United States

In our Advanced Laboratory course students develop practical data analysis skills working through two simple experiments early in the semester that we then revisit throughout the course. For most of the semester, students rotate through different experiments. Having these two common experiments enables all students to practice specific data analysis and error analysis techniques on their own measured data at appropriate times during the semester. For example, students calculate the wavelength of a laser from the glancing incidence diffraction pattern from a machinist’s ruler. They gradually refine the estimates of the wavelength and the corresponding uncertainty. In this talk, I will describe the two experiments and how we use them to teach data analysis and error analysis throughout the semester.

AAPT SM 20

Developing Data Analysis Skills with Simple, Common Experiments

advanced lab

data analysis

error analysis

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

technical paper

Statistical analysis is one of the technical skills we are targeting in a newly developed project-based lab course. Students are asked to measure the smallest possible force using a strain gauge and to provide convincing evidence that the force has been detected. This goal extends over several class periods as students make revisions to improve their measurements and complete pre-lab readings and activities on statistical analysis methods. At the culmination of the module, students design and conduct an experiment that requires the measurement of a small force. They must use the statistical methods they have learned to support their findings.

Small force project for teaching statistical analysis in the lab

What helps students transfer ideas between labs, lectures, non-school projects? Why are students in my electronics lab so angry that there is no clear border between “conductor” and “insulator”? I’m experimenting with creating connections between ideas by making play-dough circuits, teaching metrology, and analyzing assumptions about borders. Borders as binary and absolute took hold ~500 years ago, alongside the scientific revolution. So did the rise of the nation-state, narrowing of gender roles, criminalization of same-gender sex, invention of race and white supremacy, creation of policing and prisons, and of course colonialism. Science, along with many other disciplines, suddenly became more centrally controlled and rigid in its borders. What can each of these borders teach us about the others? What could non-binary borders look like, and how do they affect lab learning and teaching? Please join us if you are interested in informal science, laboratory assessment, gender fluidity, colonialism, or of course non-binary robots.

Even My Robots Are Non-Binary: Questioning Borders of Ideas and Land

We examined variations in Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) pre-class scores according to self-reports of students' high school physics courses. Most students in our unusual sample population had taken an AP physics course, allowing us to calculate the correlation between FMCE scores and AP exam scores. We also carried out regression analyses to determine how FMCE scores and course final exam scores depend on taking an AP course and AP exam scores when math SAT score is included as a proxy of students’ general level of college preparation. The results of our analysis suggest that taking AP physics and even scoring well on the AP physics exam may be a rather weak measure of conceptual understanding of physics or the mastery of physics one would expect students to achieve from an introductory university physics course.

What are students learning in AP physics?

In 2012, Central Washington University became a PhysTEC supported site. The success of our project relied on us strengthening our partnerships with other STEM departments as well as our existing science teacher education program. Along with the PhysTEC project, the physics department was in the middle of a pedagogical revitalization using the results of the SPIN-UP report (1). Curriculum revisions such as integrated lecture-lab courses, mentored inquiry projects for all majors, and a learning assistant program lifted the physics department to a position of pedagogical leadership on campus. The department worked with pedagogical experts in mathematics and other science departments to translate some of these innovations to their content and pedagogy courses. This broader collaboration attracted the attention of two deans and the provost, leading the College of the Sciences and the College of Education and Professional Studies to overhaul STEM teacher education by revising and implementing the UTeach model.

Using the SPIN-UP Report and UTeach to Revitalize Teacher Education

Teaching physics using a multimodal semiotic approach provides students with various opportunities to construct, represent, and communicate their developing understandings of physics concepts. Physics education research has shown that using multiple representations for problem-solving can enhance student learning. This talk extends the idea of multiple representations by arguing that engaging students in various semiotic modes such as speech, written text, gestures, images, and body positioning and movement not only enhances student physics understandings but also offers students different avenues of development and expression of their identities as physics learners that embrace their diverse sociocultural, racial, and ethnolinguistic backgrounds. Expanding our notion of what counts as valid physics representation provides a more equitable space for physics teaching and learning.

Towards Multimodal Physics Teaching that Embraces Body Movement

Critique and evaluation of scientific explanations has been underemphasized in K-12 science classrooms (NRC, 2012), and as a result, college students may still need assistance in learning how to make such evaluations about astronomy concepts. The Model-Evidence Link (MEL) diagram is an instructional scaffold that promotes students to critically evaluate alternative explanations and increase their ability to understand complex scientific concepts. Relatedly, the build-a-MEL (baMEL) allows student agency in selecting from provided choices to make and use a new MEL diagram. We have created two astronomy-related activities: a MEL about the Moon's formation and a baMEL on the origins of the Universe. Research on student learning about the Moon’s formation and about the Universe’s origins, as well as on students’ ability to be critically evaluative, is ongoing. These activities are NSF-sponsored and freely available to instructors. The activities are appropriate for undergraduate non-science majors, future teachers, and high school students.

Scaffolds to Support Student Learning: Judging Astronomical Explanations

Computer programming is an essential skill for physics majors seeking employment in a highly technological world. The advent of “big data” in business, engineering, and traditional STEM fields requires graduates proficient in data acquisition, storage, manipulation, and analysis. Physics departments are responding to this trend by integrating computational instruction into their undergraduate programs, but questions remain regarding the effectiveness of this training. In the Department of Physics and Astronomy at James Madison University, we have developed a set of learning objectives related to computational skills and integrated these objectives throughout our curriculum, primarily in laboratory courses. Our team has also developed an assessment tool, consisting of multiple choice and free response questions, that can quantitatively measure students’ computational skills within the context of physics. This presentation will discuss both the successes and challenges we encountered as we seek to enhance computational instruction and evaluate student learning improvement in our department.

Enhancing Computational Instruction for Physics Majors: Developing Tools for Assessment

All industrialized countries are facing the same problem of declining student interest in pursuing STEM careers. In physics education, the typical response is to examine issues of appropriate and effective pedagogy, as well as gender and cultural inclusion (both in and out of the classroom). While it is appropriate that the physics community examine what it can do to make physics education more accessible to a greater diversity of students, there are some boundary conditions concerning student interest and motivation that need to be considered in parallel. In this presentation I will examine some issues related to student interest in science, and how the broad student interest in space science can be leveraged to recruit and especially retain students in STEM majors. NASA has established a National Space Science Education center that is partnering with AAPT to capitalize on the leverage that student interest in space science provides. I will present the current status of the effort, plus outline how the AAPT team is launching a project to create a network of space science educators in 2-yr colleges, in collaboration with NASA’s Space Grant program.

Space Science, Physics Education, and the NASA-AAPT Collaboration

General relativity is one of the most modern, powerful, and beautiful theories in all of physics. Yet, it's also complex and rarely taught in high school physics. This session will share some cheap, simple, hands-on activities for introducing high school students to general relativity. Building on what students already know about Newtonian gravity, the activities including modelling curved spacetime with stretchy fabric and tape and introducing the equivalence principle by dropping a bottle of water into freefall.

Teaching General Relativity via Hands-on Activities

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. Positive Psychology can be used to improve positive learning environment and promote active learning in physics. It can be useful to inspire physics students to have fun with science activities.

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