United States

The Novel Observations in Mixed Reality (NOMR) project at the University of Washington applies modern virtual reality technology to teach experimental physics skills by simulating phenomena that do not exist in our universe. By exploring and characterizing unheard-of and Google-proof physical phenomena, students are able to practice experimental physics skills on a level playing field and in absence of a &quot;right answer&quot; to work toward or be judged against. These phenomena are designed with analogy to electrostatics, varying the number of charge types as well as the functional forms and relevant variables in the force laws governing the interactions between each pair of &quot;charges.&quot; In this session we discuss the design of NOMR labs, their adaptation to remote usage in a sophomore-level experimental physics course, and initial research findings.

AAPT WM 21

Teaching Experimentation With New Physics in Remote Virtual Reality Labs

education research

mixed reality

laboratories

educational technology

physics education

virtual reality

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The Novel Observations in Mixed Reality (NOMR) project at the University of Washington applies modern virtual reality technology to teach experimental physics skills by simulating phenomena that do not exist in our universe. By exploring and characterizing unheard-of and Google-proof physical phenomena, students are able to practice experimental physics skills on a level playing field and in absence of a "right answer" to work toward or be judged against. These phenomena are designed with analogy to electrostatics, varying the number of charge types as well as the functional forms and relevant variables in the force laws governing the interactions between each pair of "charges." In this session we discuss the design of NOMR labs, their adaptation to remote usage in a sophomore-level experimental physics course, and initial research findings.

technical paper

&nbsp; Due to the rapidity of the transition to remote learning, instructors had to significantly — if not completely — change their instructional style on very short notice. In this presentation, we report on student experiences and reactions to the switch to emergency remote learning at two large, land-grant, research intensive universities. We aimed to explore how students have received and dealt with the shift to remote learning that began in March 2020, specifically in introductory physics and astronomy courses. To explore how students responded to these changes, we developed and administered a questionnaire gauging the impacts on students' motivation and interactions with their courses, peers, and instructors during the Summer 2020 semester. We also examined how student responses depended on various demographic factors.

Student Responses to Emergency Remote Learning in Introductory Physics

The ability to engage in evidence-based decision making is an important outcome of modern education. Over the past decade, we have developed and evaluated a lab curriculum, Inquiry for Student Thinking, Analytics, and Reasoning (iSTAR), which explicitly promotes essential reasoning abilities for scientific inquiry and critical thinking. All activities are grounded in a curricular framework based on operationally defined reasoning sub-skills; including controlling variables in multi-variable contexts, data analytics, and causal reasoning. Due to the pandemic, we have redeveloped the curriculum for synchronous online delivery, whereby students complete lab activities working in lab groups via Zoom breakout rooms. This talk will briefly showcase the curriculum, lessons learned for online delivery of labs, and impact on student outcomes with a comparison to data previously gathered in face-to-face settings.

Teaching Scientific Reasoning through Synchronous Online Physics Labs

Due to the current pandemic many changes were made in instruction of an introductory physics for life sciences. Among these changes were the implementation with an open-source textbook, using a standards-based grading system and using a hybrid class format where students are in class somedays, while working online other days. In order to evaluate student experience and learning student feedback will be obtained by administering open-ended surveys on these changes. The goal of open-ended surveys is to provide a space for students to comment on their behaviors, opinions, and understanding of these changes. The responses to the open-ended surveys will be analyzed to determine what the students think of the changes and follow-up studies will be conducted bases on the responses. This presentation will report on students’ experiences to these approaches.

Evaluating Perceptions of Teaching Changes in Physics for Life Sciences

Physics has greatly impacted society, both in solving problems and perpetuating harm. Yet we rarely train students to grapple with their responsibilities to society. The absence of classroom discussions about these impacts reinforces the idea that physics is removed from society. At Texas State University, we have designed and implemented units about ethics, science and society in a modern physics course, an observational astrophysics course, and a multi-disciplinary course focused on this topic. In each of these contexts, we have scaffolded student discussions around large-scale ethical issues related to STEM. In this talk, I will draw on my experiences participating in this work as an instructor and a researcher. I will use video data to highlight factors that enable student engagement, such as curriculum and pedagogy that elicit, push on, and validate student opinions, as well as limiting factors such as students’ perceived lack of agency in the physics community.

Lessons Learned from Classroom Conversations about Ethics, Science, and Society

Quantitative modeling is an integral learning outcome of many introductory physics labs. One important aspect of quantitative modeling is covariational reasoning -- reasoning about how one quantity changes with another, related quantity. For example, one might ask ‘by how much does the spring force change when the spring is stretched a little bit more?’ While covariational reasoning has been studied extensively in mathematics education research, little work has been done in physics education research to better understand and characterize how students’ reason covariationally in physics courses. In this presentation, we present features of introductory physics students’ emergent covariational reasoning while developing or testing symbolic models in their lab courses. In addition, we compare student and expert physics covariational reasoning to illustrate some potential areas where direct instruction may be improved.

Student Emergent Sense-making about Quantitative Modeling in Introductory Physics Labs

Many teachers have struggled to connect quantum principles to the traditional high school curriculum.&nbsp; Often these ideas are part of off-topic discussions in which they are simply asserted or partially explained in a hand-waiving manner.&nbsp; This presentation introduces a QuarkNet activity in which high school students analyze simple momentum and position data collected from a 2001 diffraction experiment to empirically discover the famous inverse relationship known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal.

What Heisenberg Knew: A QuarkNet Data-Based Student Activity

Quantum tic-tac-toe (QTTT) is an educational tool illustrating novel features of quantum systems. Most versions include states, superposition, collapse, and entanglement. While QTTT&nbsp;can provide a foundation for understanding quantum principles, QTTT can also be overwhelming for students new to quantum mechanics. In this talk, we introduce a simplified version of QTTT that does not include entanglement: semiclassical tic-tac-toe (STTT).&nbsp;As a first step toward a systematic development of interactive quantum computing demonstrations and curriculum, we have designed materials for an STTT lesson plan and pilot study. Materials include a pre- and post-test over basic quantum mechanical ideas, an instructor's guide to STTT and QTTT, and a classroom-ready Python-based program featuring classical tic-tac-toe, STTT, and QTTT. We are implementing a pilot study to explore their effectivness in communicating scientific content and the extent to which the inclusion of STTT might enhance student knowledge in introductory physics courses.

Development of Semiclassical Tic-Tac-Toe for Introductory Quantum Mechanics Students

Since 2014 I have taught an introductory quantum information course for general STEM majors, based on notes I am currently developing into a textbook.&nbsp; I report on the structure and content of this course, and its evolution over six offerings so far.&nbsp; Since its inception, this quantum information course has enrolled the majority of its students from outside the physics major (chiefly computer science and mathematics majors).&nbsp; As interest in quantum information science has broadened even over the last six years, I have adjusted materials and presentation to make the course accessible to a wider audience while maintaining the vision of a rigorous and ambitious introductory course. &nbsp; The current course is suitable for the motivated student with a minimal exposure to linear algebra -- matrix multiplication and calculating determinants -- and has been completed by students from all five of the Claremont Colleges as well as several high school students.

Quantum Information for STEM Majors and Advanced High School Students

Quantum information science (QIS) has recently exploded as a research and development focus in both academic and industry settings. In the US this growth was accelerated by the National Quantum Initiative, which I was involved in proposing. This talk describes a course on QIS I created at the University of Oregon and that has been adapted to a virtual course for other university’s use. The course uses examples quantum optics (photon physics) to introduce QIS, while introducing basic quantum mechanics using essentially no mathematics, but relying on rigorous graphical constructions of the equivalents of QM theory. For the virtual course, laboratory demonstrations were performed live by the company Qutools based in Germany, showing for example violation of the Bell inequality, verifying entanglement of photon pairs created by spontaneous parametric down conversion. The recorded lectures and demonstrations videos will be made available

Teaching Quantum Information Science to Undergraduate Science and Nonscience Students

There’s a lot of potential for quantum computers to solve problems in ways that classical computers cannot. At the heart of this potential is quantum information and the way that quantum computers manipulate data. In this session, I’ll introduce some basic concepts in quantum computing, such as quantum bits and quantum gates. I’ll demonstrate how I make these concepts concrete to the audiences I teach, through the use of small programming-based exercises. By the end of this session, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge, learning resources and software tools to help your students explore applications of quantum computing. About the Speaker: Frances Tibble is a Software Engineer at Microsoft Quantum and has a degree in Computing. She enjoys making quantum computing accessible to audiences of varying backgrounds.

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