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Instructional pragmatism is essential for successfully adopting and adapting evidence-based active engagement (EBAE) approaches in that instructors should view improving teaching and learning as a process and not get disheartened if a particular EBAE approach does not produce the desired outcome. Instructional pragmatism entails keeping a variety of EBAE methods in one’s instructional toolbox and using them flexibly as needed to improve student learning and continuously refining and tweaking one’s implementation of the EBAE approaches to make them effective. Here we illustrate an example of instructional pragmatism in which a quantum mechanics instructor did not give up when an EBAE method involving implementation of a sequence of clicker questions on addition of angular momentum did not yield expected learning outcomes even though it was found effective earlier. Instead, the instructor remained optimistic, viewing improving teaching and learning as a process, and pulled out another EBAE method from his tool box that did not require him to spend more time on this topic in class. In particular, the instructor created an opportunity for students to productively struggle with the same problems they had not performed well on by incentivizing them to correct their mistakes out of class. Student performance on one of the addition of angular momentum problems posed on the final exam suggests that students who corrected their mistakes benefited from the task and learned about addition of angular momentum better than those who did not correct their mistakes. Encouraging and supporting physics instructors to embrace instructional pragmatism can go a long way in helping students learn physics because it is likely to increase their persistence in using various EBAE approaches flexibly as they refine and tweak their implementation for their students. We thank the National Science Foundation for support.

AAPT SM 20

Instructional Pragmatism: Using a Variety of Evidence-Based Approaches Flexibly to Improve Student Learning

learning from mistakes

product space

instructional pragmatism

evidence-based

active engagement

clicker

quilt

quantum

active learning

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

IPLS students and students in algebra-based physics often see math as a as a calculational tool rather than a way of reasoning about the physical world. But, in physics, math-in-science plays a critical role both in our physical ontology ("What is an E-field, really?") and epistemology ("I derived this result from a true equation so it must be true.") as well as for reasoning and organizing our conceptual knowledge. The critical conceptual blending* of physical concepts with mathematical symbology is rarely taught in math and is often taken for granted in physics. I identify a series of tools (epistemic games**) that can help students learn to connect math to the physical world. These tools include readings and activities that can be used throughout a class and that can be downloaded from the Living Physics Portal*** and integrated into existing classes.

Teaching IPLS students to use math in science

Imagine if every public high school science department had thousands of dollars’ worth of high-tech equipment available to educate their students…with Alabama Science in Motion they have access to that and more! 33 classroom teachers (specialists in Physics, Biology or Chemistry) at 11 universities across the state deliver over $11 million work of labs, demos, equipment and more direct to science classrooms. Through workshops, co-teaching, and online methods ASIM works with teachers. This "share the wealth" model can be adopted in all states. Look at our website: www.cws.auburn.edu/asim to see the lessons using learning cycles, white boarding, PER, formative assessment, teacher sharing and more. Many additions to the physics program came from the MSP APEX Grant at Alabama A&M, in partnership with AAPT. ASIM enables physics teachers to acquire a deeper knowledge of physics content and employ more effective pedagogical strategies based on physics education research, enabling students to achieve higher gains.

Lab Equipment for EVERYONE in Alabama!

Science educators usually face a lot of challenges in designing and implementing inquiry-based activities. Common challenges include limited apparatus and time constraints. In this study, students were engaged in scientific inquiry using Physics Education Technology (PHET) simulations via semester-long group projects. The instructor and students used the Scientific Abilities Assessment Rubrics (SAAR) to evaluate project presentations and papers (formative assessment). The overall research project was evaluated using lab assessment scale (pre and post) as well as the post reflection survey. The Science Process Skills Inventory (SPSI) was used to analyze students’ responses to the reflection survey. Quantitative analysis of the lab self-assessment scale showed a larger effect size for both introductory and general physics students. Qualitative analysis of the reflection surveys supported this apparent huge gain in lab skills and revealed students’ experiences of the PHET simulations.

Using PHET Simulations to Improve Scientific Abilities in Students

Many physics graduate students face the unique challenge of being both students and teachers concurrently. To succeed in these roles, they must develop both physics content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Our research has involved improving both the content knowledge and PCK of first-year graduate students. To improve their content knowledge, we have focused on improving their conceptual understanding of materials covered in upper-level undergraduate courses since our earlier investigations suggest that many graduate students struggle with developing a conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics. Learning tools, such as the Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorials (QuILTs), have been successful, e.g., in helping graduate students improve their understanding of Dirac notation and single photon behavior in the context of a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer. In addition, we have been enhancing our semester long course focusing on the professional development of the teaching assistants (TAs) by including research-based activities. Implications of these interventions for the preparation of graduate students will be discussed.

Improving the Content and Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Physics Graduate Students Using Physics Education Research

First-time graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are usually nervous about their first teaching assignment. They worry about knowing the material well enough to teach it, they worry about public speaking and getting respect from their students, and they worry about potentially malfunctioning lab equipment, among many other concerns. Since "practice makes perfect," it makes sense to provide GTAs with the opportunity to practice before their teaching duties begin. In this talk, I describe two such activities that are part of the GTA Preparation class in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech. These activities allow the GTAs to take turns performing as teacher/facilitator and as students, providing them with an idea of what to expect in their classrooms. Course assessments over the past several years have shown that GTAs consider these activities to be very useful in preparing them and increasing their teaching self-efficacy.

Roleplaying in GTA Preparation: Microteaching and Lab Simulation

Since the passing of the National Quantum Initiative Act in December 2018, there has been great interest from business, academia, and the general public in the quantum industry. Faculty at higher-education institutes, mainly in physics, engineering, and computer science departments have been struggling with the question of how to adapt their courses to meet the demands of students interested in this exciting new field, ensuring that the content delivered would be relevant to possible future careers, whilst also maintaining academic relevance. Results from an interview study of 21 companies in the quantum industry will be presented, illustrating the skills and knowledge present in the workforce of the quantum industry; how those skills and knowledge relate to existing courses and training; and where there are opportunities for new and innovative course development.

Preparing for the quantum revolution - what is the role of higher education?

Representing a state in an observable’s eigenbasis encodes probabilities for measurement outcomes and facilitates computation of useful quantities such as expectation values. Converting state vectors between bases is therefore a key skill for students in quantum mechanics. Our research in upper-division quantum mechanics courses at three diverse institutions investigates student understanding of basis and change-of-basis in the context of spin-1/2 systems. Our investigation focuses on procedural and conceptual written questions as well as student reasoning interviews. We identify the range of methods students employ when changing basis, illuminate student understanding of the structure and meaning of a basis expansion, enumerate student ideas about whether and how changing basis affects the state, and examine how students perceive notation as indicative of choice of basis. Together, these results paint a broad qualitative picture of the various ways students grapple with basis and change-of-basis, with potential implications for instruction.

Spanning the space of student ideas on change-of-basis in quantum mechanics

The discovery of bio-molecules in meteorites with an excess of one chiral state has created one of the biggest questions in science today. That is, what is the origin of bio-molecular homochirality? Studies of this question are highly interdisciplinary, and while several phenomenological models exist, we examine the relationship between fundamental symmetries at the particle level and the macroscopic formation of bio-molecules. A model has been developed which couples fundamental interactions with the formation of molecular chirality. In this magneto-chiral model atomic nuclei bound in amino acids interact via the weak interaction in stellar environments. Nuclei are coupled to the molecular geometry (chirality) via the shielding tensor – the same interaction responsible for NMR identification. Interactions with leptons can then selectively destroy one chiral state over the other. Possible sites are proposed in which this model may exist. It may be possible to test the formation of chiral bio-molecules in space in a polarized electron beam experiment. Such an experiment will be discussed along with several problems and questions associated with it.

Astrobiology: Formation and Processing of Amino Acids in Space

Recently, machine learning algorithms, primarily random forests, have been used to identify students at risk of failing introductory physics. While these algorithms produced excellent accuracy when identifying students who would receive an “A” or “B” in a physics class, the performance was much worse when identifying students who would receive a “D” or “F”. This work investigates multiple pathways to optimize the algorithms to improve performance including using alternate algorithms such as support vector machines, optimization algorithms such as gradient boosting and regularization, and ensemble algorithms which allow multiple different algorithms to vote on the results. This work seeks to identify the limit of accurate prediction with only institutional variables.

Optimizing Machine Learning to Identify At-Risk Physics Students

Earning a bachelor's degree is expensive and time-consuming. Many undergraduate students pursue Advanced Placement (AP) courses in high school or transfer coursework from degree-granting institutions. However, the effect of those transfer courses on the time that it takes students to graduate (time-to-degree) is currently not well understood. We have investigated how incoming transfer courses impact students’ time-to-degree by defining three independent groups of transfer students: (1) those entering with college level transfer courses, (2) those with only AP level transfer courses, and (3) those without any transfer credit. The time-to-degree has been shown to be statistically different for each of these groups, with students who enter with college level transfer courses graduating the earliest. We have explored differences in time-to-degree for various demographic information (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity). In this presentation, we will discuss these results in addition to the results from regression models that predict a student’s time-to-degree.

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