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A full-featured AV setup for a lightboard lecture capture system is presented that adds new features and at a dramatically-lower cost (using a Raspberry Pi,&amp;nbsp;an HDMI switcher, and a Stream Deck macro keyboard). A teacher can, for instance, annotate transparent Power Point slides. Similar techniques can be adapted to capture screencasts that are more engaging without the need for post-production work.&amp;nbsp;

AAPT WM 21

Immediacy by Design: Light Boarding, Streaming, and Recording Engaging Assets

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"digital engagement science lab

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**Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics**

As a gateway discipline to STEM majors and careers, physics plays a central role in deciding who does, and who doesn't, get to discover and pursue scientific careers. Technical and scientific professionals are rewarded with economic privilege and status which affords them both social and cultural power. Therefore, social justice will be realized only when the opportunity, and the choice, to excel in physics is open to all students. The culture and practices of the physics classroom reflect the culture of physics at large, which raises the question of how our professional physics communities can embrace, rather than inadvertently repel, a diverse group of academics that can help improve physics culture.  To this end, the 2021 Physics Education Research Conference will focus on defining inclusive spaces and practices. Additionally, we will explore strategies for eliminating exclusionary practices in our classrooms, research spaces, and professional organizations. We call on the community to propose sessions that will drive conversations related to these initiatives throughout PERC 2021.

Please download the full program [here. ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRMC_SYJ3PUqXyP7sskA7LRSA8ow0eRE/view?usp=sharing)

PERC SM 21

August 4, 2021 - August 5, 2021 in a Virtual Conference Format

Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics

A full-featured AV setup for a lightboard lecture capture system is presented that adds new features and at a dramatically-lower cost (using a Raspberry Pi,&nbsp;an HDMI switcher, and a Stream Deck macro keyboard). A teacher can, for instance, annotate transparent Power Point slides. Similar techniques can be adapted to capture screencasts that are more engaging without the need for post-production work.&nbsp;

technical paper

AAPT® is a strong professional physics science society dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in physical science education.

Winter and Summer National Meetings:
These National Meetings, held each winter and summer, are opportunities for members, colleagues, and future physicists from around the world to:

- participate in physics workshops
- meet and greet other physics educators
- form networks nationally and locally
- engage exhibitors and learn about the latest physics resources
- discuss innovations in teaching methods
- share the results of research about teaching and learning.

If you're not able to log in, you're most likely using **incorrect login credentials**. Double-check that you are using the same email and password that you used to register for the conference, submit your abstract or access your AAPT membership. There may also be **an issue with your AAPT meeting registration**. Please email aapt2021@underline.io and programs@aapt.org and we will work quickly to resolve this issue.

Physics models matter and its interactions in a world with three spatial dimensions.&nbsp;&nbsp; It helps our understanding if we can visualize the predictions of a model.&nbsp; This is particular important for introductory physics courses.&nbsp; For some system three-dimensional visual representations can give us a better understanding of the behavior of the system than two-dimensional representations.. We are developing 3D interactive animations that run in any modern browser.&nbsp; No special plug-ins are needed.&nbsp; (http://labman.phys.utk.edu/3D%20Physics/) In particular, we are developing tools for optics laboratories.&nbsp; Students are be able to move components on an optical breadboard, align the components, trace a He-Ne laser beam through the system and make measurement.&nbsp; (http://labman.phys.utk.edu/3D%20Physics/optics.html) These tools already form the basis for several online introductory physics laboratories.

3d Physics Apps

Desmos is a surprisingly powerful web-based graphing calculator. I present a quick sample of my Desmos visualizations that I created for my introductory and intermediate physics courses. The URLs to these visualizations will be made available. One nice feature of Desmos is that the end user can look inside to see how things were done. I begin with the visualization of functions (from kinematics,&nbsp;traveling waves, and electric potentials), with parameters controlled by sliders. I then show 2D-visualizations of equipotentials and of wave-interference using implicit functions in Desmos. (Details of the wave-interference visualization will be described in a related poster.) I next briefly describe some geometric visualizations of spacetime diagrams and differential forms (dual vectors) that I use to teach relativity. I conclude with a&nbsp;visualization of the Dirac Delta Function as a sequence of definite-integrals in Desmos. &nbsp;

Using Desmos for Interactive Visualizations of Physics

Studying for physics exams can be difficult and stressful, especially for a student’s introductory year in physics. For students who don’t plan to major in physics, the desire to do well is based less on understanding concepts and more on achieving a better grade. For this reason, students want to study as efficiently as possible by using the most optimal study methods. We’ve taken surveys over the past three years to determine how students study for exams and compared that to their exam grades. We found that students who studied using methods that they rated as more helpful did better on the exams. By utilizing the study results, we are able to present our current, as well as future, students with study methods that have been rated as being more helpful and give them advice on ways to optimize their study time for their exams.

How Helpful are Different Study Methods for Physics Exams?

For many large-enrollment introductory physics classes, the COVID-19&nbsp;pandemic&nbsp;raises the question of how to ensure academic honesty in online assessments. &nbsp;Short quizzes may help prevent&nbsp;student utilization of third party ``tutoring'' services to receive solutions. However, short quizzes could be vulnerable to students&nbsp;sharing quiz information.&nbsp; Given the pervasivenes of&nbsp;social media, smart phones, and other messaging services such as GroupMe, sharing of information could represent a significant source of cheating.&nbsp; In this investigation, the prevalence of this kind of cheating&nbsp;was explored by way&nbsp;of planted ``correct'' answers. The frequency of use of the plants&nbsp;was&nbsp;measured to determine a baseline level of students who received unauthorized quiz information from classmates.&nbsp; Interventions to promote academic honesty were then administered and a subsequent quiz&nbsp;was used to measure the effectiveness of these interventions.&nbsp; Finally, the prevalence and ways in which students provide quiz information to other students was probed.

Prevalence and Prevention of Cheating in Online Introductory Physics Quizzes

Educators teach concepts in exciting ways to mask the extent that students think they are learning ostensibly uninteresting or inapplicable material. “Head-fake learning” (“HFL”) describes the means by which material can be taught wherein students think they are learning one thing, but in fact are learning another––for example, this means that they learn academic material while playing games or engaging in seemingly non-academic work. Two physics courses, one at Gustavus College and another at UNC Chapel Hill, have trialed HFL mechanisms through the playing of games and study of game shows in class and we have prepared instructional databases which house educational material, and examples of games which can facilitate the delivery of this material. We provide instructions for their use in this presentation and analyze the effectiveness of such material in the classroom–– holistically, students reported high learning efficiency and appreciated the ability to enjoy the learning experience.

Utilizing Head Fake Learning to present Introductory Physics Concepts

I report on two synchronous online courses: an algebra-based introductory Applied &nbsp;Physics I course to a broad-spectrum of non-physics majors, and an algebra-based Physics II course to post-baccalaureate pre-Health students. Active learning has been established in these courses in the form of small group problem solving sessions with Teaching/Learning Assistants. Additionally, I developed an active, graded discussion board. Experienced learning assistants worked with me to post open-ended questions for students, approximately once a week for the first few weeks. The aim was to get a dialogue going among students themselves after the initial weeks of prompting. They were encouraged to help one another with tips on homework questions. &nbsp;Part of the aim was to get students to use physics terminology. &nbsp;This resulted in several interesting threads revealing areas of misconception. I will highlight some of these discussions and report on how peer-discussion can enhance learning outside of class time. &nbsp;

Enhancing Student Engagement via a Monitored Student-Student Discussion Board

The measurement of the wavelength of a monochromatic source of light with the Fresnel’s biprism is a fundamental experiment in most Universities. In this experiment, the determination of distance between two virtual light sources is necessary for the calculation of the wavelength of light. However, the presence of the aberration of lens results in an erratic distance between virtual source by using conjugate foci method, which leads to an erratic wavelength. To solve this, we used a CMOS detector to record magnified images and diminished images. The accurate distance between two virtual light sources was obtained with digital images processing, thereby reducing the uncertainty of measurement of the wavelength. The deviation between the measured wavelength of sodium light from CMOS imaging analysis method and the average wavelength at 589.3&nbsp;nm calculated by two wavelengths of&nbsp;sodium yellow light is only 0.3%, which is smaller than the deviation from traditional method.

The Fresnel Biprism Experiment Based on CMOS Imaging Analysis

We are conducting out a study to evaluate the effectiveness of structured peer review sessions on student writing skills in introductory physics laboratory courses.&nbsp; Preliminary data suggest that peer review sessions are more efficient for improving students’ technical writing skills.&nbsp; Previously, students were expected to write weekly lab reports over different experiments without peer communication or review.&nbsp; We have now implemented a writing instruction method in which students produce three reports throughout the semester that undergo peer review by fellow students, then are revised based on the feedback they receive, and finally submitted to the instructor for grading.&nbsp; Following a research protocol previously applied to non-peer review student writing, we will be able to compare the effectiveness of both methods.

Effectively Implementing Peer Review into Introductory Physics Laboratory Courses

Physics students generally encounter only rudimentary concepts of measurement uncertainty analysis in an introductory university physics course. This talk presents a physics-forward more advanced introduction to probability and statistics beginning with loaded dice and chaos concepts in a computational tutorial for first year physics and astronomy students. Subsequent tutorials provide a rigorous frequentist interpretation of nonlinear curve fitting parameters and uncertainties used throughout their laboratory data analysis. Other topics such as Monte Carlo techniques are touched upon. These tutorials and student lab data analysis makes use of MATLAB.

Advanced fitting and uncertainty analysis in introductory physics

In this joint study, we try to uncover the common misconceptions amongst the educators that result from a lack of understanding of the underlying principles involved in the construction of mathematical and scientific concepts. We seek to raise awareness to the issue to provide support to mathematics and science educators in correcting their own misconceptions as well as strategies for identifying and correcting misconceptions held by their students. Research shows that teachers who understand their student’s common misconceptions are more likely to design instruction that will increase student understanding in the subject than teachers who do not. Additionally, teachers with misconceptions themselves unknowingly contribute to the reinforcement of student misconceptions during the teaching and learning cycle. Data will be collected online and anonymously across the state and the country. The target participants include mathematics and science educators in universities, middle and high schools as well as pre-service Mathematics teacher candidates.

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