, A and C, etc.). Our previous work found students in STEM courses answer these questions incorrectly more often than standard multiple-choice questions. Here, we examine whether there are disparities in who answers these questions correctly in introductory physics compared to other introductory STEM courses. Our data comes from an online, “points-free” test bank where students practice for their upcoming exams using actual questions from previous exams. As expected, results showed significant variation between students in who answers complex multiple-choice questions correctly, which can inform whether using these types of questions might be introducing unintended systematic grade penalties in course exams.

Who Answers Complex Multiple-choice Questions in Physics Correctly?

The Energy and Momentum Conceptual Survey (EMCS) is a multiple-choice survey that contains a variety of energy and momentum concepts at the level of introductory physics used to help inform instructors of student mastery of those concepts. Prior studies suggest that many concepts on the survey are challenging for introductory physics students and the average student scores after traditional instruction are low. The research presented here compares the performance of students in introductory, upper-level, and graduate-level physics courses on five EMCS questions to understand the cross-sectional evolution of student understanding of these concepts from the introductory to upper-level to graduate-level. We discuss five EMCS questions that remain challenging for many upper-level and graduate students.

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An Experiment-First and Inclusive Approach to Teaching Introductory Physics

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