United States

Standards-based grading uses a set of learning objectives rather than individual assignments or problems to determine grades. Standards based grading is common in the secondary education setting, but less so at the college level. We will discuss some of the significant advantages of the approach, especially for online classes, some of the particular challenges for implementing it in college classes, and describe two ways in which we have been able to meet those challenges. This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496 &amp;nbsp;

AAPT WM 21

Standards Based Grading for College Physics Courses

introductory physics

assessment

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?

Standards-based grading uses a set of learning objectives rather than individual assignments or problems to determine grades. Standards based grading is common in the secondary education setting, but less so at the college level. We will discuss some of the significant advantages of the approach, especially for online classes, some of the particular challenges for implementing it in college classes, and describe two ways in which we have been able to meet those challenges. This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496 &nbsp;

technical paper

AAPT® is a strong professional physics science society dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in physical science education.

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- discuss innovations in teaching methods
- share the results of research about teaching and learning.

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We discuss student narratives, well-structured scientific explanations, as both formative and summative assessment tools. We will review the elements and organization of the narrative in the context of the NextGen PET curriculum; present some rubrics and metrics for evaluating narratives; suggest scaffolds and assignments to build students’ narrative writing (and reading) skills; and share our data and thoughts for the narrative as a particularly useful tool in the context of online classes. This is part of a series of talks stemming from the NextGen PET FOLC project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF DUE-1626496Sponsored by Lawrence Escalada

Scientific Explanations: Narrative structure, Prompts and Rubrics

The COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in a rapid switch to remote teaching for most university courses.&nbsp; One major concern of many introductory physics instructors has been the security of assessments (such as exams) in this remote environment.&nbsp; As an alternative to the high-stakes exams that are more traditional for introductory physics courses, we assigned group projects to students as an alternative assessment (along with individual low-stakes quizzes).&nbsp; We discuss advantages and disadvantages of putting group projects into practice, such as students’ engagement with the project and their affective response to working in groups on a high-stakes assignment.

Group Projects: An Alternate Assessment for Remote Teaching (and Beyond)

The Arizona State University Charter describes ASU as a “public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by&nbsp;whom it includes&nbsp;and how they&nbsp;succeed.” This motto is both inspirational and aspirational, but often policy decisions are made by those far-removed from the daily experiences of both instructors and students. The result is threatened elimination of programs supportive of this inclusive message in favor of those seemingly contrary to this call to action. This session will share lessons learned by ASU physics instructors as they advocated, both successfully and unsuccessfully, for policies they believed would positively impact the students they serve every day. Examples include the near elimination of the LA program during the COVID-19 crisis and working groups of concerned physics department stakeholders engaged with the APS IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance) network.

Advocating for public university policies that authentically support students

Being an advocate for physics and STEM education does not need to mean leaving the classroom. In this session, the speaker will share how she advocated for the expansion of her district's physics program, and emphasized greater inclusion and access. Her adventure in advocacy continued as she&nbsp;became a state-level education advocate, from actions at the state capitol during the 2018 Arizona teacher walkout to working alongside lawmakers to pass a bill that provided $1.2 million in scholarships for STEM and CTE teachers.

Adventures in District and State-Level Advocacy

This presentation will highlight the outcomes of undergraduate students from Vassar College attending the AAPT virtual summer meeting. Seven undergraduate students attended this online conference hosted on underline.io as part of a for-credit course to be completed during the Fall 2020 semester. The impact of COVID-19 forced students and educators to adjust to virtual learning, making it necessary to share and implement new techniques to continue teaching and engaging students effectively. Fortunately, a shared online platform facilitated the international exchange of ideas from physics educators, graduate students, and undergraduates. Some of these ideas and methods were then shared within the course participants, and will be applied to enhance the Physics Department’s approach to various pedagogical issues with online teaching and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Examples of suggestions for physics faculty and students will be shown.

Results from Undergraduates Attending a Virtual Summer Meeting

The alarming human-resource shortage in all areas of quantum science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is projected to significantly slow the societal impact of the second quantum revolution. To address this need and accelerate the NSF Quantum Leap, a comparable leap in education strategy is required. QuSTEAM (Quantum Information Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is a revolutionary undergraduate curriculum that will provide a national educational model for the emerging field of quantum information sciences (QIS). The development of QuSTEAM will rely on research-based educational best practices to provide a convergent and inclusive curriculum to a diverse community of future scientists and engineers, a curriculum that is modular and conducive to in-person, online, and hybrid delivery modalities. In this talk, we will present an outline of the work, which is still in very early stages. We will describe early emerging themes and models for innovative curriculum and programs integrated with industry.

QuSTEAM: A New Curriculum Development Project in Quantum Information Science

Undergraduate student leaders and faculty must partner to build thriving physics and astronomy programs. To achieve this aspirational goal and address systemic underrepresentation of African Americans and other groups within our departments, departments need to implement processes for self-evaluation and change. Department culture, SPS, and the role of advising are instrumental in effecting lasting change. This session will aim to examine areas where undergraduate student leaders and faculty can implement the recommendations of the AIP Task Force to Elevate the representation of African Americans in Undergraduate Physics (TEAM-UP) report. The session will focus on self-assessment tools and methods of evaluation for students,&nbsp;faculty, and undergraduate groups.

Driving Undergraduate Departmental Change: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Many physics teachers are seeking ways to make our courses more just and equitable, including creating units that address issues of social justice and utilize culturally relevant pedagogy. We often feel constrained by the innumerable topics that are supposed to fit into our courses, so how do we weave social justice into our courses and not make it an add-on that feels like one more thing we need to “cover”? Knowles Engineering, a project of the Knowles Teacher Initiative, is focused on helping teachers integrate engineering into their courses using content they already teach. Now, we have developed a framework to help teachers create curriculum that connects to local and global issues of social justice and uses the engineering design process to incorporate culturally relevant strategies. In this presentation, we will provide our draft framework, discuss the development of the framework, and how it can be employed by teachers.&nbsp;

Towards a Framework for Equity-Minded Engineering Integration in Physics

This presentation will feature the stories of multiple physics teachers across the USA, Latin America, and the Caribbean who have participated in the Inter-American Teacher Education Network. Each of these teachers has been recognized for their role as teacher leaders, and they will share how they have worked to impact the policies and practices of their schools and educational systems. These teachers will provide exemplars for how other physics teachers across the hemisphere can become agents of change in diverse ways. &nbsp;

International Physics Teacher Leadership: US, Latin America, and the Caribbean

There is a good deal of focus on recruiting underrepresented students to study physics at the collegiate level, but a lack of focus on how to make sure they are being recruited into a welcoming and safe environment that values their identity. Because of this, underrepresented students tend to feel a disconnect from the physics community and are more likely to drop out or switch majors. One potential method of combating this issue is increasing the peer networks of these students through informal outreach programs, which give students a sense of purpose, belonging, and confidence in physics. This systematic literature review synthesizes studies on the effects of informal STEM programs on the facilitators and identifies gaps in this research as it pertains to underrepresented students.&nbsp;

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