Posters

• Astronomy Poster

  • • Development of a Studio-Style Introductory Astronomy Course

    • PST1A01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Josh Fuchs
    • Type: Poster
    • I will present the development and implementation of a studio-style Introductory Astronomy course designed for non-science students. This course meets three times a week for two hours each time, permitting longer and more involved activities to be included. This approach allows for many different engaging pedagogies to be used in the course, including Lecture-Tutorials, hands-on and online labs, role-playing games, and card sorting. I will discuss how these different pedagogies are used to reach learning goals, create a student-centered active learning classroom, and benefit the TLU Department of Physics.

  • • Odds of Habitable Planets: Linking Data and Simulations in the Classroom

    • PST1A03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Mary Brewer Sherer, Caeley Pittman

    • Type: Poster
    • Students in our introductory astronomy and astrobiology classes are taught that habitable planets are most likely around stars of certain spectral classes, luminosity classes, and metallicity. While students are able to explain why this is the case, theydo not always have the mathematical skills to explore how much each of these parameters affects the predicted number of habitable planets in the Galaxy. We have developed a simulation that allows students to vary their ranges for spectral type and metallicity, as well as select which luminosity classes they want to include. They are able to visualize how these constraints can affect the number of habitable planets. These simulations are linked back to stellar population data. Students compare their simulation results to Kepler data in order to better understand selection effects and discovery rates.

  • • Smartphone Astronomy

    • PST1A05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Martín Monteiro, Ludmila Villarreal, Arturo Martí

    • Type: Poster
    • Smartphones have become ubiquitous, they are with us all the time and everywhere. These pocket computers incorporate sensors to improve interactivity between the user and the device and although they are not specifically designed to do science, it is noteworthy that they can be used as portable laboratories for a wide variety of scientific and educational activities. During the last years many experiments have been published in the area of physical sciences that manage to involve students by allowing them to do science by their own means. In this poster we show some activities that can be done in basic courses of astronomy and geosciences of secondary or university level: 1) Experimental simulation of asteroid light curve and determination of rotation period and form factors, 2) Experimental simulation of planetary transits and determination of orbital period and size of exoplanets, 3) Experimental simulation of measurements of stellar distances using parallax, 4) Experimental explanation of seasons, 5) Tools for access to astronomical information, 6) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality tools for educational purposes. More information available at http://smarterphysics.blogspot.com/p/astronomia.html

  • • First Steps Towards Building Curriculum Around Student Interests in Astronomy

    • PST1A02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Daniel Barringer, Alice Olmstead, Kayley Green-Tooney

    • Type: Poster
    • What role should students have in designing their educational experiences? In the physics department at Texas State University, recent feedback from students motivated faculty to expand astronomy-related opportunities in the physics curriculum. Students can currently take one astrophysics course, participate in an astronomy club, and conduct research with a faculty member. We have been consulting with students to identify areas for further growth. As part of this process, we interviewed students to understand the connections between their interests in astronomy and their participation in astronomy-related activities at Texas State. We describe several aspects of students’ interest that seem to drive their continued engagement with astronomy, such as their desire to be part of a community of practitioners and to engage others in the excitement of learning about astronomy. We consider how these interests can inform future curriculum development at Texas State and elsewhere.

  • • Radio Astronomy Observations for Undergraduates*

    • PST1A04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Gordon McIntosh, Lynn Matthews

    • Type: Poster
    • MIT Haystack Observatory is developing a series of observational projects using its Westford Radio Telescope to introduce undergraduates to radio astronomy. The projects include mapping the telescope beam and determining the observing system’s sensitivity, observing radio recombination lines, and observing hydroxyl (OH) masers. These projects are intended to be carried out remotely from the user’s home institution. They can be used one time during a course or a more extensive observing program can be developed. The projects can be used as presented or adapted for courses in astronomy, optics, quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, and engineering.

• Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS)

  • • An Introductory Medical Physics Class Designed for Life Sciences Majors

    • AI04
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    
    • by Antoinette Stone
    • Type: Poster
    • The new general education class series at UC Merced is designed to guide first-year students in scholarly inquiry by providing opportunities to explore a specific topic, encouraging engagement with campus resources, supporting the development of researchquestions, and presenting original ideas through multiple forms of communication. A newly designed medical physics class formatted with this structure introduces students to physics principles used in the analysis, diagnosis and treatment of selected human disease processes. It offers a multidisciplinary approach for analyzing the role of physics in medicine. The course has great appeal to life science and pre-med majors and draws heavily from basic imaging physics, introducing topics such as x-ray production; the interaction of radiation with matter; nuclear medicine applications; computerized axial tomography scanning (CAT); positron emission tomography scanning (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This poster reports on the structure of several physics-in-medicine activities that are embedded in the course material.

  • • Checking for Interdisciplinary Alignment: A Critical Assessment of General Physics

    • AI05
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Ian Descamps, Benjamin Pollard, Elijah Quetin, Thomas Moore

    • Type: Poster
    • Students take physics courses for different reasons, expect different things from our courses, and have varying relationships to physics. At Pomona College, General Physics is not a pathway into the major but rather teaches calculus-based physics to non­physics students, often for major, graduate school, or career requirements. Our assessment explores the alignment between the goals of different stakeholders – students, the physics department, and the other invested departments – and course outcomes. Surveys, including the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) and Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (CTSR), and qualitative interviews were used to solicit feedback. Preliminary results indicate a moderate shift toward more expert­like responses on the CLASS and a slight increase in CTSR scores. Interviews with professors focused on the role of General Physics: how to cultivate stronger interdisciplinary ties; interviews with students focused on the experience of General Physics: what does, what doesn’t, and what could work well.

  • • Development of Personalized, Adaptive, and Interactive Course for Introductory Physics

    • AI06
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Ralf Widenhorn, Priya Jamkhedkar

    • Type: Poster
    • We present the development of a personalized, adaptive and interactive course for the algebra-based introductory physics course taught at Portland State University. Large class sizes with diverse skills in mathematics, problem-solving, conceptual reasoning, and learning styles of the student population pose challenges to instructors teaching introductory physics classes. The need to provide support in terms of mathematics remediation, improvement in problem-solving, understanding of concepts to students who work at different paces led us to look for a platform providing these features. We summarize the design of such a course using CogBooks as an adaptive platform with many support features including concept-checks, simulations, problems with intermediate steps, drawing tools and in-class activities to promote active and engaged learning. We will present early results from the first implementation of the curriculum and discuss future improvements to the course.

  • • Explaining Radiation Sickness Requires Zoom Scale Reasoning*

    • AI07
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    
    • by Andy Johnson
    • Type: Poster
    • The Inquiry into Radioactivity (IiR) project has been studying and developing radiation literacy among undergraduate students. IiR's research-based tools and strategies enable most students to understand fundamental ideas about ionizing radiation. To explain radiation – induced cancer and acute radiation sickness, students must trace a chain of causality from interactions with electrons (at the subatomic scale) through ionization, molecular damage, chromosome or cell damage, and finally to the organism scale. Such “zoom scale reasoning” is powerful but not easy. This poster will describe some of the reasons why zoom scale thinking is particularly challenging, and present evidence that IiR has collected on the types of difficulties that students show.

  • • Implementation and Adaptation of Evidence-based IPLS Laboratories

    • AI08
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Jason May, Jordan Gerton, Claudia De Grandi, Lauren Barth-Cohen, Brianna Montoya

    • Type: Poster
    • In 2017, the University of Utah began implementing National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education (NEXUS) Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) laboratory courses. This project began with a fairly direct implementation of NEXUS-IPLS curricular and instructional resources, which led to multiple and ongoing adaptations based on our instructional environment and resources. The motivations of the iterative reform are multifaceted, based on: a) necessities created by our unique student population, b) college/departmental requirements, and c) research-designed data collection from students via surveys, interviews, and student artifact analysis. This iterative design has resulted in successive shifts of instruction and curriculum to strengthen the promotion of student-driven research-focused collaboration and physical and biological experimentation. Here, we provide an overview of the NEXUS curriculum, our IPLS iterative reforms, and qualitative evidence from student artifacts for the rationale and efficacy for our reforms.

  • • Nurturing Inquiry

    • AI09
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    
    • by Nancy Beverly
    • Type: Poster
    • In the project-based course at Mercy College, students consistently explore their own inquiries about the life phenomena of interest to them, sustaining that inquiry with modeling and quantitative analysis to make inferences regarding the phenomena. Theypose their own questions, get their own data, and solve their own problems in mini-project homework assignments that lead to a semester-long project. Strategies to nurture this inquiry include starting with a larger, human inquiry for which a personal motivation is required. Narrowing this larger inquiry to the possible underlying physical mechanisms is key. Framing the inquiry in terms of comparison eases making quantitative analysis meaningful.

  • • Parallel Pedagogy: Teaching Mechanics Concepts Simultaneously

    • AI10
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Owen Staveland, Dean Stocker, Pete Schwartz

    • Type: Poster
    • Using “Parallel pedagogy” we introduce the concepts of momentum, energy, dynamics, and kinematics on the first day and develop depth and complexity throughout the semester. This pedagogy has shown promising results in conceptual, algebra-based, and calculus-based physics. Every example begins by considering each concept, steering students away from “formula hunting” and toward a concept-driven approach to problem solving. We have found that students have accepted this new system well, shifted toward expert thinking based on CLASS results, and solve problems and perform on the FCI on par with or better than conventionally-taught classes. Students also self-report at the end of the class that they enjoy physics more than they thought they would.

  • • Planning IPLS Course Development: Considerations for Different Life Science Majors

    • AI11
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    
    • by Andrew Mason
    • Type: Poster
    • We discuss recent considerations for course development in introductory physics for the life sciences (IPLS) at a primarily undergraduate institution. Previous research found that a bifurcation – in terms of attitudes towards physics, conceptual reasoning of force and motion, and overall course performance – exists within the life science major student population that predominates the host institution’s introductory algebra-based physics course, specifically between majors within the biology department and majors within the health sciences college. We examine possible ways forward for addressing IPLS courses that would be respectively suitable for the two different course populations. We also discuss considerations of additional data, e.g. students’ perceptions of how course topics applied to their respective majors.

  • • Shifts in Student Attitudes in IPLS Labs

    • AI12
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Claudia De Grandi, Jason May, Jordan Gerton, Lauren Barth-Cohen

    • Type: Poster
    • There has been a shift in undergraduate labs towards emphases on the explorative and collaborative dimensions of science. Following this trend, the University of Utah has recently adopted a revised format of the National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education (NEXUS) IPLS Introductory Labs. Here we focus on data from the second semester of this lab sequence. Specifically, we have collected student responses to an end-of-semester anonymous surveys that addresses mindset, attitude towards challenges and group work. We report the survey results and observations for two semesters of implementations of the lab. In particular, we observed positive shifts in student attitudes towards two main components of the course: learning from/in the process independently from simply getting a final answer, and learning to work efficiently in different groups. These results inform how to effectively promote engagement of life-science students in introductory physics labs and student-initiated connections between physics and life-sciences.

  • • Student Surveys and Mindset Interventions: Analysis from Reformed IPLS Labs

    • AI13
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    

    • by Jason May, Jordan Gerton, Claudia De Grandi, Lauren Barth-Cohen, Brianna Montoya

    • Type: Poster
    • Instructors at the University of Utah have collected data from students in modified NEXUS-IPLS reformed laboratory courses via validated surveys (CLASS, E-CLASS) and instructor-designed surveys. Preliminary analysis shows that students completed the course with no changes or positive changes to perceptions of physics courses and physics-based knowledge. These results provide evidence that redesigned IPLS lab courses, such as at the University of Utah, do not diminish students’ attitudes and beliefs about physics, as compared to such outcomes from traditional physics labs. These results are consistent with findings from other IPLS course reforms. We hypothesize that, in addition to the completed IPLS reforms, student completion of mindset-focused interventions, designed by the Failure as a Part of Learning: A Mindset Education network (FLAMEnet), have contributed to these results. This poster presents the results of two post-pilot semesters of student surveys (CLASS and E-CLASS), one semester of instructor-designed surveys, and FLAMEnet interventions.

  • • The Science of Energy

    • AI14
    • Mon 07/22, 10:00AM - 10:30AM
    
    
    • by Donald Franklin
    • Type: Poster
    • Using 3 ebooks, you can have a course for students that covers all of the sciences, with Energy as the main topic. Energy of Biology, Energy of Chemistry, Energy of Earth and Space, Energy of Physics. This will prepare all students not just those takinga selected AP course.

• Labs/Apparatus

  • • Daltonic Cybernetic Eye

    • PST2A01
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Marcio Silveira, Antonio Santos, Ricardo Barthem

    • Type: Poster
    • In this work an experiment is presented that seeks to simulate human chromatic vision through electronic components in an attempt to construct, together with the students, a cybernetic eye. The limitation of the cybernetic eye developed here in relation to standard human chromatic vision, which makes it a "colorblind" eye, is an argument to be explored by the teacher to discuss this predominantly genetic anomaly widely, raising awareness and discussion about the need for public policies aimed at the inclusion of colorblind individuals, being able to be treated in an interdisciplinary way, bringing physics closer to biology. Making use of electronic components that are easy to acquire and inexpensive, the experiment produces data that, when treated, evidences the possibility of using the RGB LED as a light receiver, as well as its limitations in discerning colors.

  • • FL-AAPT IOLab Workshop Supported by Bauder Fund

    • PST2A03
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Shawn Weatherford, Robert DeSerio

    • Type: Poster
    • The 2018 FL-AAPT fall meeting featured a workshop that provided participants the opportunity to progress through introductory physics labs designed for the IOLab. The IOLab is a multi-sensory dynamics cart with wireless USB connectivity to a personal computer. UF Physics utilizes the IOLab in its online introductory physics lab course offerings for the UF Online program. The workshop received significant support from the AAPT Bauder Fund. This poster presents the details and outcomes of the workshop.

  • • Modeling Spatial and Temporal FFT of Experimentally Superimposed Mechanical Waves

    • PST2A05
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by James Vesenka, Jake Todd

    • Type: Poster
    • The superposition of waves is a concept touched upon in most undergraduate physics courses. It is key in the understanding of constructive and destructive interference and the transfer of energy along mediums. Superimposed waves can be easily simulated by graphing programs, but an actual experiment can make for an even more convincing demonstration. A simple experiment can be carried out using two wave generators, flexible string, strobe light, and high-speed cell phone camera to highlight wave superposition. Furthermore, FFT analysis of video temporal and spatial data allows for the identification of the frequency and wavelength components of these real waves making FFT analysis more transparent.

  • • The Fourier Spectrum of the Sound Emitted by a Singing Wine Glass

    • PST2A07
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Ralf Widenhorn, Reuben Leatherman, Justin Dunlap

    • Type: Poster
    • The tone produced by a finger run along the rim of a wine glass is a sound that is familiar to most. What may be less familiar, however, is that these vibrations exhibit a beating, rather than constant-amplitude signal. To investigate and explain the reason for this phenomenon, we use experimental data as well as a simple model to compare three cases. The first involves the steady tone produced by a stationary finger pressed to the rim of a rotating wine glass. The second produces a beating tone from a finger run along the rim of a stationary glass. The third case analyzes the decaying beating produced by a glass that is struck as it rotates. The comparison between these three cases reveals insights into acoustics, wave interference, Fourier analysis that can be instructive in intermediate level undergraduate physics laboratory courses.

  • • Comparing the Muscular Efficiency of Going Up and Down Hills

    • PST2A09
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Carl Mungan, Austin Comeford, Nathaniel Greene

    • Type: Poster
    • Elementary formulas for gravitational potential energy, heat capacity, and Newton’s law of cooling can be used to measure and compare the efficiencies of a person traveling uphill and downhill. Good agreement is found for their ratio with more sophisticated experiments in the literature made by measuring respiration to determine metabolic power. A simple argument explains why human muscles are less than 50% efficient at converting chemical into mechanical energy.

  • • "Choose Your Own Adventure" Project-based Labs for Introductory Physics

    • PST2A11
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Dan Roth
    • Type: Poster
    • I have been dissatisfied with my traditional laboratory exercises using a cookbook-style approach and following a "flavor of the week" schedule which often does not align with content in the lecture. I did not feel that my students were learning the course material (an opinion that has been backed up by some research) or gaining an understanding of the experimental process, including measurement uncertainty. Simply paring down on instructions in an effort to encourage more critical thought did not seem to improve outcomes, and a single lab period is not enough time for students to fully develop an experiment, take preliminary data, consider uncertainty, and revise their experiments. So, I have developed what I call "choose your own adventure" lab projects in which the students work on over the course of several lab sessions to develop and revise their own experiments.

  • • A PSoC Coincidence Counting Unit for Single Photon Investigations

    • PST2A13
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Mark Masters
    • Type: Poster
    • The coincidence counter is critical to single photon investigations. We have developed a low-cost coincidence counter (less than $50) based on a Cypress Programmable System on a Chip (PSoC). The PSoC is quite flexible. It has a microcontroller as well asFPGA like capabilities which enable us to build the coincidence detection and the counter. The design process and several investigations will be presented. The PSoC CCU can count eight channels at 24 bits. It has an onboard D/A converter for driving an interferometer. It has sub 10ns windows and is capable of counting at up to 10MHz.

  • • Chalkboard Presentations in an Intermediate Physics Lab

    • PST2A15
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Jennifer Delgado
    • Type: Poster
    • We compare two semesters of an intermediate physics lab, one semester with a traditional format and one semester that uses example reports and chalkboard presentations to focus on argumentation. The same labs were used both semesters. In the transformed lab students used chalkboards to compose a presentation on the example report they’ve been given and what issues they would like to address in their own experimentation. These sample reports often contained flaws known to the TAs. Students were then tasked with presenting their findings to another group or the TA for discussion using their chalkboards as their poster. After this “conference” students chose to collect data, and analyze it as needed to address issues in the example report before writing their own report. We compare the pre/post results on the CLASS, PLIC and our own assessments between the two semesters.

  • • FAN-C Circuits: RC Circuits Using Computer Fans

    • PST2A17
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Robert Ekey, Brandon Mitchell

    • Type: Poster
    • Recently, small computer fans have been demonstrated to be an effective method for teaching simple resistive circuits both qualitatively [1] and quantitatively [2]. The current through the fans is related to the rotational speed of the fans and allow multiple senses to be engaged (touch, sight, and hearing). The linear relationship between the operational current and applied voltage, provides a nearly constant effective resistance for the fan. This suggests that fans can also be used to explore RC circuits both qualitatively and quantitatively, where the fans act as the resistive elements as well as the indicator. In this poster, we will demonstrate that computer fans can be used to qualitatively explore the charging and discharging times for RC circuits. By monitoring the voltage across the capacitor as a function of time, we will also show that fans can be used for quantitative RC analysis. Fans, capacitors and battery packs will be available for playing with the FAN-C circuits for those that prefer a hands-on approach.

  • • How Long was that Light on Anyway?

    • PST2A19
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Roger Key, John Walkup, Patrick Talbot

    • Type: Poster
    • A lab activity for teaching physics students the fundamentals of statistical analysis during the first few weeks of instruction is described. This activity involves students timing a pulse of light generated by an Arduino device of fixed duration with individual timers (e.g., stopwatch, iPhone timer). Because students are not informed of the true pulse duration until after they turn in their lab reports, they must express the estimated duration of the light pulse in terms of confidence intervals. This activity arises from a need for students to leverage the power of statistics to (1) optimize lab procedures through data-driven decision-making, (2) correct for bias through calibration, and (3) gauge the quality of their work in terms of confidence rather than correctness. We conclude that this three-step process aligns lab procedures closer to industry practices and elevates cognition and engagement among students.

  • • Low Cost Spectrographs and Spectral Radiance

    • PST2A21
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Timothy Grove
    • Type: Poster
    • Low cost spectrographs (a device used to take pictures of spectra) can easily be made from inexpensive parts [for example, see Grove, et. al. "Using a shoebox spectrograph to investigate the differences between reflection and emission", American Journal of Physics, 86, pp. 594 – 601 (2018)]. Using simple methods, one can easily calibrate these devices with regards to wavelength. It is much more difficult to calibrate the device with regards to spectral radiance (a necessity for student investigations examining Planck’s Law). Among the problems are the data compression of common color picture formats (which includes jpg), the non-uniform spectral reflection/diffraction of DVD fragments (which are commonly used as diffraction gratings), and the "measured light intensity" of low cost digital cameras can vary based upon pixel location (center of the screen vs. the edges of the screen). We will present information regarding these issues as well as possible ways to defeat these difficulties.

  • • The “Klein-Gordon string” for Teaching Dispersion and Anisotropic Wave Phenomena

    • PST2A25
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Sergej Faletic, Gorazd Planinsic, Marisa Michelini, Daniele Buongiorno, Mojca Cepic

    • Type: Poster
    • A wave, propagating on a springs-and-beads string hanging on elastic strings is described by the Klein-Gordon equation. The medium is dispersive and many phenomena related to dispersion can be shown using it: the different phase velocities depending on frequency, the difference between phase and group velocities, the deformation of a pulse. Additionally, a medium as described above is anisotropic, so phase velocities for a vertically polarized wave and a horizontally polarized wave are different, so a source linearly polarized at 45° produces a wave whose polarization state depends on the position, i.e. the polarization can be either linear, elliptical or circular, depending on the distance from the source. We also present a teaching and learning sequence using the apparatus and the results of various implementations.

  • • Using Staggered Post-Testing to Improve Targeted Scientific Reasoning Skills*

    • PST2A27
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Larry Bortner, Kathy Koenig, Krista Wood, Lei Bao

    • Type: Poster
    • Over the past several years, in order to foster scientific reasoning (SR), we have been developing lab curricula and an associated assessment (Inquiry for Scientific Thinking and Reasoning [iSTAR]). The requisite SR skills include systematic exploration of a problem, hypothesis formulation and testing, variable manipulation and isolation, and consequence observation and evaluation. Of these, the control of variables (COV) is the basic subset that we focus on. COV is further broken down into nine operationally defined sub-skills that indicate developmental progress (low, intermediate, and high). Our lab courses are sufficiently populated (500-800) that we can give the post-iSTAR to random groups at strategic times over the 14-week semester to gauge statistically significant COV progress. Curriculum changes spurred by past results will be discussed.

  • • Experimental Didactic Proposal for Inclusive Teaching of Waves in High School

    • PST2A02
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Marcio Silveira, Antonio Santos, Ricardo Barthem

    • Type: Poster
    • The models available for teaching waves, especially in high school, do not consider the stage of real development in which the vast majority of students are. Allied to this, the difficulty in presenting frequencies, either of electromagnetic or sonorous nature, different from the bands that we can interpret through our senses, tends to constitute a huge epistemological obstacle. In an attempt to shed some light on this problem, we have developed two experiments that have relations between invisible and inaudible frequencies but which, through processing with Arduino platform, can be converted into audible frequencies. Thus, we intend to unveil this invisible world, bringing to the classroom experiments that can be used, even by students with blindness or deafness

  • • Hermione and the Secretary: Toward Gender Equity in Introductory Labs

    • PST2A04
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Danny Doucette, Russell Clark, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • The introductory physics lab is a culturally rich environment in which students often adopt an inequitable division of labor. Beyond being ethically unacceptable, inequities may negatively affect the identity formation of future scientists, starving our field of talent. Through ethnographic observations and interviews, we seek to identify how mixed-gender pairs of students adopt stereotypical gender roles in the introductory physics lab. We identify two (likely common) modes of work in which women experience lab-work in different and less-beneficial ways than their male partners. We then present and analyze strategies to address this issue, including developing a novel approach to the lab curriculum.

  • • What’s Happening in Introductory Labs? An Integrative Analysis

    • PST2A06
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Danny Doucette, Russell Clark, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • Introductory lab courses have long been an essential component of physics instruction, but questions have been raised about their curricular role and value. As a first step toward reform, it is essential to understand the dynamics of what happens in the lab. Using an integrative approach that includes ethnography, surveys, assessments, and other tools, we mapped out the thinking, instruction, and social dynamics that take place in traditional and inquiry-based labs at a large public university. Findings will be discussed.

  • • A Modified Boyle's Law Experiment to Estimate Salt Crystal Density

    • PST2A08
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Joel Krehbiel, Kenton Schroeder, Harune Suzuki, Nelson Kilmer

    • Type: Poster
    • A common experiment in a college physics class is to show the inverse relationship between pressure and volume predicted by Boyle’s law. Students connect a syringe to a pressure sensor and record the volume of the syringe and the pressure in the system. However, a systematic error exists if the volume between the syringe and the pressure sensor is ignored. We find that it is possible to calculate this headspace volume by fitting the pressure-volume data to a modified Boyle’s law equation. This modification allows us to find the volume of many different objects connected to a pressure sensor and syringe. Here we find the volume of salt crystals and thus accurately determine their density. Our experiments of five different salts show that this method has an average percent error of 1.29 percent, providing a simple and accurate way to estimate the density of salt crystals.

  • • Safety and Medical Context in a Ionizing Radiation Lab Curriculum

    • PST2A10
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Jan Beks, Ad Mooldijk, Rob van Rijn

    • Type: Poster
    • The Ionizing Radiation Lab (ISP) based at the University of Utrecht has provided visits with three mobile ionizing radiation labs to secondary schools for almost five decades now. From a selection of 22 lab experiments, students learn about ionizing radiation. All experiments contain context about safety regarding ionizing radiation and students continuously have to implement safety rules. We will describe and discuss the safety aspect with its eye-openers, and exposure awareness. Some years ago content in the Dutch Physics Ionizing Radiation curriculum started to move towards medical context. Why do hospitals choose generators to provide the radioactive substances in nuclear medicine? What is the exposure while an X-ray is taken? We will describe some particular experiments and discuss (i) how the experiments support the Dutch Physics curriculum, and (ii) how the experiments support medical context.

  • • Apparatus for Measuring the Speed of an Electrical Signal in a Coaxial Cable

    • PST2A14
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Mark Masters, Anna Patterson

    • Type: Poster
    • In our instrumentation class, students build several apparatuses for performing various investigations. This investigation was measuring the speed with which signal traveled through a coaxial cable. The purpose of the investigation was to teach students about transmission line models, unterminated cables, and then use measurements to estimate the material of the cable. The instrument itself was built using a Cypress Semiconductor PSoC microcontroller that generated both the short pulse and measured the speed of the signal.

  • • Flow Theory: Students’ Mental State During Physics Labs

    • PST2A18
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Anna Karelina
    • Type: Poster
    • Students’ emotions during labs are important for effective learning and for students’ attitude towards the class. Here we describe an attempt to measure students’ mental state within the framework of flow theory [1]. For our measurements we used a Likert scale survey with 7 questions we have developed before [2]. The questions relate to the conditions of flow and to the students’ attitude towards the labs. We used this survey in labs in different institutions and with various cohorts of students. We analyzed students’ answers to this survey to find whether this method consistently describes students’ mental states during the labs. [1] M. Csikszentmihalyi, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience", (Harper and Row, New York, NY, 1990) [2] A. Karelina, “Laboratories’ assessment in terms of flow theory”, AAPT Summer Meeting, Washington, DC, 2018

  • • Measuring the Activity of Radioactive Isotopes in Soil Using NaI Detector in the Advance Physics Lab

    • PST2A22
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Rebekah Aguilar, Peter Siegel, Nina Abramzon

    • Type: Poster
    • Experiments involving nuclear radiation detection are routinely performed in the undergraduate physics curriculum. Common detectors found in many undergraduate institutions are sodium iodine (NaI) gamma detectors. These detectors are relatively inexpensive and are well suited for the teaching of basic spectroscopic techniques. For the study of environmental samples high resolution gamma detectors are ideal however these detectors are less common. We report on the use of NaI detectors to study environmental samples. Known decay products from the higher-end energy spectrum sources were used for calibration, gamma energy peaks that were measured include: 1440 keV for Potassium-40, 1764 keV for the Uranium-238, and 2614 keV for the Thorium-232 series. A secular equilibrium was used to assume that the activity of each isotope within their decay series were the same. Our results indicate that NaI detector can be used by students to measure the activity of radioactive isotopes in a soil.

  • • Refining a Rubric for Assessing Student Laboratory Work on Whiteboards

    • PST2A24
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Benjamin Spike
    • Type: Poster
    • In our recently redesigned introductory lab environment, each student group submits a digital photograph of their whiteboard in place of a traditional laboratory report. Because students are limited in the amount of detail they can reasonably include on their 2’x3’ whiteboard, we have devised a rubric to outline essential features of their “report” and clearly communicate how they will be assessed. Students are expected to include a diagram of the experimental setup, a concise description of their approach, relevant numerical calculations, and a summary of results with attention to uncertainty and assumptions. We will present the complete grading rubric, evaluate its success at capturing students’ experimental thinking, and discuss future modifications.

  • • The “Klein-Gordon string” for Teaching Quantum Mechanics

    • PST2A26
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Sergej Faletic
    • Type: Poster
    • In learning quantum mechanics, students are often told not to compare wavefunctions with waves. But the brain always compares, and the similarities are undeniable, so a better approach would be to compare and contrast the two. Therefore, I set out to explore which behavior of the quantum wavefunction can be observed also in classical waves and which cannot. Exponential tails, tunneling, the change of wavelength, and point-like energy transfer are all phenomena observed in classical waves. The question then becomes, which are the specifically quantum aspects that cannot be reproduced with classical waves? And this is the goal: to focus the teaching of quantum mechanics on the specifically quantum aspects, while dealing with wave aspects separately. A teaching and learning sequence using this approach is also suggested and some results of a pilot implementation are presented.

• Lecture/Classroom

  • • A Collection of Games Used to Synthesize Physics Understanding

    • PST1B01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Matthew Olmstead
    • Type: Poster
    • One of the goals of our physics senior seminar course is to get students to understand physics at a deeper level. This is primarily done through a semester long research project on a topic of interest to them that they will write a paper about, give a 20-minute presentation, and give a poster presentation. Another way to get at this goal is by playing several different games to utilize their physics knowledge and to see how they can incorporate it into something other than just answering questions. Several of these games will be discussed including those that combine drawing and concepts, social deduction, combining teamwork and question giving, and answering questions when only being given a well-constructed figure.

  • • Using Money to Understand Temperature

    • PST1B03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Gerardo Giordano
    • Type: Poster
    • Three years ago, I presented the implementation of class activities and discussions that use money to explain temperature as part of a one-semester, introductory, conceptual physics class. The activities and subsequent conversations attempted to explain temperature as a measure of the average translational kinetic energy per particle, its role in heat flow direction, its lack of dependence on the quantity of a substance, how a thermometer measures it, and why it has a lower limit but no upper limit. Using the Thermal Concept Evaluation created by Shelley Yeo and Marjan Zadnik and published in The Physics Teacher (Vol. 39, November 2001), I present three years’ worth of pre-test and post-test scores in general and on select temperature related questions. Additionally, results from temperature-related questions on the final exam as well as FCI data are included to evaluate the effectiveness of the money-related activities.

  • • Leading Departmentally Based Change Initiatives: The Science Education Initiative Handbook

    • PST1B05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Stephanie Chasteen, Warren Code

    • Type: Poster
    • Educational change efforts focused at the department level can be particularly powerful. Positive outcomes, however, are not automatic. This poster will share some of the big lessons-learned from the Science Education Initiatives (SEIs) designed by Carl Wieman, in which postdoctoral fellows were embedded directly within disciplinary departments as catalysts of change. Come see our messages for initiative leaders, departmental faculty, and embedded postdocs and instructors, and take a look at a printed copy of our new free SEI Handbook.

  • • Demonstrating the Mechanics of Materials with a Pool Noodle

    • PST1B07
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Kristi Concannon
    • Type: Poster
    • A Mechanics of Materials course examines the behavior of structural beams and shafts that experience an applied load. Students learn how the load produces stresses within the system and how the resulting deformation of the member depends on its material properties. At our institution, the Mechanics of Materials class is a sophomore-level course that is required of all pre-engineering students and serves as an elective for physics majors. There is no required lab component. To provide a hands-on, design-focused component to the course, students were tasked with identifying means in which a polyethylene pool noodle can be used to demonstrate fundamental concepts related to the course. This poster will present a sample of the activities devised by the students to illustrate principles such as the elastic modulus, the internal bending moments of a beam and the torsional deformations of a rotating shaft.

  • • Energy and Civil Constructions: An Experience with Edifications Technical Course

    • PST1B09
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Isabelle De Lima, Rodrigo Gomes, Ismália Santos

    • Type: Poster
    • The goal of this paper is to show experience of undergraduate physics students in the Pedagogic Residency Training project. This experience was developed in high school classrooms of Edifications technical course. The experience consisted of showing the importance of the energy theme for the course, focused in constructions. To this, we developed activities with the STSE approach and made the question: “How much energy ensure my welfare?” To answer this question, the high school students should think about a small project of a house that used as little energy as possible. To do this, they solved real problems about the conscious use of energy, calculated the average energy consumption in residential buildings and decided the forms and sources of energy they could use to make this possible. They could comprehend the connection between physics and their course and how science is inside society.

  • • Ethical Cases in Physics

    • PST1B11
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Karen Williams
    • Type: Poster
    • This poster will illustrate a few ethical cases in physics that I have presented in an ethics workshop and one from a textbook that I introduce to my students in class. It is paramount our students have ethics education and begin thinking about ethics in what they do in their research and career.

  • • Hacking Historical Experiments in the Classroom: Brazilian Style

    • PST1B13
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Thiago Faustino, Filipe Gomes, Katemari Rosa

    • Type: Poster
    • The use of history, sociology, and philosophy of science HSPC in physics teaching has been largely defended in the literature. One way for an HSPC approach is the use of historical experiments in physics. However, what is the role of a historical experiment in this high-tech era? In this presentation, we share the development of a classic experiment, Galileo’s inclined plane experiment, with a modern twist and low-cost materials. Our setting was a Brazilian public school, lacking science and computer labs, in an urban low-income neighborhood. As part of a university-school program, undergraduate and high-school students built the experimental apparatus, finding creative ways to reconstruct Galileo's famous experiment, and engaged in discussions around physical phenomena. Our experience indicates the low-tech, low-cost, and historical combination can be an aid for high-quality physics teaching

  • • HTML5 Simulations for College and High School Active-Learning Environments*

    • PST1B15
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Andrew Duffy, Manher Jariwala, Emily Allen

    • Type: Poster
    • We have developed HTML5 simulations for use in introductory physics courses at the college and high school levels. Over 200 simulations in physics have been developed to support learning in various settings, including discussion and lab activities. We will discuss how four particular simulations are being used in a variety of active learning environments, including studio classrooms and small discussion-based classes. Images and accompanying curricula for simulations on conservation of energy and momentum, simple harmonic motion, and rotational dynamics will be presented. A link to the collection of resources will be provided.

  • • Standards-based Grading in Introductory Physics: An Example

    • PST1B19
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Laura McCullough
    • Type: Poster
    • Standards-based grading is gaining popularity in the K-12 system, but remains rare in the post-secondary classroom. In this poster I show how I use standards-based grading in my two-semester calculus-based introductory physics classes. SBG can take many forms, and I am providing just one example of how it can work for intro physics. I will share my standards, examples of assessments, as well as how I incorporate writing practice and scientific thinking into the class. I will also show the process I took to get to where I am at now: what I tried and gave up on, what I tried and refined. I find SBG gives students motivation to study, improves accessibility and reduces need for test accommodations, and frees me to focus on the content of physics rather than the administrivia of teaching.

  • • Topical, Randomized Quizzes in Electromagnetism

    • PST1B21
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Alexander Shvonski, Michelle Tomasik, Byron Drury, David Pritchard

    • Type: Poster
    • We developed five 30-minute topical quizzes in an introductory electromagnetism course (n~150) at MIT, and administered them electronically in class. For each problem on the quiz, students were given a randomized variant from a subset of three variants. We analyzed both the self-consistency of these quizzes and their correlation with other components of the course, including the final exam. We also looked at correlations between “types” of problems on both quizzes and the final. Interestingly, the quizzes exhibited a low score of consistency, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, perhaps reflecting the compartmentalized nature of the material. However, quizzes, as a category, correlated more strongly with the final exam than any other component of the course, including the midterm exam. We argue that frequent quizzes are an effective and superior assessment compared to other assessments in the course. We intend to make these materials available to instructors at other institutions.

  • • Using Skateboarding Experiential Learning to Teach Introductory College Physics Course

    • PST1B02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Liang Zeng, Guang Zeng, George Garcia

    • Type: Poster
    • Instructors teaching introductory college physics courses are in a unique position to explain physics in skateboarding and associated potential risks. Taking students to a skate park and measuring the impact forces together can enhance their understanding of physics in skateboarding, analytical thinking skills, and appreciation of physics in everyday life. Students can communicate with each other their practical experiences and learn preventative measures to avoid injuries.

  • • Using Seismic Design Specifications to Help Teach Introductory Physics

    • PST1B04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Frederick Thomas, Robert Chaney, Richard Tseng

    • Type: Poster
    • Whether in higher-risk areas like San Francisco and Provo or lower-risk Detroit, civil and structural engineers are required to design all major structures to withstand a clearly defined “maximum considered earthquake” (MCE). The primary quantity which defines the MCE is the peak horizontal ground acceleration (PGA) with a 2% probability of occurring within a 50-year period. This poster shows how physics learners can obtain PGA specifications for any on-shore location in the world, and (in the US) detailed spectral information important to resonance considerations. Suggested activities for introductory physics labs or classrooms include calculations of maximum earthquake loading as a direct application of F=ma, calculation and testing of likely resonant frequencies, modeling of earthquake wave refraction based on near-surface soil and rock characteristics, and investigation of the connection between soil density and “soil liquefaction.”

  • • A Decade of Progress Catalyzed by Prioritizing Teaching

    • PST1B06
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Paul Miller
    • Type: Poster
    • Ten years ago, the West Virginia University Department of Physics and Astronomy hired its first permanent teaching faculty member. This choice began a series of teaching-focused changes within and beyond the department which have improved course delivery, program design, and (especially) secondary teacher preparation. With the involvement of many, we implemented a Learning Assistants program, collected years of longitudinal data, installed two separate updates to the calculus-based physics sequence, and transitioned the Conceptual Physics course curriculum to a custom implementation of Next Gen PET. Most significantly, the initial decision to prioritize teaching helped to secure the hiring of two senior faculty, which brought physics education research to the department and led to successful PhysTEC and WVUteach site proposals. While we still have plenty to work on, we are excited to share the highlights and lessons learned from an eventful 10-year journey.

  • • Developing and Sharing Weekly Topical Assessment for Introductory Mechanics

    • PST1B08
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Byron Drury, Dave Pritchard

    • Type: Poster
    • We have developed a comprehensive set of online topical quizzes for calculus based introductory mechanics courses. The quizzes are designed to be administered weekly or bi-weekly and take thirty minutes to complete. They are composed of questions from research validated assessments supplemented with questions tested on hundreds of students in both MOOCs and on-campus courses. We will make the quizzes available to interested college and high school instructors for use this fall. We present analysis of results from the administration of these quizzes to approximately 250 students across five classes. The online quizzes were administered concurrently with traditional rubric-graded written quizzes. We argue that weekly online assessment presents numerous advantages over traditional written tests. The online quizzes provide more reliable measurement of student ability, timelier feedback to both students and teachers, and already electronic data for education research, as well as reducing time spent grading.

  • • Enriching Student Learning Experience in Introductory Courses Using Physclips

    • PST1B10
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Adriana Predoi-Cross
    • Type: Poster
    • Physclips are multimedia modules originally developed at the Department of Physics, University of South Wales, Australia, that can be used in introductory physics courses. They contain short lecturing sections combined with videos of experiments and animations of the variation of relevant physical variables. I will present two different scenarios of using physclips and will discuss how these resources have benefitted my students. Future plans of implementing these resources in undergraduate teaching will also be outlined.

  • • FCI Challenge: Tug-of-War

    • PST1B12
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Paul DeStefano, Roberto Perez-Franco, Cora Siebert, Ralf Widenhorn

    • Type: Poster
    • The game of Tug-of-War is a convenient scaffold for introducing concepts of Newtonian mechanics. This is because it can be thoroughly analyzed using Newtons laws, while posing interesting challenges for learners. Using a load cell and a Local PositioningSystem, both the tension force and position of the rope in a Tug-of-War game played by students are recorded. We show that the data from this activity can be used to confront several misconceptions of force identified in the Force Concept Inventory. Additionally, the winner and loosing of the game is typically correlated with a decrease in the tension force. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the losing team is not able to maintain a posture that allows it to exert a maximum force between the players and the ground.

  • • How My Students Determined the Fate of the Universe

    • PST1B14
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Steve Cederbloom
    • Type: Poster
    • Teaching science courses to non-STEM majors can be frustrating, especially to students who struggle with math. It is difficult in mathematically involved topics (such as cosmology and general relativity) to find problems that these students can actually investigate themselves. Yet having the students take an active role is important in developing scientific literacy – “the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity” (National Academy of Sciences, 1996). To get the students to DO cosmology, a scaffolded method for teaching computational problem solving on Excel was used. The students were able to solve the Friedmann equation, along with several other coupled equations, to find the history of a model universe. Additional problems that might also be accessible are being investigated.

  • • Integrating Lecture and Labs in Introductory Physics

    • PST1B16
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Martin Kamela
    • Type: Poster
    • Over the past four years we have experimented with integrating labs, hands-on activities, and coding into the introductory physics sequence. The class meets three times a week for two hours at a time and each section is capped at 24 students. The main goals of the course are (i) to help students transition from novice to more expert-like learners of physics, (ii) to make the physics-reality connection paramount, (iii) to help students develop skills of physical model building and computational analysis, (iv) to improve students’ competence in communicating scientific ideas, and (v) to make this entry course into the physics major distinct from the students’ high school physics experience. In this poster I present some of the lab activities developed for the course and comment on the initial successes and challenges in revising the introductory physics sequence.

  • • Stacked Potential/Field Visuals as Conceptual Problem-Solving Tools in Electrostatics

    • PST1B18
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Richard Zajac
    • Type: Poster
    • Examples are presented of combining surface plots of electric potentials with corresponding plots of electric fields into an integrated visual device to emphasize conceptual understanding. This is especially useful in the algebra-based introductory course in which students’ mathematical methods are limited, and students’ work on numerical problems is not always well connected with the use of traditional conceptual tools (e.g. drawing lines of force). These striking visuals are straightforward to produce with common office software. Combined with online homework, they are found to provide students an intuitive language for problem-solving, and to build a foundation for later visual tools used in circuit analysis.

  • • Student Understanding of the Big Picture in Physics: Use of Scaffolding in Introductory College Physics Classes

    • PST1B20
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by William Newton
    • Type: Poster
    • Students in introductory physics classes often have trouble seeing how specific pieces of content fit into the big picture of physics. They are often unaware of the fact that the equations and concepts they encounter can be categorized, or that in solving many problems they are simply treading the same ground in the physics landscape, just following slightly different trajectories. I will present two strategies that have been implemented in an introductory E&M studio physics class to help students fit the content into the larger context of physics : firstly, the use of different colored flashcards to categorize the content they encounter into laws of physics, definitions, derived quantities, numerical values, and skills, and secondly, the use of a template "map of physics" onto which students place the various elements of a problem and trace out the trajectories taking them from the problem's starting place to it's end point.

• Other Poster

  • • A New Online Resource for Instructors to Choose Demonstrations

    • PST1C01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Dawson Nodurft, Daniel Melconian

    • Type: Poster
    • In large departments or institutions, lack of communication becomes a significant impediment to success. The nature of education at times leaves instructors preparing and adjusting lectures the night or even hours before their classes. A crucial part of physics instruction are hands-on demonstrations and physics experiments in lecture. A website was developed to assist instructors in choosing the correct demonstrations for their classes as well as ordering them to ensure on time arrival. The effect of this website on the department is analyzed and presented.

  • • Early Career Research Training Course

    • PST1C03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Nina Abramzon, Paul Beardsley, Winny Dong, Everardo Barraza, Rebecca Eddy

    • Type: Poster
    • Although undergraduate research is a proven high impact practice for increasing retention and graduation, lower division students do not have the opportunity to engage in these activities. Their lack of research training makes it unlikely for faculty members to accept early career students into research assistantship positions. We report on design and implementation of an Early Research Training Course taught by interdisciplinary teams of STEM faculty. The goal of the course is to introduce students to a range of authentic research techniques from a broad array of disciplines. Students develop and refine research skills, design an experiment, test an hypothesis, collect data, preform error and statistical analysis write up research results, and communicate findings. Pre and Post surveys are conducted, results to be shared include improvement of student’s perception and skill repertoire in conducting independent research, student persistence in STEM, and STEM awareness and STEM identity.

  • • Machine Learning: Using Tensorflow in a First Year Seminar

    • PST1C05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Stefan Jeglinski
    • Type: Poster
    • A First Year Seminar in Mechatronics for students of any intended major (first year only) has been developed. The curriculum is wide ranging, with the intent of introducing students to material they must master for STEM courses (e.g. numeracy, basic mechanics, data manipulation) and also topics that are relevant for future speculative technologies, such as machine learning and quantum computing. I will describe my experience teaching Tensorflow to students with a broad range of incoming skill sets, and my attempts to tie machine learning to neural networks and quantum (annealing) computing.

  • • AP Physics Results and their Implications for Diversity in Physics*

    • PST1C02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Andrew Duffy
    • Type: Poster
    • The importance of diversity in the physics community has, in recent years, become widely recognized. The College Board publishes data that breaks down AP results along racial and ethnic lines. An important connection between the previous two sentences isthat the demographic information from the College Board, pertaining to the AP Physics exams, indicates that the exact groups that we would like to attract to the physics community are, in general, doing rather poorly on AP Physics. Visualizations of this data will be presented in this poster, in hopes of starting some useful discussions about what to do about the issue.

  • • Incorporating the Engineering Design Process into First-Year HS Physics Courses

    • PST1C04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Debbie Andres
    • Type: Poster
    • The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for teachers to incorporate the engineering design process into the instruction and learning of their students. This means teachers must help students develop skills such as: how to define engineering problems, design a solution, and optimize a solution. How can we incorporate engineering instruction more naturally into a high school physics classroom? Using my experience in engineering education and training in physics education, I developed multiple engineering design activities for use with my first year physics students. The activities are not only for the application of physics concepts but also to help students develop physics concepts through the engineering design process. Students are able to see how engineers rely on their science background to not only design solutions but also identify problems. I will be sharing my activities that span across various NGSS topics as well as student feedback on their experiences.

  • • Student-initiated Research in a Bachelor’s-only Physics and Astronomy Department

    • PST1C06
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Matthew Semak, Cynthia Galovich

    • Type: Poster
    • At the University of Northern Colorado, undergraduate research has been a required component of the physics degree for over 30 years. Students work on faculty research projects or develop their own research. However, some are wary of approaching this challenge given their limited experience. Moreover, without the extensive research facilities, graduate student mentors, and other important resources associated with graduate institutions, can an undergraduate program provide a meaningful research experience for its students? In fact, some of our students independently develop projects, taking ownership of the process. Faculty still advise them, yet, their self-direction and vision is impressive. Here we highlight two such projects. One is theoretical in nature and involves the construction of an equation of state for an ideal gas using a Monte Carlo simulation. The other project is experimental/computational and concerns the development of a random number generator using an electric circuit producing chaotic behavior.

• Physics Education Research

  • • Developing Robust Clicker Question Sequences for the Addition of Angular Momentum in Quantum Mechanics

    • PST1D01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Paul Justice, Emily Marshman, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • Engaging students with well-designed clicker questions is one of the commonly used research-based instructional strategies in physics courses partly because it has a relatively low barrier to implementation. Moreover, validated robust sequences of clicker questions are likely to provide better scaffolding support and guidance to help students build a good knowledge structure of physics than an individual clicker question on a particular topic. Here we discuss the development, validation, and in-class implementation of a clicker question sequence (CQS) for helping advanced undergraduate students learn about addition of angular momentum, which takes advantage of the learning goals and inquiry-based guided learning sequences in a previously validated Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT). The in-class evaluation of the CQS using peer instruction is discussed by comparing upper-level undergraduate students’ performance after engaging with the CQS with previous published data from the QuILT pertaining to these concepts.

  • • Examining the Effectiveness of Two Methods to Improve Student Transfer from Online Problem Solving Tutorials

    • PST1D03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Kyle Whitcomb, Zhongzhou Chen, Matthew Guthrie, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • In an earlier study involving a sequence of three online learning modules, we found that college students lack the ability to transfer their learning from an online problem-solving tutorial to solving similar new problems. In the current study, we examined the effectiveness of two methods attempting to improve students’ ability to transfer. First, we added an “on-ramp” module focusing on developing proficiency of basic skills that are important to solving the types of problems they encounter in the tutorial. Second, we added a new module containing a new transfer problem before the last module, for which half of the students were asked to explicitly compare and contrast the new problem with a previous problem, and the other half were given a tutorial on the new problem. We found that the on-ramp module significantly improved students’ performance on their subsequent transfer attempts, while this year’s students scored lower than last year’s students on common problems in a preceding midterm exam. On the other hand, neither the compare-contrast condition nor the new tutorial condition had a significant impact on improving students’ performance on the subsequent transfer problem, nor were the performance between the two groups significantly different. We did find that students’ performance on the new problem was significantly lower than expected, which may suggest that those new problems were not as similar to the existing problems as perceived by experts. The study demonstrated that online learning modules can be a powerful and flexible tool that allows instructors and researchers to easily examine the effectiveness of new pedagogical design and instructional materials, accelerating the improvement of physics and STEM education.

  • • Exploring One Aspect of Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Teaching Assistants Using the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics*

    • PST1D05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Alexandru Maries, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • The Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) is a multiple choice test developed by Beichner in 1994 to assess students’ understanding of kinematics graphs. Many of the items on the TUG-K have strong distractor choices which correspond to students’ common difficulties with kinematics graphs. We evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of first year physics graduate students enrolled in a teaching assistant (TA) training course related to topics covered in the TUG-K. We used the TUG-K to design a task for TAs that would provide information about their knowledge of common student difficulties and used the TA data and the data from Beichner’s original paper for introductory physics students (which was collected from over 500 college and high-school students) to assess this aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of the graduate students, i.e., knowledge of student difficulties related to kinematics graphs as they are revealed by the TUG-K. We find that, although the graduate students, on average, performed better than random guessing at identifying introductory student difficulties on the TUG-K, they did not identify many common difficulties that introductory students have with graphs in kinematics. In addition, we find that the ability of graduate students to identify the difficulties of introductory students is context dependent and that discussions among the graduate students improved their understanding of student difficulties related to kinematics graphs. Moreover, we find that the ability of American graduate students in identifying common student difficulties is comparable with that of foreign graduate students.

  • • Physics Reading Strategy Exploration (PRSE) at Spelman Colege

    • PST1D07
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Christopher Oakley
    • Type: Poster
    • Processing and evaluating written material is a critical skill to develop for students that plan to earn an advanced degree or perform in a technical position. This research addresses the following questions: a) Do experts and students employ specific strategies when reading refereed journal articles? b) What courses/activities, if any, relate to changes in student reading strategy? Spelman students in the introductory sequence and a multi-year reading seminar provided eye gaze data taken via a monitor mounted eye-tracker. Eye-tracker data identifies Areas of Interest (AOIs) and establishes, chronologically, how the paper is viewed. Eye-tracker data alone is not adequate to draw inferences about student understanding. We provide a survey assignment that was created to provide data to corroborate eye gaze pattern information as well as investigate general content retained from the paper. The data are presented to begin the process of identifying reading habits employed by participants.

  • • Prevalence of Impetus-Force-Like Drawings Among Contemporary University Physics Students*

    • PST1D09
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Amy Robertson, Paula Heron, Lisa Goodhew, Rachel Scherr

    • Type: Poster
    • Decades ago, one of the most salient and commonly reported force ideas in the literature was the notion of an “impetus force” – the “belief that there is a force inside a moving object that keeps it going and causes it to have some speed” (Clement, 1983). Such beliefs were reported to be extremely widespread. For example, Clement (1982) reported that nearly 75% of the students in his sample drew an upward arrow, indicative of a “throw” force, in the direction of motion of a tossed object after it has left a person’s hand. In a recent study, we asked the same questions as in earlier studies and found that the prevalence of impetus-force-like ideas both varies substantially across samples and is consistently lower than what is reported in earlier work. In this poster, we will share our data and propose hypotheses about why this might be the case, including the influence of research-based instructional strategies. Please come and suggest your own interpretations!

  • • Creation of a Pre-test for an Upper-division Physics Laboratory Assessment

    • PST1D11
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Laura Ríos, Benjamin Pollard, Heather Lewandowski

    • Type: Poster
    • Physics laboratory courses are unique learning environments, and assessments that track their impact and improvement are few, especially at the upper-division level. To assess laboratory courses in a way that is sensitive to their unique affordances and limitations, our team is developing assessments for model-based reasoning (MBR) in the context of analog electronics and optics. Our team is also assiduously cataloging the assessment development process to increase the transparency of the process and confidence in the final product. Here, we describe one portion of the creation of a pretest for MBR: think-aloud activities focused on a prototypical pendulum lab. We discuss some important outcomes, including describing the problem space that students explore, and ways that the pendulum activity is an appropriate pre-test for this assessment.

  • • How Do Introductory Physics And Mathematics Courses Predict Engineering Students’ Performance In Subsequent Engineering Courses?

    • PST1D15
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Kyle Whitcomb, Z. Yasemin Kalender, Timothy Nokes-Malach, Christian Schunn, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • In collegiate engineering curricula in the US, physics and mathematics are treated as foundational with all students taking physics and mathematics in both semesters of freshman year and additional mathematics courses in later semesters. Using academic data from the cohorts of students in introductory physics since 2009, we investigated the correlation between the performance of undergraduate engineering majors in introductory physics and mathematics courses and their performance in subsequent engineering courses. We find an interesting relationship between the best predictors of performance, advanced mathematics courses, and the physics sequence. We thank the National Science Foundation for support.

  • • Investigating Attitudes and Performance of Students in Introductory Physics Courses: Racial and Ethnic Minorities

    • PST1D17
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Z. Yasemin Kalender, Emily Marshman, Timothy Nokes-Malach, Christian Schunn, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • Despite some efforts to encourage students from underrepresented groups to pursue college study (especially in the STEM disciplines), the percentage of minority students majoring in physics remains low. Prior research has focused on the relationships between student performance, motivation, and retention in STEM disciplines. However, there is relatively little known about the attitudes of students from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups enrolled in physics courses. We performed a longitudinal analysis of students in introductory physics courses by administering pre and post attitude surveys which assessed, e.g., their self-efficacy, grit, fascination with physics, and theory of intelligence. Pre and post conceptual tests were also administered to the students. We examined the attitudes and performance outcomes of ethnic minorities in introductory physics courses. Findings will be discussed.

  • • Students’ Conceptual Resources for Understanding the Principle of Superposition*

    • PST1D22
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Lauren Bauman, Lisa Goodhew, Amy Robertson

    • Type: Poster
    • Superposition is central to understanding numerous physical phenomena, from pulses on a string to electric fields. In this talk, we report the preliminary results of our investigation into introductory undergraduate students' conceptual resources for understanding the principle of superposition. We analyzed 368 written responses to a conceptual question that explored applications and attributes of superposition. We identified four recurring resources related to superposition: (1) additiveness; (2) separability; (3) quantifiability; and (4) localization. Our objective is to support educators by drawing attention to these resources and by suggesting how they can be taken up alongside students to enhance instruction.

  • • A Methodology for Developing and Validating Equivalent Short Concept Inventories

    • PST1D24
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Yang Xiao*, Kathleen Koenig, Jing Han, Lei Bao

    • Type: Poster
    • While many validated concept inventories (CIs) have been developed to assess student learning, the use of these CIs in teaching practices is less popular due to the considerable class time needed in their implementation. In order to streamline the process to convert existing CIs into short versions that retain their statistical power for student assessment, we have explored possible standard methodologies for developing and validating short CIs from established CIs currently used in physics education. This poster shows a mixed methodology for developing and validating equivalent short CIs which combines classical test theory with item response theory. Several successful cases will be discussed in detail, which include the Force Concept Inventory, the Conceptual Survey on Electricity and Magnetism, and the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment for Electricity and Magnetism.

  • • Building Student Networks through CUWiP*

    • PST1D26
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Eric Brewe, Zahra Hazari, Renee-Michelle Goertzen, Theodore Hodapp

    • Type: Poster
    • The American Physical Society Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) are a distributed set of simultaneous conferences that are designed to promote and support women in physics. Between 2014 and 2018, over 5800 women have participated in the conferences at 47 sites. One of the stated goals of the conferences are to encourage participants networking with their peers. As part of the evaluation of these conferences, we have given pre and post conference surveys to participants. The surveys included a question about participants’ networks. The evidence is clear: all conference sites promote the formation of participant networks. However, some sites have much greater growth in networks. We employ social network analysis to better characterize the growth of the networks, as well as understanding characteristics of conference sites in terms of size, allocation of time, and structure.

  • • Developing Resources-oriented Instructional Materials for Introductory Physics

    • PST1D28
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Lisa Goodhew, Amy Robertson, Paula Heron, Rachel Scherr

    • Type: Poster
    • In this poster, we describe preliminary instructional materials that elicit and build upon some of these common conceptual resources for mechanical wave propagation. Our approach contrasts with that of most research-based instructional materials in physics, which are informed by investigations of students’ common misunderstandings, misconceptions, or difficulties – that is, ways in which student ideas are inconsistent with canonical understandings. In our work, we have identified common student resources for understanding physics – ways in which student ideas are consistent with canonical understandings. We describe design elements of instructional materials intended to elicit and refine some of these common conceptual resources. We discuss preliminary use of these materials with small groups of introductory physics students.

  • • Introductory Physics I Lab Practical Exam Development*

    • PST1D30
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Steven Wolf, Feng Li, Annalisa Smith-Joyner, Mark Sprague, Joi Walker

    • Type: Poster
    • This study reports the development and validation of an instrument to assess science practices in an introductory physics laboratory. The instrument, called Investigation Design, Explanation, and Argument about Core Ideas Assessment (IDEA), asks studentsto design and conduct an investigation, perform data analysis and write an argument. The physics IDEA instrument was validated with (1) advanced physics undergraduate students, (2) physics graduate students and faculty, and (3) undergraduate students in introductory physics laboratory courses. This study establishes construct validity in that the instrument measures targeted science practices. Face validity was established by administering the practical in 20 laboratory sections in the course of one week. We discuss results from implementation over a 1 year period, and implications for our lab curricula. This is part of a NSF-funded study into how science practices transfer between the scientific disciplines.

  • • The Effect of Explicit Instruction on Scientific Reasoning Skills

    • PST1D32
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Tyler Garcia, Homeyra Sadaghiani

    • Type: Poster
    • Scientific reasoning is an important skill that defines the development of claims and explanations from observed evidence. However, these skills are not often explicitly taught in schools and no significant gains have been reported over a period of a single college lecture course. Over the past few years, we are investigating the impact of more explicit instruction and practices in inquiry-based physics course designed for non-STEM majors on increasing scientific reasoning ability. We have collected pre- and post-test data using Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) to gauge the student’s gain. We will share examples of explicit interventions and report on our findings.

  • • The Moderation of Domain Specific Self-Efficacy by Gender

    • PST1D34
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Rachel Henderson, John Stewart

    • Type: Poster
    • A student’s academic self-efficacy is expected to depend on academic domain (math, physics, chemistry). Many studies have reported differences in self-efficacy by gender. The self-efficacy of students in introductory calculus and physics classes was measured with a modified version of the self-efficacy subscale of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. Students demonstrated three tiers of self-efficacy: toward their current math or physics class, toward other math and physics classes, and toward their intended profession. There were no differences between men and women in any domain except in their current math or science class with women reporting lower self-efficacy. This difference was evident very early in the class before the students had received significant course feedback. Self-efficacy evolved within the class and was influenced by performance feedback (test grades); however, this process was not moderated by gender. Both men and women processed course feedback into their self-efficacy in the same way.

  • • The Relation of Personality, Self-Efficacy, and Achievement in Physics

    • PST1D36
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Dona Hewagallage, John Stewart

    • Type: Poster
    • This research compares the personality facets of 1911 students in an introductory physics class taken primarily by future engineers and physical scientists using the Big Five Inventory (BFI). The relation of personality to four measures of academic achievement were compared: high school GPA (HSGPA), ACT/SAT mathematics score, physics test average, and physics course grade. Personality explained more variance in college achievement measures than in high school measures. The conscientiousness facet was the strongest predictor of achievement for HSGPA, test average, and grade, but not for ACT/SAT score. A secondary analysis was carried out to investigate whether self-efficacy mediated the relation of personality facets to academic achievement. Two measures of self-efficacy were compared, self-efficacy in physics class and general STEM self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was a significant mediator only for the conscientiousness facet. These results were similar for men and women.

  • • Using Machine Learning to Understand Physics Graduate School Admissions

    • PST1D38
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Nicholas Young, Marcos Caballero

    • Type: Poster
    • Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of women and underrepresented minorities has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions process can create challenges for achieving diversity goals in physics. In this presentation, we will investigate how the various aspects of a prospective student’s application to a physics doctoral program affect the likelihood the applicant will be admitted. Admissions data was collected from a large, Midwestern public research university that has a decentralized admissions process and included applicants’ undergraduate GPAs and institutions, GRE and physics GRE scores, and demographic information such as gender and race/ethnicity. Supervised machine learning algorithms were used to create models that predict who was admitted into the PhD program. Here, we will present the results of this analysis as well as compare models between the various subdisciplines of physics represented in this department.

  • • What Physics Teachers Should Know About STEM Identity and Gender?

    • PST1D42
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Nina Abramzon, Viviane Seyranian, Alex Madva, Nicole Duong, Yoi Tibbetts

    • Type: Poster
    • This study investigated gender disparities in academic achievement and flourishing in an undergraduate introductory physics course. 160 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory physics course were administered a baseline survey and a post-survey at the end of the academic term. Students also completed force concept inventory (FCI) and physics course grades were obtained. Women reported less course belonging, less physics identification, and more belonging uncertainty than men. Men scored higher on the FCI than women, although no gender disparities emerged for course grades. Women who highly identified with physics tended to flourish more over the course of the term than low identifiers. Overall, this study underlines gender disparities in physics classrooms both in terms of belonging and physics knowledge. It suggests that strong STEM identity may be associated with academic performance and flourishing in undergraduate physics courses at the end of the term, particularly for women.

  • • Student Behavior and Test Security in Online Conceptual Assessment

    • PST1D44
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Bethany Wilcox, Steven Pollock

    • Type: Poster
    • Historically, the implementation of research-based assessments (RBAs) has been a driver of education change within physics and helped motivate adoption of interactive engagement pedagogies. Until recently, RBAs were given to students exclusively on paperand in-class; however, this approach has important drawbacks including decentralized data collection and the need to sacrifice class time. Recently, some RBAs have been moved to online platforms to address these limitations. Yet, online RBAs present new concerns such as student participation rates, test security, and students’ use of outside resources. Here, we report on a study addressing the second two concerns. We gave two upper-division RBAs to courses at five institutions; the RBAs were hosted online and featured embedded JavaScript code which collected information on students’ behaviors (e.g., copying text, printing). With these data, we examine the prevalence of these behaviors, and their correlation with students’ scores, to determine if online and paper-based RBAs are comparable.

  • • Student Performance and Stress Level in Different Testing Environments

    • PST1D46
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Sarah Muller, Archana Dubey

    • Type: Poster
    • This study examines how student quiz scores and behavior differ when taking quizzes in an Evaluation and Proficiency Center (EPC) versus a studio classroom setting. The studio classroom promotes collaborative learning by having the students work in groups of about three. All focus groups have the same professor, a graduate TA, and an undergraduate Learning Assistant. Student quiz scores and stress levels will be compared in the two environments to see if one setting is more favorable than the other. Quiz scores from the EPC will be compared to paper quiz scores. A statistical analysis will be run to see the difference between the two locations. Student self-evaluation of stress levels will be analyzed via an anonymous survey given at the end of each semester. The spring 2019 data will be compared to the data to be attained in the fall 2019 semester when we will implement Personalized Adaptive Learning.

  • • Supporting Science Students with Scholarships, Academic Activities, and Reflective Journaling

    • PST1D48
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Andrew Morrison, Cathleen Dobbs

    • Type: Poster
    • Joliet Junior College recently completed the first year of a five-year project to award scholarships to highly qualified students intending to complete a STEM-related major. The scholarships are for students with demonstrated financial need and are also intended to target students from traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM. Students in the program are asked to keep a reflective journal that they discuss regularly with an assigned faculty mentor. Activities throughout the academic year include: introductions to student support offices, information sessions on transfer options, working on summer research applications, invited speakers on campus, and field trips to museums, national laboratories, and industry partners. We will share the results to date of our research component of this project and discuss ways in which a broader range of JJC students can be reached.

  • • Impact of Social Positioning on Group Efficacy in an ISLE Physics Class

    • PST1D50
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Yuehai Yang, David Brookes, Binod Nainabasti

    • Type: Poster
    • We collected video and audio data of students interacting with each other in groups while conducting learning activities in an introductory physics class. For each episode of these activities, we categorized each 15 seconds of interaction into five different social positions, for each student in the group. Our analysis found that the way group members talk to each other plays an important role in opening the collaborative space for other group members. This resulted in deeper and richer discussions. On the other hand, a single group member can shut down the collaborative space simply through the manner in which they address other group members. We have found a remarkable correlation between how students position themselves when interacting with each other, and the effectiveness of the group in conducting and completing the learning activities.

  • • Epistemological Discussions on Characteristics of Scientists Help At-Risk Students

    • PST1D02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Bradley McCoy
    • Type: Poster
    • In this quasi-experimental study, we included short daily discussions of characteristics of scientists in introductory courses and measured changes in students’ epistemologies using EBAPS. In sections that did not include the discussions on characteristics of scientists, students with pre-scores in the first quartile showed large decreases in post-scores on the source of ability to learn axis. However, in sections that did include the discussions on characteristics of scientists, scores of students in the first quartile increased on the source of ability to learn axis. We conclude that this population of at-risk students would benefit from more frequent discussions of characteristics that lead to success in science.

  • • Exploring One Aspect of Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Physics Instructors and Teaching Assistants Using the Force Concept Inventory*

    • PST1D04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Alexandru Maries, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been widely used to assess student understanding of introductory mechanics concepts by a variety of educators and physics education researchers. One reason for this extensive use is that many of the items on the FCI have strong distractor choices that correspond to students’ alternate conceptions in mechanics. Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know the common alternate conceptions of introductory physics students and explicitly take into account students’ initial knowledge state in their instructional design. Here, we discuss research involving the FCI to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of both instructors and teaching assistants (TAs): knowledge of introductory student difficulties related to mechanics as they are revealed by the FCI. We used the FCI to design a task for instructors and TAs that would provide information about their knowledge of common student difficulties and used FCI pre-test and post-test data from a large population (~900) of introductory physics students to assess this aspect of pedagogical content knowledge of physics instructors and TAs. We find that while both physics instructors and TAs, on average, performed better than random guessing at identifying introductory students’ difficulties with FCI content, they did not identify many common difficulties that introductory physics students have, even after traditional instruction. Moreover, the ability to correctly identify students’ difficulties was not correlated with the teaching experience of the physics instructors or the background of the TAs.

  • • Feedback Requested: Understanding and Humanizing the Journal Review Process

    • PST1D06
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Kathleen Harper, Charles Henderson, Amy Robertson, Gary White, Michael Wittmann

    • Type: Poster
    • Informal conversations in the Physics Education Research (PER) Community raised concerns that sometimes the journal review process might be unnecessarily harsh. This caused the authors of this poster to seek feedback from the larger PER community via a survey. Responses to the survey confirmed that many authors have received reviews that could be described as insulting or dehumanizing. The information provided by the respondents led us to consider the role of reviews in the publication process specifically and in the research community more broadly. We are calling upon the PER community to carefully consider the balance between the role of ensuring that high quality work be published and the role of providing constructive feedback to authors to help them attain that high quality. To that end, we have drafted a set of review writing recommendations. In this poster, we share this draft and ask for your feedback.

  • • Physics Reading Strategy Exploration (PRSE) for Journal Articles and Physics Texts

    • PST1D08
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Christopher Oakley
    • Type: Poster
    • The ability to process and evaluate written material is a critical skill to develop for students that plan to earn an advanced degree or perform in a technical position. Physics texts often employ many different representations (graphs, diagrams, words, or equations) to explain the content of the text. An eye-tracker follows the gaze of student participants. The participants have read a short refereed journal article or chapter from a physics text. The duration of a gaze allows the identification of Areas of Interest (AoIs). The sequence of eye motion allows us to infer how the participant combines different representations within the text. Eye-tracker data is compared to notes taken by the students as well as a post-reading survey.

  • • Equity in Introductory Physics Students’ Attitudinal Development

    • PST1D14
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Jayson Nissen, Ben Van Dusen

    • Type: Poster
    • We explored the intersectional nature of race/racism and gender/sexism in broad scale inequities in physics student attitudes and how lecture-based and collaborative learning activities moderated those inequities. Grounding the research in a framework ofcritical quantitative intersectionality allowed us to investigate the role of power and differences in power between lecture-based and collaborative-based instruction in these inequities. The analyses used hierarchical linear models to examine student’s attitudes as measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey. The data came from the Learning About STEM Student Outcomes’ (LASSO) national database. To create a more nuanced picture of student attitudinal development and problematize how physics education research investigates equity, we interpreted the models using competing operationalizations of equity. We will discuss the implications of our findings and identify areas for future research using critical quantitative perspectives in physics education research.

  • • Improving an Innovative Curriculum to Teach Circuits Using Design Research

    • PST1D16
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Jan-Philipp Burde, Thomas Wilhelm

    • Type: Poster
    • Effective reasoning about electric circuits requires a solid understanding of voltage and potential. However, most students fail to correctly analyze electric circuits as they tend to reason exclusively with current and resistance. The key idea of a curriculum developed in Frankfurt/Germany is to introduce voltage even before the electric current by comparing it with air pressure differences. Voltage as an “electric pressure” difference can then be understood as the causal agent of current propulsion just as air pressure differences are the cause of air flow (e.g. bicycle tires). In line with the cyclical character of design-based research, the original curriculum was further refined using a variety of research methods and working closely with practitioners. The poster presented illustrates the key ideas of the refined curriculum and provides insight into the most important design decisions behind it.

  • • Large Gender Differences in Physics Self-efficacy at Equal Performance Levels: A Warning Sign?

    • PST1D18
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Z. Yasemin Kalender, Emily Marshman, Timothy Nokes-Malach, Christian Schunn, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • Self-efficacy, or the belief in one’s capability to succeed in a particular task, course, or subject area, has been shown to be strongly correlated with students’ learning outcomes. Previous studies have shown that female students have lower self-efficacy than males in physics courses. However, few studies have focused on self-efficacy gender differences among equal performance levels. Differences in self-efficacy for similarly performing males and females can have detrimental short-term and long-term effects. We report on the self-efficacy of female and male students who perform similarly on standardized physics conceptual tests and who received the same course letter grade in physics. The findings will be discussed in detail. We thank the National Science Foundation for support.

  • • A Longitudinal Exploration of Students’ Beliefs about Experimental Physics*

    • PST1D23
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Rachel Henderson, Kelsey Funkhouser, Marcos Caballero

    • Type: Poster
    • Michigan State University physics department has recently transformed its algebra-based, introductory physics laboratory curriculum. This transformed, two-course sequence, Design, Analysis, Tools, and Apprenticeship (DATA) Lab, emphasizes the developmentof experimental skills and laboratory practices and provides students with an authentic physics laboratory experience. In this presentation, we will discuss the longitudinal results on how students perceive experimental physics through the two course sequence: mechanics (DL1) and electricity and magnetism (DL2). In both courses, data was collected pre- and post-instruction via the Colorado Learning Attitudes and Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS). Students in the traditional-to-traditional course sequence demonstrated an overall decline in their expert-like responses. Students enrolled in the transformed-to-transformed course sequence showed higher yet stable expert-like responses toward experimental physics. Students in the traditional-to-transformed sequence experienced a significant increase in their beliefs toward experimental physics; however, it only occurred during the second half of the two-course sequence.

  • • Assessing Motivations to Engage in Responsible Conduct of Research

    • PST1D25
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by ALEXANDER Coon, Scott Tanona, Jonathan Herington, James Laverty

    • Type: Poster
    • There have been many calls to broaden and deepen scientist's willingness to engage in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). In this context we define RCR as scientific practices consistent with established rules and professional norms for conductingresearch ethically. Our goal is to identify scientists’ motivation to engage in RCR before and after an intervention. To measure this, we created the RCR-Motivations survey (RCR-M). This survey has two goals: 1) to identify sources of motivation to engage in RCR, and 2) to identify attitudes that could affect engagement. Using this survey we can identify the degree of success of the intervention and if it should be recommended to more researchers and institutions.

  • • Comparing Student Learning Behavior Under Mastery-Based vs. Traditional Online Instruction

    • PST1D27
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Matthew Guthrie, Zhongzhou Chen

    • Type: Poster
    • Mastery-based online (MBO) learning has been the focus of recent studies aimed at improving the effectiveness of online physics education. While traditional instruction, practice, and assessments are organized separately in larger units, MBO learning integrates these elements into learning module sequences, enabling students to proceed based on individual mastery level. MBO homework has been shown to improve learning outcomes while generating more interpretable and informative learning data. However, MBO systems may lead students to focus on passing assessments rather than learning. To compare student learning and behavior under MBO and traditional systems, we created two forms of modules using each design principle for the same introductory physics level content. Two module sequences were assigned as homework to classes of approximately 250 students, and the two designs were switched between the classes after the first unit. This poster will detail what we learned by analyzing student interaction throughout the two conditions.

  • • Expectations for Vectors in Curvilinear Coordinates in Upper-Division Physics

    • PST1D29
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Brian Farlow, Chaelee Dalton, Ruby Kalra, Warren Christensen

    • Type: Poster
    • Our broad research goal is to develop research based instructional materials to help students more effectively translate across the math-physics interface in the middle- and upper-divisions in the context of some vector concepts in various spatial coordinate systems. A portion of that effort is to define the associated instructional gap between math and physics curricula. Thus, we began a study to analyze both the curricula and student understanding of that curricula in both calculus and upper-division physics courses. Previous analysis of popular calculus textbooks found that approximately 95% of their content is based on Cartesian coordinates with much of the remaining 5% being curvilinear content presented at a surface level (see Dalton et al). Analysis of common upper-division physics textbooks reveals different expectations and directions for the application of vectors in curvilinear coordinates. We highlight these differences and how they will inform future curriculum development.

  • • Investigation on How Students do their Homework and Knowledge Retention

    • PST1D31
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Justin Lee, Binod Nainabasti, Yuehai Yang

    • Type: Poster
    • The primary goal of this study was to investigate the ways students do their homework problems and how their ways of doing homework problems affect their performance in the class. This study was conducted on homework and exam problems assigned in introductory physics classes at two different academic institutions, University of the Pacific and Oregon Institute of Technology. We characterize students’ effort on doing homework in terms of consistencies of force diagrams with corresponding mathematical representations used in solving physics problems. We checked the connection between pictorial diagrams with equivalent mathematical equations and how these play a role in their knowledge retention. Preliminary findings indicated that students who were more consistent in doing homework problems could retain their knowledge and apply them better when solving similar problems.

  • • The Enactment of Content Knowledge for Teaching in Instructional Artifacts

    • PST1D33
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Robert Zisk, Eugenia Etkina

    • Type: Poster
    • Content Knowledge for Teaching (CKT; Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008) describes the knowledge that teachers have for teaching a particular subject. As such, there should be a relationship between teachers’ CKT and their classroom practice. In this poster, we describe two high school teachers’ content knowledge for teaching energy (CKT-E) and how that knowledge is reflected in the assignments and assessments they develop for energy instruction. Specifically, we focus on their knowledge for teaching the concepts of work and systems. Through this analysis, we provide a framework for measuring the enactment of knowledge for teaching through the analysis of classroom artifacts.

  • • Tracking Students' Learning Behavior Through an Online Learning Module Sequence

    • PST1D37
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Geoffrey Garrido, Zhongzhou Chen, Matt Guthrie

    • Type: Poster
    • This study investigates changes in students’ learning behavior as they proceed through a sequence of 10 mastery-based online learning modules in order. In an earlier study, we divided students’ interaction patterns into multiple categories via a clustering algorithm on the time-on-task information. In this study, we use the same categories to sort students’ interaction patterns into one of 28 states. Those states are arranged in an order that reflects the amount of learning effort for each module. Students’ interactions can be visualized in a sequence of parallel coordinate graphs, and the most common pathways can be identified through a hierarchical clustering algorithm. This poster showcases our findings: after dividing the student population into three cohorts based on total course credit, a challenge in module 7 caused most of the bottom cohort to significantly lower their learning effort, while the top cohort kept the same high level of learning effort.

  • • Using Peer Instruction To Elicit and Remediate Student Nonnormative Ideas of Induced Electromotive Force

    • PST1D39
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Ping Zhang, Lin Ding

    • Type: Poster
    • One important benefit of peer instruction lies in the opportunities that instructors create for students to articulate and evaluate their thoughts about learned physics concepts, thoughts that otherwise are likely to be hidden, nonnormative, and remain unremedied. In this study, we implemented peer instruction in a calculus-based introductory electricity and magnetism course taught at a large Chinese research university. We recorded students’ dialogues during peer instruction to explicate their ideas about induced electromotive force (EMF). Drawing on these ideas, we developed and administered a diagnostic concept test on EMF to a class of 130 students. Results reveal a number of interesting and prevalent naïve views about this topic. We also took advantage of peer instruction to help students engage in explanation and reasoning so as to rectify their nonnormative ideas.

  • • What Group Exam Performance Tells Us About Forming Effective Groups

    • PST1D41
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Joss Ives, Jared Stang, Analise Hofmann, Patrick Dubois

    • Type: Poster
    • Two-Phase (or two-Stage) Collaborative Group Exams are an easy to implement technique that leverages students’ desire to discuss challenging exam questions with each other immediately after an exam. This instructional technique adds an additional group phase immediately after a regular solo exam. Based on over 1200 student-groups, we have developed a model that predicts how a group will perform on the group phase, based on their individual scores from the solo exam. This model has allowed us to investigate factors (based on demographic and survey information) that may result in groups under- or over-performing relative to the model.

  • • Who Declares an Engineering Major – A Study of Engineering Pathways

    • PST1D43
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Seth DeVore, Cabot Zabriskie, John Stewart

    • Type: Poster
    • Engineering majors make up a large percentage of students moving through many introductory physics sequences. This being said, understanding the pathways that these students take to enter, exit, or maintain their path through engineering degree programs is an important step in increasing the number of STEM graduates generated. In this study, we examine 15 years worth of institutional data from one Eastern land-grant university to identify common pathways leading to successful degree completion, as well as departure from the engineering program. A better understanding of the commonalities of students on these pathways may lead to targeted interventions to prevent unnecessary departures from engineering programs.

  • • Student Network Positions in Active Learning Physics Classrooms

    • PST1D45
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Adrienne Traxler, Tyme Suda, Eric Brewe, Kelley Commeford

    • Type: Poster
    • This work analyzes social positions in student collaborative networks in physics. The Characterizing Active Learning Environments in Physics (CALEP) project combines classroom observations with network analysis to identify distinctive features of severalresearch-based physics curricula. Though all these curricula include student interactions as a key element, very different collaboration networks can emerge based on the classroom structure and practices. Position analysis is a technique from social network analysis that looks for common structural roles in a network. It groups people who occupy a similar social position, whether or not they know each other. One method for position analysis is CONCOR, which uses the convergence of correlations in the network adjacency matrix. We present preliminary results from a CONCOR role analysis on CALEP data, comparing roles between University of Washington tutorials and Peer Instruction.

  • • Students’ Perceptions of the Math-Physics Interactions Throughout Spins-first Quantum Mechanics

    • PST1D47
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Armando Villasenor, Darwin Del Agunos, Benjamin Schermerhorn, Homeyra Sadaghiani

    • Type: Poster
    • One of the purported benefits of teaching a spins-first approach to quantum mechanics is that it allows students to build up quantum mechanical ideas and learn postulates before moving to the more complicated mathematics used in the context of wave functions. In order to begin to explore this claim in a spins-first course, a survey was developed and administered as an extra credit activity at three different universities. All universities teach spins-first quantum mechanics but to different student populations. This work compares students’ responses to identical questions about the relationship between and difficulty of math and physics from two administrations of the survey given at the ends of the spins and wavefunctions portions of the course. Results offer insight into students’ perspectives about the nature and difficulty of mathematics in these two paradigms of quantum mechanics.

  • • Survey of Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry Faculty

    • PST1D49
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Melissa Dancy, Naneh Apkarian, Charles Henderson, Jeff Raker, Estrella Johnson

    • Type: Poster
    • We report initial findings from a survey of a representative sample of physics, mathematics, and chemistry instructors in the United States. Faculty who recently taught an introductory course were asked about their instructional practices, knowledge of research based instructional strategies, local context, beliefs about teaching and learning, and personal background. The survey design allows us to document the extent to which faculty know about and use research based pedagogies and to connect this use to correlating factors and to compare across disciplines.

• Physics Education Research II

  • • Assessing Multi-variable Reasoning*

    • PST2B01
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Anthony Crawford**, Kathleen Koenig, Lei Bao, Krista Wood

    • Type: Poster
    • Scientific reasoning abilities are a common learning outcome across physics courses. One critical dimension that is under studied is students’ ability to consider how multiple factors jointly impact an outcome. In a preliminary study, we sought to establish college student abilities in this area. This presentation will showcase the assessment task provided to students and the range of student thinking that resulted. These findings are important for developing and evaluating curriculum that addresses student shortcomings in this area of reasoning.

  • • Circular Motion Revisited – Static Solution to a Dynamic Problem?

    • PST2B05
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Moa Eriksson, Cedric Linder, Urban Eriksson, Ann-Marie Pendrill, Lassana Ouattara

    • Type: Poster
    • Circular motion is a part of introductory physics courses that often present difficulties for students. These difficulties are especially seen when students are asked to specify appropriate forces acting on the object in circular motion and we will present such difficulties using a case study looking at students’ problem solving in small, interactive groups. Students’ discussions were video recorded and analyzed through a social semiotics lens. From the data analysis we could identify certain disciplinary-specific challenges students encounter in this situation which may be linked to what aspects of the problem they are able to discern. The students’ strategies for specifying these forces was also compared to strategies used by teachers.

  • • Conversation Networking

    • PST2B07
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Marshall Adkins, Steven Wolf, Austin McCauley, Elenor Close

    • Type: Poster
    • In interactive learning environments, conversations are an important medium whereby ideas are shared and understanding is constructed. In this study, we describe the behaviors and conversation patterns of Learning Assistants (LAs) engaged in small-group discussions during weekly preparation sessions. LAs are undergraduate students who work with course faculty to support active learning pedagogies. We coded LA behavior according to the following categories: socializing, separate work, group discussion, group discussion with instructor, and socializing with instructor. We coded video in these categories for each 15 second increment. After this initial coding pass, we created conversation maps which identify the speaker and all listeners in each of those 15 second segments. All analyses have been carried out in the statistical programming language R, utilizing packages including ‘igraph’ and ‘sna’ to allow for characterization of the conversation maps.

  • • Developing and Validating a Closed Response Practice-Based Identity Survey

    • PST2B09
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Kelsey Funkhouser, Rachel Henderson, Marcos Caballero, Vashti Sawtelle

    • Type: Poster
    • This poster will describe the development of a survey to measure students’ physics identity. Using a Communities of Practice lens, we examine laboratory classes with a specific emphasis on students’ experiences with physics practices. From a robust understanding of students’ ideas about these practices, we can get information about how students situate themselves with respect to the practices as an indicator of their physics identity. We have combined qualitative and statistical analyses to reduce the items and overall dimensions of the survey. The poster will highlight the survey development process with specific focus on turning open-ended responses into closed-form survey questions that combine practices and identity.

  • • Effectiveness of Modified Fluid Flow Diagrams for Student with and without Prior Instruction

    • PST2B13
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Josh Love, Colton Brucks, Amber Sammons, Raymond Zich, Rebecca Rosenblatt

    • Type: Poster
    • Diagrams are ubiquitous in STEM. These diagrams serve a range of purposes, such as problem-solving tools, displaying data, and communicating a concept. This study investigated modifications to pressure and fluid speed gauges and their effects on students’ ability to rank fluid pressures or speeds. We presented students with fluid flow diagrams for incompressible fluid flowing through pipes with varying diameters and depths. These diagrams used pressure gauges and arrows to indicate fluid pressure and speed. We modified these gauges based on theories of visual attention and affordance and investigated the effects on student responses and student learning for students with and without prior instruction on fluid flow. Findings indicate that these visually modified images were more effective than standard images for teaching students about pressure and fluid speed independent of prior student instruction. Also, we observed interesting interactions between prior instruction and student learning with the different diagram types.

  • • Examine Physics Students Views on Ethics and the Atomic Bomb 

    • PST2B15
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Egla Ochoa-Madrid, Alice Olmstead

    • Type: Poster
    • The societal implications of technology developed through physics research are not always clear. Physicists need to use ethical reasoning skills to maneuver through morally ambiguous situations. For this reason, curricula for physics students should alsobe geared towards developing these skills. Research can be found on the effects of structured ethical discussions in similar fields like engineering education, however, little research can be found on their effects in physics education. Our research listens in on student conversations in a Modern Physics class at Texas State University as they are asked to discuss the ethics of the atomic bomb development over several weeks. We present themes found in students’ reasoning during this unit. Our preliminary analysis shows how students both learn to better support their already established opinions and struggle to see different points of view.

  • • Exploring Thinking Patterns in Electromagnetism*

    • PST2B19
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Orlando Patricio
    • Type: Poster
    • Educational researchers in STEM fields strive to explore ways to improve the students’ understanding of electromagnetic concepts and principles. Most physics concepts in electromagnetism are difficult for many students to grasp. They are not visual and often not easy to visualize. Hence, this study employed Sense-making Activities to map out the students’ thinking patterns and understanding of electromagnetic concepts and principles. The students were provided sense-making tasks and required to write explanations as they answer thought-provoking questions and problems about electromagnetism. Their responses were analyzed using a thematic approach to provide meaningful interpretation of the students’ thinking patterns. The students were also interviewed by the researcher to validate the results of their responses in the activities and probe deeper description of their answers. The best thinking patterns and practices will be useful in developing lessons and in teaching electromagnetic courses to improve students’ understanding.

  • • Helping Students Learn the Math They Need to Succeed in Physics

    • PST2B21
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Jeff Saul, Marila Mancha-Garcia, Krystal Irby

    • Type: Poster
    • This year, looking to reduce our students’ failure rate in the 11th grade physics course, Irby (Physics) and Mancha-Garcia (Algebra) developed the STEM Bootcamp for our Algebra II and Precalculus courses and all physics students (and some non-physics students) were required to take it. The five online modules help students master mathematical order-of-operations (MDAS, fractions, parentheses, exponents, and mixed). Students were introduced to STEM Bootcamp in their math course and given one class period to work on it. Then students worked on it when they finished their class activity early or at home. The program succeeded. The failure rate for first semester physics was significantly reduced from previous years.) Nex+Gen Academy is a small community school with a capacity of 400 students in grades 9–12 with an emphasis on project-based learning. We formally teach, assess, and grade students on content knowledge, agency, collaboration, communication, and inquiry & analysis.

  • • Highlighting Earlier Time-to-Degree from Preparation through Transfer Courses

    • PST2B23
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Alyssa Waterson, John Aiken, Rachel Henderson, Marcos Caballero

    • Type: Poster
    • 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 other degree-granting institutions. However, the effect of those transfer courses on the time it takes students to graduate (time-to-degree) is currently not well understood. In this work, we will investigate how incoming transfer courses impact students’ time-to-degree. In addition, we will explore how demographic features (e.g., students’ majors, gender, ethnicity, average grade) may impact the effect of transfer courses on time-to-degree. We have identified three subsets of degree earning students: those entering with college level transfer courses, those entering with only AP level transfer courses, and those entering without any transfer credit. Results suggest that earlier graduation is a direct result from having transfer courses in one’s repertoire. Students who enter with college level transfer courses graduate the earliest, though not at the traditional four-year expectation (eight semesters).

  • • How Can We Develop Assessment Tasks for “Planning Investigations”?

    • PST2B25
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Hien Khong, James Laverty

    • Type: Poster
    • The Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol (3D-LAP) was introduced to transform assessments so that we can see students using their knowledge to do physics and NGSS has called them as scientific practices. This research focuses on developing assessment tasks for introductory courses where we can assess student abilities to plan investigations in physics. In order to figure out how to assess this practice, we first identified steps that go into the process of planning investigations. Then we collected data using a think-aloud protocol to identify observable in students’ written work, which may provide evidences of the students engaging in the scientific practice. This will help us to design the assessments which both assess students conceptual understanding and their ability to do physics.

  • • How Faculty Perceptions of Three-Dimensional Learning Change Over Time

    • PST2B27
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Lydia Bender, James Laverty

    • Type: Poster
    • The Next Generation Science Standards aim to improve K-12 science learning through the implementation of Three-Dimensional Learning (3DL). 3DL was designed to increase student understanding of science by combining core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific practices into science curricula, instruction, and assessment. In response to calls to bring 3DL to college courses, the 3DL for Undergraduate Science (3DL4US) collaboration created a fellowship to support faculty adoption of 3DL. During the fellowship, faculty members participate in discussions and activities during monthly meetings and in an online forum. The conversations between the fellows provide insight into how faculty think about and view 3DL, and how these views change over time. We analyzed these conversations to identify changes and the factors that led to those changes in order to improve future faculty development.

  • • Implications for Graduate Student Advising Based on Faculty Hiring Data

    • PST2B29
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Lindsay Owens, Jacob Mekker, Benjamin Zwickl, Scott Franklin, Casey Miller

    • Type: Poster
    • According to the APS, approximately 50% of physics graduate students envision themselves as future faculty, however, only ~11% of PhDs in physics find a permanent faculty position in a research university. We collected data on over 6,500 current faculty and found that the top 25% of physics and astronomy programs (ranked by NRC score) produce 58% of all faculty in PhD granting programs and comprise ~74% of faculty positions at these top institutions. The lower ranked (26-100%) programs accounted for 18% of overall faculty. While obtaining a faculty position is always possible, it is important that graduate students have a realistic picture of faculty employment data and the diverse range of employment options for PhDs. Career advising from the earliest stages of graduate education is critical so that students can build their networks, professional skills, and technical skills to be equipped for a successful career. (Supported by NSF-1633275)

  • • Increasing Active Learning Effectiveness Using Deliberate Practice: A Homework Transformation

    • PST2B31
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Kristina Callaghan, Kelly Miller, Logan McCarty, Louis Deslauriers

    • Type: Poster
    • We show how learning can be improved in actively taught classrooms by transforming homework using the principles of deliberate practice. We measure the impact of transforming the homework on student learning in a course in which an active learning approach had already been implemented. We compare performance on the same final exam in equivalent cohorts of students over three semesters of an introductory physics course; the first taught with traditional lectures and traditional homework, the second taught with active instruction coupled with traditional homework, and the last taught with both active instruction and transformed homework. We find students in the semester where both active teaching and transformed homework are used score 20% better on the final exam than the students taught actively but with traditional homework. This learning gain achieved by transforming the homework is comparable to that achieved by replacing traditional lectures with active teaching strategies in-class.

  • • Introductory Physics Students’ Insights for Improving Physics Culture

    • PST2B33
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Acacia Arielle, Kai Bretl, Amad Ross, Abigail Daane

    • Type: Poster
    • Women and people of color are underrepresented in classrooms and the field of physics. We can work to address this disparity by empowering students to change the physics culture within their own spheres of influence. Students in introductory, calculus-based physics classes from both two and four year institutions participated in lessons from the Underrepresentation Curriculum, a freely available curriculum designed to bring social justice conversations to the classroom. Post unit, students brainstormed ideas about how to raise awareness of, and ultimately remove, this inequity. We coded students’ responses grouping analogous key words and phrases. Our analysis showed that students from both institutions generated similar sets of propositions. Their responses included having intentional conversations about equity issues and actively learning about their own biases. By following students’ suggestions, we can create a more inclusive and diverse physics community.

  • • Investigating the Effectiveness of Two Different Instructional Interventions

    • PST2B35
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Rebecca Rosenblatt, Colton Brucks, Josh Love, Amber Sammons, Raymond Zich

    • Type: Poster
    • In this study, we compare the effectiveness of a 20-minute guided inquiry session that uses the PhET simulation “Fluid Pressure and Flow” to a twice-watched 10-minute video that integrates voice-over explanations and real life examples with recorded demonstrations using the same simulation. Students were assessed pre and post activity on a variety of questions regarding fluid speed and pressure in pipes. An additional posttest was given five weeks after the activity to assess the long term effects of this intervention. To better control this study, students were recruited from a general education physics course that does not cover fluid dynamics in the curriculum. While data collection is still ongoing, we predict -- based on past studies of self-explanation and discovery learning -- that the video curriculum will show larger gains pre to post but the simulation will show improved retention.

  • • iSTAR: An Assessment Instrument on Scientific Thinking and Reasoning

    • PST2B37
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Lei Bao, Kathleen Koenig, Yang Xiao, Shaona Zhou, Jing Han

    • Type: Poster
    • Scientific reasoning has been emphasized as a core ability of 21st century education. To understand how scientific reasoning can be developed among students, researchers and teachers need effective assessment tools on scientific reasoning. For decades, the Lawson’s classroom test of scientific reasoning has been the only instrument available for large implementation, but with known validity weaknesses. It is imperative for the STEM education community to be equipped with a valid and updated assessment instrument on scientific reasoning suitable for the 21st century learners. Through a decade of research, a new instrument on scientific thinking and reasoning (iSTAR) has now been developed to its first release version. This presentation will provide the basic designs, assessment features, and application results of the iSTAR instrument. Future work and collaborations on applying iSTAR in research and teaching will also be discussed.

  • • Natural Science Transfer Scholars: Building Self-Efficacy, Identity, and Mindset

    • PST2B41
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Vashti Sawtelle, Rachel Henderson, Angela Little, Laura Wood

    • Type: Poster
    • Michigan State University recently received a National Science Foundation S-STEM Grant in partnership with two area two-year colleges (NSF#1742381). The grant provides scholarships and summer research stipends for students alongside programming during their time at the two-year college and when students transfer to Michigan State. The research component of the grant focuses on understanding how two-year college students develop a sense of self-efficacy to complete STEM degrees, a science identity, and a growth mindset. Our team has been interviewing current two-year college transfer students about their experience with the transition, collecting fieldnotes and journal entries from students currently enrolled in the two-year college, and collecting survey data from students at both the two-year and four-year colleges. In this poster, we give an overview of our study as well as preliminary findings from these different data streams.

  • • Physics is Objective - or is it?

    • PST2B43
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Abigail Daane, Chris Gosling, Moses Rifkin, Johan Tabora, Danny Doucette

    • Type: Poster
    • Physics is widely perceived as an objective field. Students often echo that perception of physics as bias-free and not subject to human influence. In reality, a host of humans determine the focus of research, the projects that receive funding, and what is published. Using the Underrepresentation Curriculum, a freely available resource designed to bring conversations about equity to the classroom, students explore the question “is physics subjective or objective?” In this presentation, we share students’ ideas about the nature of physics and how those ideas may influence their orientation to the scientific community. We posit that the illumination of subjectivity in hard sciences can be a powerful tool for motivating classroom conversations of social justice.

  • • Psychometric Analysis of Instrument Measuring Student Reasoning Skills*

    • PST2B45
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Brianna Santangelo, Mila Kryjevskaia, Alexey Leontyev

    • Type: Poster
    • We have been developing and refining a two-tiered instrument aimed at measuring student reasoning in physics. Tier I focuses on assessing student conceptual understanding of physics, while Tier II requires students to apply that conceptual understanding in situations that elicit intuitive rather than formal reasoning approaches. The instrument was developed and administered in algebra-based and calculus-based physics courses. Psychometric evidence was collected to establish reliability and item functioning. This instrument is intended to be used to assess instruction aimed at developing students’ reasoning skills in the context of physics.

  • • Scientific Practices in Minimally Completed Programs

    • PST2B49
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Daniel Oleynik, Paul Irving

    • Type: Poster
    • Computational problem solving practices are beginning to be the center of many introductory physics courses. Specifically, within P-cubed, students regularly work on computational problems situated in physics that involve minimally working programs. Currently, very little research has been done on minimally working programs in relation to curriculum design, especially with how frequently they facilitate students in engaging with computational practices. After an initial coding of student work in class, we have identified extended periods of time where students were working on aspects of the problem that were not intended by instructors, which we coded as “distractors.” Throughout the course of this presentation, we examine these distractors for computational practices and pedagogical benefits.

  • • Can Tutorial Writers Help Foster Equitable Team Dynamics?*

    • PST2B51
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Hannah Sabo, Andrew Elby

    • Type: Poster
    • This poster argues for a rethinking of one aspect of the instructional division of labor between curriculum developers and classroom instructors. Tools from sociolinguistics helped us investigate how students working through a tutorial position one another—create roles and expectations for each other—which filters their interactions with each other and the tutorial. An illustrative example comes from a tutorial we designed to be used with the My Solar System PhET simulation. When a planet unexpectedly crashes into its star, a problematic dynamic arises between the students. The tutorial could have prevented this dynamic. We advocate for curriculum developers to attend to the kinds of conversations their activity sheets afford—not just at the coarse grain size of encouraging group discussion, but also at the finer grain size of affording equitable team dynamics.

  • • Developing an Interactive Tutorial on a Quantum Eraser*

    • PST2B53
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Chandralekha Singh, Emily Marshman

    • Type: Poster
    • We developed a quantum interactive learning tutorial (QuILT) on a quantum eraser for students in upper-level quantum mechanics. The QuILT exposes students to contemporary topics in quantum mechanics and uses a guided approach to learning. It adapts existing visualization tools to help students build physical intuition about quantum phenomena and strives to help them develop the ability to apply quantum principles in physical situations. The quantum eraser apparatus in the gedanken (thought) experiments and simulations that students learn from in the QuILT uses a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer with single photons. We also discuss findings from a preliminary in-class evaluation.

  • • Student Difficulties with the Probability Distribution for Measuring Different Observables in Quantum Mechanics*

    • PST2B55
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Chandralekha Singh, Emily Marshman

    • Type: Poster
    • Quantum mechanics is challenging, even for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. We have been investigating the difficulties that students have in determining the probability distribution for measuring different observables as a function of time when the initial wavefunction for a given system is explicitly given. We find that many advanced students struggle with these challenging concepts. We discuss some common difficulties found.

  • • Classifying Learning Opportunities in Faculty Online Learning Community Meetings

    • PST2B06
    • Wed 07/24, 10:00AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Alexandra Lau, Adriana Corrales, Fred Goldberg, Chandra Turpen

    • Type: Poster
    • Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are a unique professional development environment for physics and astronomy instructors where they engage in sustained pedagogical reflection and growth. FOLC participants meet via a videoconferencing platform to discuss their teaching. In order to capture the breadth and depth of learning that can occur by participating in a FOLC, we have developed a taxonomy to characterize the opportunities to learn (OTLs) in a FOLC meeting. In this poster we will present our taxonomy and discuss its development based on meetings from a FOLC centered around the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking curriculum. In order to accurately characterize the OTLs in our FOLCs, we needed to consider both the content of the conversations as well as how participants engaged in the conversations. We will present how our taxonomy captures both of these dimensions. We will also discuss the broader utility of this framework.

  • • Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving: Applicable to Pre-Post Measurement?

    • PST2B02
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Andrew Mason
    • Type: Poster
    • The Attitudes and Approaches towards Physics Problem Solving (AAPS) Survey has been designed, validated, and administered as a post-test evaluation of students’ attitudes towards problem solving for student populations in multiple studies. However, thereis also potential for examining the AAPS’ applicability towards pre-post measurements, as has been established with other attitudinal surveys. As a preliminary exploration of this idea, pre-post data is examined from a single section of first-semester introductory algebra-based physics students (~50-70 students). Items for discussion include whether or not a pre-post shift is detectable for this population, as well as considerations for establishing validity of the AAPS as a pre-test for this population.

  • • Bringing Physics into the Art Venue: Connecting Physicists and Artists

    • PST2B04
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Dena Izadi, Mohammad Maghrebi, Kathleen Hinko

    • Type: Poster
    • Physics can often be intimidating for the general public, which is rather unfortunate. Our goal is to break this barrier and create a medium that public can understand and even communicate the language of physics. We seek to achieve this through a rich, familiar medium such as art. We organize a series of workshops that brings together physicists, artists and the public in the Art Lab venue (Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum - Michigan State University). The goal is for the audience to be able to visualize complicated concepts through creating art work. At the end of the session, participants engage in an open discussion of how art can act as a powerful medium to visualize science. In this poster, we describe the design of the activities, how the event went, and challenges of attempting to bridge art and physics.

  • • Describing Collaborative Exams Using Random Graphs

    • PST2B08
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Aaron Bain, Timothy Sault, Steven Wolf

    • Type: Poster
    • Humans are social creatures who learn as a unit in their communities. The goal of this research is to model these interactions and better describe and understand the individual interactions within the community. Through a better understanding of how these interactions take place we can better understand the connection between the cognitive and social domains of learning. Interactions between students taking collaborative exams are quantified using the framework of Network Analysis. Network Analysis has many models that can be used to describe different types of networks. We compare student collaboration networks to these different random Network Analysis models.

  • • Developing Reflective Practitioners: A Case from Faculty Online Learning Communities

    • PST2B10
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Alexandra Lau, Melissa Dancy, Charles Henderson, Andy Rundquist

    • Type: Poster
    • One of the main goals of the New Faculty Workshop Faculty Online Learning Community (NFW-FOLC) program is to develop the reflective practices of our participants. By increasing the reflective teaching practices of our new physics and astronomy faculty, we hope to promote the sustained adoption of research-based instructional strategies and a dedication to continuous teaching improvement. One of the ways we try to achieve these goals is by guiding our FOLC participants through the completion of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects. In this poster we report on our analysis of participants’ conversations about their SoTL projects, from the beginning stages through final presentations, documenting their trajectories through different levels of reflectiveness. Additionally, we identify mechanisms in the FOLC that seem to support participants through the stages of reflection. This work illustrates in detail one impact of FOLC participation and it offers implications for similar professional development efforts.

  • • Do I Belong Here?: Understanding Participation and Non-participation in Whole-Class “Board” Meetings

    • PST2B12
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Brant Hinrichs, Jared Durden

    • Type: Poster
    • In University Modeling Instruction, students work in small groups on a problem and then hold a student-led whole-class discussion to develop consensus. While this kind of interactive-engagement has been shown to help students learn, evidence suggests notall students have the same experience or feel equally included. We have developed a preliminary coding scheme based on Wegner’s framework from “Communities of Practice”, which identifies student modes of belonging through participation and non-participation. In this talk, we present initial results from coding and analyzing reflective student writing assignments on a particularly contentious mid-semester whole-class discussion. Using this lens, we identify students’ varying perceptions of the whole-class discussion and how it influenced their participation. By developing a descriptive model of student engagement, we seek to create a predictive model to inform professional development for instructors who teach in student centered classrooms.

  • • Engage Students’ Attention with Clickers in Active Learning Lectures

    • PST2B14
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Jacqueline Bao, Shaona Zhou, Joseph Fritchman

    • Type: Poster
    • In large lectures, clickers have been popularly used as a method to deliver active engagement instruction with proven effectiveness on improving student learning. One possible factor contributing to the success of the active learning approach is the engagement of students’ attention during teaching and learning. Using video based face tracking, this research investigates how the use of clickers in lectures engages students’ attention to the learning materials and activities, and how variation in the attention impacts learning outcomes. The results of a controlled study demonstrate that the use of clickers engages students with longer period of attention to teaching and learning compared to the control. The results also show a positive correlation between students’ attention and their learning performances. The outcomes of this study can help to gain a deeper insight into the cognitive mechanisms underlying the active learning approach.

  • • Examining the Effects of Testwiseness Using the FCI and CSEM

    • PST2B16
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Seth DeVore, John Stewart

    • Type: Poster
    • Testwiseness is generally defined as the set of cognitive strategies used by a student and intended to improve their score on a test regardless of the test’s subject matter. To improve our understanding of the potential effect size of several well-documented elements of testwiseness we analyze student performance on questions present in the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and Conceptual Survey on Electricity and Magnetism that contain distractors, the selection of which can be related to the use of testwiseness strategies. Additionally, we examine the effects of the position of a distractor on its likelihood to be selected in five-option multiple choice questions. We further examine the potential effects of several elements of testwiseness on student scores by developing two modified versions of the FCI designed to include additional elements related to testwiseness. Details of the effect sizes of these various aspects of testwiseness will be discussed.

  • • Exploring Students’ Understanding of the Conceptual Knowledge Behind Problem Solving

    • PST2B18
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Shih-Yin Lin, Ting-Chi Yang

    • Type: Poster
    • Understanding the conditions under which a physics principle is applicable is essential in problem solving. However, our experience suggests that students may not necessarily understand the conceptual underpinnings behind the equations they use in their solutions. Even for students who are competent in recognizing which principle(s) or concept(s) should be used to solve a given problem, they may have difficulty providing a good justification for why the particular physics principle(s) or concept(s) can be applicable based on the underlying physics involved. We conducted a study to explore students’ understanding of the conditions of applicability required for five basic concepts in introductory mechanics, including the kinematics equations, Newton’s second law, conservation of momentum, conservation of mechanical energy, and conservation of angular momentum. Findings will be reported.

  • • Extending the Usability of the C3PO Problem-solving Coaching System

    • PST2B20
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Evan Frodermann, Hayden Stricklin

    • Type: Poster
    • Starting in 2010, the physics education research group at the University of Minnesota has been developing online computer coaches intended to aid students in developing problem-solving skills in physics. The original pre-prototype coaches were given at the University of Minnesota in calculus-based introductory physics courses and were found to usable by the students and contributed to improving problem-solving. These coach studies were in courses led by PER faculty at a large-scale research institution. The research presented here examines the student usability of the coaches at Missouri State University (MSU), a primarily undergraduate granting public institution. These studies explore usability of the coaches with a different student population demographic. Both PER and non-PER faculty at MSU utilized the coaches in their courses to explore possibility of instructor bias. There is a difference in coach usability for the students, specifically in expectation for the coaches and the applicability to their course work.

  • • High School Student Perspectives on Computation in Different Classroom Contexts

    • PST2B22
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Paul Hamerski, Daryl McPadden, Marcos Caballero, Paul Irving

    • Type: Poster
    • For many of today’s educators and researchers, computation goes hand-in-hand with science education. Integrating computational practices with STEM classrooms gives learners a more realistic view of what science is, and better prepares students for pursuing careers in a world where computation is ubiquitous. This study examines one instance of such integration in the physics classroom of a suburban, racially diverse high school. The students whose perspectives we investigate have multiple formal computation experiences – both in their physics class and their computer science class. Using interviews, in-class recordings, and field notes, we produce a case study on the dual experience that some high school students have with computation, and from this case study we provide an in-depth, organic perspective on the difference between learning computation inside and outside of the physics classroom.

  • • How Can We Assess Scientific Practices? The Case of “Using-Mathematics”

    • PST2B24
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Amali Priyanka Jambuge, James Laverty

    • Type: Poster
    • Recently, there is an emphasis on including scientific practices into introductory-level college physics curricula, instruction, and assessments. We conducted a study to develop assessment tasks to elicit evidence of students’ abilities to engage in the scientific practice, Using Mathematics. We used Evidence-Centered Design to develop these tasks and these tasks were given to students along with one on one think-aloud interviews. The students’ written work was compared to the video of them solving the problem aloud to determine if what they wrote down can reliably predict whether or not they engaged in the scientific practice. In this poster, I focus on interesting aspects of the students’ work that gives us evidence about how reliably we can assess students’ use of mathematics. This work informs developing future classroom and standardized assessments that can assess scientific practices.

  • • How do Previous Coding Experiences Influence Undergraduate Physics Students?

    • PST2B26
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Jacqueline Bumler, Paul Hamerski, Marcos Caballero, Paul Irving

    • Type: Poster
    • Project and Practices in Physics (P-Cubed), a section of introductory, calculus-based physics, is designed around problem-based learning. Students spend each class working in groups on a single complex physics problem. Some of these problems are computational in nature – students start with code from a visual computer program that runs without accurately accounting for the physics, and they spend the class period applying the physics concepts correctly in the program. Here we present an interview study that investigates the relationship between students’ prior computational experiences and their experience with computational activities in P-Cubed. This investigation demonstrates the ways by which prior coding experience can impact how students make sense of computation within physics.

  • • Improving Physics Students' Self-Efficacy with a Brief Mindset Intervention

    • PST2B30
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Ian Beatty, Sedberry-Carrino Stephanie, William Gerace, Michael Kane, Jason Strickhouser

    • Type: Poster
    • Helping more university students, especially under-represented minorities, complete STEM degrees and enter the STEM workforce has proven to be surprisingly difficult. Those most at risk benefit least from innovations addressing only pedagogy or curriculum. Research shows that we must influence students' self-efficacy: their belief that they can overcome setbacks and ultimately succeed. Our NSF-funded project is developing and validating a short, inexpensive, easily used intervention to improve students' self-efficacy, suitable for any university STEM course. It builds on two different kinds of research-based intervention: "attributional retraining," about ascribing successes and failures to internal rather than external factors; and "growth mindset," about becoming smarter and more successful through perseverance and conscious attention to thinking and learning strategies. While interventions of demonstrated efficacy exist for each, none address both attribution and mindset, and none are suitable for widespread use in university-level STEM instruction.

  • • Introductory Physics II Lab Practical Exam Development: Investigation Design*

    • PST2B32
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Annalisa Smith-Joyner, Feng Li, Dr. Mark Sprague, Dr. Joi Walker, Dr. Steven Wolf

    • Type: Poster
    • This study reports the development and validation of an instrument used to assess science practices in the second semester of an introductory physics laboratory. The Investigation Design, Explanation, and Argument about Core Ideas Assessment (IDEA) instrument asks students to demonstrate science practices by having them design and conduct an investigation, analyze the collected data, and write an argument. The physics IDEA instrument was validated with (1) upper-division physics undergraduate students, (2) physics graduate students, and (3) physics faculty. By the instrument measuring targeted science practices, this study establishes construct validity. The practical was administered in 12 laboratory sections in the course of one week in order to establish face validity. The results from implementation over a 1 year period will be discussed as well as the implications for our lab curricula.

  • • Investigating How Middle School Students View Different Science Disciplines

    • PST2B34
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Cynthia Reynolds, Giovanna Masia, Elizabeth Parisi, AJ Richards

    • Type: Poster
    • In previous research we found that a large fraction of secondary level students expressed that they disliked physics while also saying they had never been taught about the subject. We also found that students struggled to correctly identify what physics IS, and frequently conflated physics with chemistry or other branches of science. To understand this phenomenon, we have chosen to investigate how students develop their attitudes and beliefs about physics and other sciences. We administered a survey to 5th-8th grade students that revealed how they conceptualize different branches of science. In this presentation we will detail our findings and discuss whether or not students have an accurate understanding of the content encompassed by the different branches of science. We will also discuss how that understanding impacts a student’s perception of working in that field.

  • • Is it Teaching or is it Physics?*

    • PST2B36
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Austin McCauley, Marshall Adkins, Steven Wolf, Eleanor Close

    • Type: Poster
    • The physics department at Texas State University has implemented a Learning Assistant (LA) program with research-based curricula (Tutorials in Introductory Physics) in introductory course sequences. The LA program structure at TXST is informed by the theory of Communities of Practice and the Physics Identity construct (Hazari et al.). We have been reviewing video data of LA prep sessions taken over the past three years in order to characterize LA discussions. In these prep sessions, LAs work through the tutorials together in small groups. As emerging physicists and physics teachers, LAs naturally engage in discussion in these groups that spans many topics directly relevant to the activity being prepared. Initially we attempted to code separately for discussions of physics content (“physics discussion”) and discussions of student struggles relevant to teaching the physics content (“teaching discussion”). However, we have concluded that these categories are not meaningfully distinct.

  • • Learning to Learn by Inquiry: Are Simulations too Challenging for Novices?

    • PST2B38
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Jonathan Massey-Allard, Ido Roll, Joss Ives

    • Type: Poster
    • Inductive inquiry learning activities, where students are tasked with quantitatively modelling physics phenomena with little guidance from an instructor, have been shown to have substantial conceptual learning benefits. A common implementation is an “invention activity” where students invent a general rule from patterns in instructor-provided data before receiving direct instruction on the target topic. Alternatively, students could be provided with an interactive simulation where students then have the agency to explore and collect data on their own. While this provides a promising opportunity for developing more robust inquiry process skills, it also introduces substantial challenges for novices that may, for instance, only do a shallow exploration and miss crucial features of the domain. We discuss the impact on conceptual learning outcomes and process skill development from a study that tested the impact of these different affordances in a sequence of inductive inquiry activities implemented throughout an introductory E/M course.

  • • Methodological Development of a New Coding Scheme for an Established Assessment on Measurement Uncertainty in Laboratory Courses

    • PST2B40
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Benjamin Pollard, Robert Hobbs, Dimitri Dounas-Frazer, H Lewandowski

    • Type: Poster
    • There is a need for research-based assessments in laboratory courses, both to improve such courses and to understand the unique learning that occurs in laboratory settings. In particular, a conceptual understanding of measurement uncertainty is a common learning goal in introductory laboratory courses. The Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ) is an open-response assessment for measuring student understanding of measurement uncertainty. The PMQ was developed for use at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and includes a coding scheme for analyzing responses from that institution. This original coding scheme needed to be modified for our different national and institutional context: the large introductory laboratory course at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. Here, we document our process to develop a new coding scheme for the PMQ, and describe the resulting codebook. We also present preliminary results using the new scheme, from both before and after the course was transformed.

  • • Online Learning Communities: How Do they Support Instructors Through Challenges?

    • PST2B42
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Chandra Turpen, Stephanie Williams, Adriana Corrales, Melissa Dancy, Edward Price*

    • Type: Poster
    • Research has shown that physics instructors encounter challenges in adapting research-based curricula and instructional strategies to their own contexts. Change scholars have called for curriculum developers to move from dissemination approaches toward propagation models that more deliberately and explicitly build supportive activities relevant to the uptake of their specific innovations. We investigate faculty online learning communities (FOLCs) as a potential mechanism for supporting faculty through the challenges they face in adapting the Next Generation Physical Sciences and Everyday Thinking curriculum [1]. Based on recordings of online discussions between faculty using this curricula, we document the challenges that instructors share and the ways in which community members react or respond to those challenges in conversations. We find that our FOLCs discussions often normalize challenges and generate possible solutions, and more rarely invite joint problem-solving. We model how variations in these reactions or responses create different outcomes for faculty participants.

  • • Physics Self Belief Among Secondary School Students

    • PST2B44
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Giovanna Masia, Elizabeth Parisi, Cynthia Reynolds, AJ Richards

    • Type: Poster
    • There is a dramatic underrepresentation of ethnic minorities and women within physics. The reasons for this underrepresentation are not fully understood. To explore this, we have surveyed high school physics students in order to investigate the relationship between a student’s physics self-belief, their likeliness to pursue a career in physics, and their sense of belonging within physics. In our analysis we paid special attention to how a student’s demographic data affected these variables. In this presentation, we will detail the trends we found between the students’ self-belief, their sense of belonging, their likelihood to pursue a career in physics, and their demographics.

  • • Renewed Attention for Interactive Lecture Demonstrations: Scripts and Orchestration Graphs

    • PST2B46
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Shiladitya Chaudhury
    • Type: Poster
    • This poster takes a fresh look at Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs) through a framework adopted from the field of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). ILDs are well known in the PER literature for their impact on improving student conceptual understanding through instructor-led activities using data from a demonstration (Thornton and Sokoloff, 1997). In other words, the technique is a time-honored whole-class method of student engagement through active learning. From research in the CSCL field we adapt the idea that all active learning designs incorporate two concepts - - enactment scripts and orchestration. The script for doing ILDs is well known, but expert orchestration only comes about with practice. In this poster we present the script and orchestration considerations for a typical kinematics ILD using the PhET Moving Man simulation. We also present visualizations of both Peer Instruction and ILD through creation of 'orchestration graphs' following the model of Pierre Dillenbourg.

  • • Revisiting an Identity Framework Through Coding Practice-based Identity Statements

    • PST2B48
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Kelsey Funkhouser, Marcos Caballero, Vashti Sawtelle

    • Type: Poster
    • We will present on progress of producing a survey to measure physics identity in laboratory settings. We started with a framework from Close et al., that combined two perspectives on measuring and developing identity -- communities of practice (COP) and Hazari et al.’s physics identity. Through analysis of open-ended student responses to a pilot of the practice-based identity survey, we have not found evidence to support the combination of these two perspectives in our context. Our results suggest better alignment with COP on its own within our physics lab classes. In this poster we will outline the process that lead to the distinction in our theoretical framework and our focus on two specific COP dimensions of identity.

  • • Standards for Web Accessibility and Tips to Make Your Website More Accessible

    • PST2B50
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Erin Scanlon, Zachary Taylor, Jacquelyn Chini

    • Type: Poster
    • There have been numerous recent calls to increase the representation of people with disabilities in STEM. One common entry point to physics programs is through departmental web pages where prospective students can find information about the program, including the undergraduate curriculum requirements and graduate research opportunities. If these web pages are inaccessible, they create a barrier to participation for people with disabilities. In order to assess the digital accessibility of undergraduate physics curriculum and graduate physics research web pages, we analyzed a representative sample of 74 institutions using Tenon (web accessibility audit software) and Voiceover (screen reading assistive technology). Overall, we found that all but one institution’s web pages were inaccessible. In this poster we will describe the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 standards for digital accessibility (which emphasize creating perceivable, operable, understandable and robust web content), common accessibility errors, and possible solutions to these errors.

  • • The Need for Guidelines/Standards for Research-based Conceptual Learning Assessment Instruments

    • PST2B52
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Rebecca Lindell
    • Type: Poster
    • In 2014, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) released an updated version of their book Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (SEPT). These standards provide guidance for both test developers and users based on the latest advances in psychometrics. While many of the standards proposed in SEPT are applicable to the development and use of Research-based Conceptual Learning Assessment Instruments (RbCLAIs), they do not go far enough to cover the unique issues related to the distractor-driven nature of RbCLAIs. In this poster, I will discuss the SEPT standards for RbCLAI development and use, as well as how the SEPT needs to evolve to cover the distractor-driven nature of R-bCLAIs.

  • • Developing and Evaluating a Quantum Mechanics Formalism and Postulates Survey*

    • PST2B54
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Chandralekha Singh, Emily Marshman

    • Type: Poster
    • Development of multiple-choice tests related to a particular physics topic is important for designing research-based learning tools to reduce the difficulties related to the topic. We explore the difficulties that the advanced undergraduate and graduate students have with quantum mechanics formalism and postulates. We developed a research-based multiple-choice survey that targets these issues to obtain information about the common difficulties and administered it to undergraduate and graduate students. We find that the advanced undergraduate and graduate students have many common difficulties with these topics. The survey can be administered to assess the effectiveness of various instructional strategies.

  • • Student Difficulties with Operators Corresponding to Observables in Dirac Notation*

    • PST2B56
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Chandralekha Singh, Emily Marshman

    • Type: Poster
    • Even though Dirac notation is used extensively in upper-level quantum mechanics, many advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics have difficulty in expressing the identity operator and other Hermitian operators corresponding to physical observables in quantum mechanics using the Dirac notation in terms of the outer product of a complete set of orthonormal eigenstates of an operator. To investigate these difficulties, we administered free-response and multiple-choice questions and conducted individual interviews with students after traditional instruction in relevant concepts in advanced quantum mechanics courses. We discuss the common difficulties found.

• Post-deadline Posters

  • • Physics Teaching Habits: How Can We Study them Using Student Reflections?

    • PST3A01
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    

    • by Marianne Vanier, Eugenia Etkina

    • Type: Poster
    • The poster will show the patterns that emerged from our analysis of nearly 300 preservice physics teachers’ reflections while they develop teaching habits* and skills in agreement with the NGSS teaching requirements. At Rutgers University, the teaching experiences in an ISLE-reformed introductory physics course are added to the usual mandatory student teaching in schools and the specific coursework in physics education. We were interested in the changes in the preservice physics teachers’ reflections (content, emergent themes, theme evolution etc.) over two years in the program as the indicators of professional growth. * Etkina, E., Gregorcic, B., and Vokos, S. (2017). Physical Review, Physics Education Research, 13, 010107

  • • Students’ Strategies to Solve Conceptual Physics Problem

    • PST3A03
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    
    • by Mihwa Park
    • Type: Poster
    • Since the new science standards in the U.S., NGSS (Lead States, 2013), was released, the direction of developing science assessments has been toward revealing students’ reasoning even in college level science courses. This stresses to give students opportunities to reason qualitatively about problems, which, in turn, forces to develop open-ended questions that students can write their answer to reveal their reasoning. The underlying assumption of open-ended questions could be that qualitative explanation questions will elicit students’ reasoning and assess their understanding of core scientific concepts and scientific practice better than multiple-choice or simple calculation questions. Previous studies found that experts tend to start with the application of general principles of science that results in a conceptual analysis of problems while novices tend to start by selecting equations for an algebraic problem solution. Thus, giving students opportunities to reason qualitatively about problems would help them think like experts. The current study investigated students’ strategies to answer qualitative physics questions. Participant students were first- year college students who were taking an introductory level physics course. The results indicated although conceptual qualitative questions were given, students still used equations to explain scientific process. The study also revealed that their utilities of equations could be in play as a conceptual analysis tool for a physical situation. In the presentation, its implications to physics lessons will be discussed.

  • • Dynamics of a Looping Pendulum

    • PST3A05
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    
    • by Ding Zimin
    • Type: Poster
    • A looping pendulum consists of a horizontal rod and a string connected to a heavy load and a light load. The string is put over the horizontal rod and the light load is pulled down so that the heavy load is lift up. After the light load is released, it will sweep around the rod, keeping the heavy load from falling to the ground. Our experiment allows us to explore the relationship between the falling distance and the mass of the heavy load. And the trajectory of the light load can also be figured out. Our experimental and theoretical results show that the falling distance of the heavy load increase with the increase of the mass of the heavy load. The trajectory of the light load is the combination of two different Archimedes curves.

  • • An Analysis of Google Analytics Data

    • PST3A09
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    

    • by Kevin Lee, Christopher Siedell, Emily Welch

    • Type: Poster
    • An Analysis of Google Analytics Data Kevin M. Lee, Christopher M. Siedell, & Emily Welch The web site at https://astro.unl.edu has been host to a variety of technology-based introductory astronomy teaching materials for many years. These include computer simulations, a library of dynamic peer instruction materials, animated ranking and sorting tasks, and videos of astronomy demonstrations. Google Analytics has been used to track visitors to the web site and inform the developers on the usage of these materials. Recently this database of tracking information has grown to span a complete decade. This poster will be a retrospective on the lessons learned regarding the relative usage of the different packages of teaching materials, how that usage grew over time, the types of institutions making use of the materials, what can be concluded regarding that usage, and interesting related anecdotes. We will also address what can’t be learned from Google Analytics due to the protection of visitor’s anonymity. We acknowledge the vital support of the National Science Foundation and statistics will be provided on curriculum materials developed under NSF grants #0231270, #0404988, #0737376, #1044658, and #1245679.

  • • Conceptual dynamics under traditional instruction observed using the FMCE

    • PST3A11
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    
    • by Michi Ishimoto
    • Type: Poster
    • Lecture-centered physics instructions are the traditional and standard instruction of introductory physics in colleges and high schools today. Few studies on students’ conceptual changes under the traditional instructions are reported unlike studies on those under more effective instructions. The conceptual dynamics of the traditional instruction could be different from that of effective instructions because ineffective instructions are prone to more cognitive biases. This study reports an analysis of conceptual changes under a lecture-centered traditional instruction observed in a Japanese college using the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation. The findings indicated that the instruction had weakened the fragile target concept to a higher degree rather than suppressed the robust novice conceptions, suggesting that the TR instruction was improper for novice students’ conceptual learning. Conceptual dynamics under traditional instruction observed using the FMCE.

  • • Challenges and Opportunities for a Joint REU-RET Program at BYU

    • PST3A13
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    

    • by Jean-Francois Van Huele, John Colton, Heather Peterson

    • Type: Poster
    • In this contribution we discuss challenges and opportunities of running an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) joint program in physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University (BYU). We present our current program and address the challenges that come with the recruitment and selection of applicants and faculty mentors, the preparation of the academic and social activities, the realizationation of the program objectives and the evaluation of the program outcomes. How do we combine the expectations of the hosting institution and those of the funding agency to develop a program that provides the greatest opportunities to all participants?

  • • Enhancing Student Preparation for Lab Activities Through Pre-lab Videos

    • PST3A15
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    

    • by Belter Ordaz-Mendoza, Diego Valente, Zac Transport

    • Type: Poster
    • It is well known that students who are well prepared for their laboratory activities are likely to obtain improved learning outcomes. Students in introductory physics courses often come to laboratory sessions unprepared, demonstrating a lack of familiarity with the equipment and spending valuable time in the beginning of the lab session attempting to familiarize themselves with the equipment and procedure. We have sought to address these issues by creating pre-lab videos for our Physics for Engineers II course at the University of Connecticut, adapting the well-accepted principles of a flipped classroom and video-enhanced instruction that have successfully been utilized in the lecture portion of Physics for Engineers introductory courses for the last six years. We present the methodology behind designing pre-lab videos and embedded assessments to engage students. We also present preliminary data we have collected on completion and performance of the pre-lab assessments and student feedback acquired through surveys.

  • • Quantum for Kids: You Got This!

    • PST3A17
    • Wed 07/24, 3:30PM - 4:15PM
    
    
    • by Tyler McDonnell
    • Type: Poster
    • Early exposure to STEM topics helps students identify misconceptions that may take shape at a young age, which can provide them with the foundation to navigate more complex concepts later in their academic careers. Often physics is not covered in K-12 curriculum; moreover, there is not a large focus on quantum physics due to the complexity of the of the subject. To address this issue, outreach activities are frequently designed by higher institutions and are implemented to incite thought and interest on concepts. The University of Maryland SPS received the Marsh W. White Award from SPS National to design a program of activities focusing on several quantum concepts for elementary school students that introduces them to the world of quantum through diverse learning experiences.

  • • Examination of Dilemmas for a Culturally Relevant Approach to Physics Instruction

    • PST3A02
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Clausell Mathis, Mark Akubo, Sherry Southerland

    • Type: Poster
    • The motivation for developing this project started with the question: What is the intersection of students’ culture with physics ideas? A variety of researchers have found that students have a higher level of engagement, performance, and identification when the instructor uses cultural resources for instruction (Ramburuth & Tani, 2009; Scherff & Spector, 2011). I proposed a culture-based approach to physics instruction where cultural norms and patterns are used in developing concepts and building on students’ interests and norms. For this study, I followed a African American Physics teacher as she developed and implemented a culturally relevant physics curricula in alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards. Using a qualitative case study approach, I examined the dilemmas she experienced during the planning and enactment of lessons, using Windschitl's (2002) framework of dilemmas. Data collection was done through observation, field notes, and semi-structured interviews.

  • • Measurement of Kinetic Friction with Different Velocity Using Timoshenko Oscillator

    • PST3A04
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Yangming Li, Gao Yichen

    • Type: Poster
    • A Timoshenko oscillator, which consists of a plate with periodic motion with the combined influence between gravity and kinetic friction on its rotating supports, is built to illustrate the relation between the frequency of the vibration and the coefficient of kinetic friction. Our experiment allows us to explore the friction’s low in relatively high-velocity regime. Our experimental results show that the Coulomb’s law of kinetic friction is only valid under the situation of small relative velocities and the kinetic friction becomes smaller when the velocity is increased. Usually the measurement of coefficient of kinetic friction is done at a low relative velocity, but our experiment allow us to explore the friction’s low in higher relative velocities.

  • • Integrated Space Science Resources for Undergraduate Instruction

    • PST3A06
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Rebecca Vieyra, Ramon Lopez, Brad Ambrose, Janelle Bailey, Shannon Willoughby

    • Type: Poster
    • In this poster we provide an overview of the current status of instructional materials development by a team funded by the NASA subcontract to Temple University and AAPT. The team has been funded to create research-based instructional materials at a variety of levels with a focus on post-secondary education. Some of these materials might also be applicable to a high school context with minimal modification.

  • • Classifying Instructor Beliefs on Incorporating Computation into Undergraduate Physics Courses

    • PST3A10
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Sameer Barretto, Thomas Finzell

    • Type: Poster
    • Over the course of a year, we interviewed ~20 faculty members in the Physics Department of a large research university in the Midwest. In this poster, we will be presenting the classification scheme that we developed to determine the beliefs and convictions of said faculty, and analyze the impact that has on the way they incorporate (or do not incorporate) computation into their classes.

  • • Concept Question Use Across Multiple Sections of Introductory Electromagnetism

    • PST3A14
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Aidan MacDonagh, Alexander Shvonski, Michelle Tomasik, Peter Dourmashkin

    • Type: Poster
    • We examine student responses to in-class concept questions given in a large-scale, introductory electromagnetism course at MIT. The course has 8 sections with approximately 90 students per section, and each section’s instructor uses the same set of in-class concept questions, to which students submit responses using our LMS. By analyzing the comprehensive dataset of student responses, we sought to understand how concept questions were used in class, thereby determining the educational experience of the students between sections. We found that most students were asked a majority of the questions at least once (instructors used anywhere from 73% to 92% of available questions), but there was much more variation in the number of follow-up attempts given (ranging from 0% to 77% amongst sections). We consider the effects that these differences in concept question use might have on learning outcomes.

  • • Implementing Design Experiments in a Blended Learning, Introductory Electromagnetism Class

    • PST3A16
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Alexander Shvonski, Pushpaleela Prabakar, Jacob White, Peter Dourmashkin, Michelle Tomasik

    • Type: Poster
    • We describe design-based physics experiments that we developed and implemented in a large-scale, introductory physics course at MIT. The residential course, 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, has over 700 students, with 8 sections total (about 90 per section), and is built upon an “active learning” structure, where students interact with each other and online materials during class. We introduced 4 new in-class experiments, each having an open-ended, design component, which explored a practical application of electromagnetic concepts. During these experiments, students followed instructions and answered questions on MITx (our online LMS). We also integrated the experiments with pre- and post-experiment assignments to support and reinforce the material covered. We describe how we structured these experiments, some considerations with respect to implementation on a large scale, and also report student feedback.

  • • Enhancing High-Level Thinking in an Introductory Electricity and Magnetism Lab

    • PST3A18
    • Wed 07/24, 4:15PM - 5:00PM
    
    

    • by Hyewon Pechkis, Paul Arpin, Joseph Pechkis

    • Type: Poster
    • We are redesigning our more traditional introductory physics Electricity and Magnetism labs to enhance students’ higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills. Specifically, we introduce physics education research-based instructional technology (e.g. “virtual” experiments) into our labs to reduce DFW rates and are building a faculty learning community. In particular, we have incorporated more design- and inquiry-based activities alongside PhET simulation activities into the labs. Our initial results indicated an increase in scores on the Conceptual Survey for Electricity and Magnetism for students who have taken the redesigned labs compared to those of students who have taken tradition labs. This work was funded through the Laboratory Innovations with Technology through the Chancellor’s Office at California State University.

• Pre-college/Informal and Outreach

  • • Comparing Two Implementations of a Citizen-Science Program

    • PST2C01
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by John Stewart, Kathryn Williamson, Cabot Zabriskie

    • Type: Poster
    • The Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC) is a citizen-science program designed to engage middle and high school students in radio astronomy. The project reserves a set of radio astronomy data for the students that has not been examined by scientists. In itsinitial implementation, the program was restricted to a few counties in West Virginia and training was delivered in a face-to-face summer camp. With the success of the initial implementation, a national model was constructed that involved a series of online training session and support from hub universities distributed across the country. These changes generated changes in how students participated and persisted in the program which will be explored.

  • • A Final Summary of PSI^3*

    • PST2C03
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Richard Pearson, Lacy Cleveland, Wendy Adams

    • Type: Poster
    • The PSI3 (Partnerships for STEM Identity: Three Populations of Active Learners) project has developed, taught, and distributed nearly 20 hands-on, minds-on science activity kits to public school districts across Colorado’s front range. The collaborative effort of current elementary school teachers and secondary teacher candidates reached nearly 50 classrooms and thousands of students. Key outcomes of the PSI3 project—to develop science identities in both the elementary teachers and their students, as well as to encourage and empower those teachers to teach more science activities—have been achieved, and are manifest through continued kit requests, active teacher participation, and enthusiastic student participation. These lessons, and their associated kits, have inadvertently provided a nearly complete array of standards-based activities. A compilation of the lessons, kit materials, subsequent instructional videos, and other information can be found on the Colorado School of Mines’ Teach@Mines website.

  • • Can a Spoonful of Sugar Help the Science Go Down?

    • PST2C05
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Shiladitya Chaudhury, Anne Wise

    • Type: Poster
    • As the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society, the Phi Beta Kappa Society is a leading voice championing liberal arts and sciences education, fostering freedom of thought, and recognizing academic excellence. Physics plays a prominent role in the society’s cross-disciplinary efforts to tap its nationwide network of 500,000+ members, 286 chapters, and 50 alumni associations to share the public value of higher education. In order to broaden support for the liberal arts and sciences, PBK launched the National Arts & Sciences Initiative in 2013. In this poster we present some of PBK’s strategies for embedding science advocacy into public-facing events and identifying unlikely community champions to voice their support for the study of disciplines such as physics. The poster will include tactics, tips and resources that PBK has used to broaden its impact, creating more dynamic opportunities to cultivate supporters from new or unlikely sources.

  • • Ice Skating and Physics: Supporting Multiple Identities in Informal Spaces

    • PST2C07
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Brean Prefontaine, Kathleen Hinko

    • Type: Poster
    • Lack of both gender and racial diversity is an ongoing and persisting problem within physics, despite funding and programming aimed at attracting students to the field. However, students who feel as though they need to give up their identities, culture, femininity, etc. will not continue to stay within physics. Research in other disciplines shows that both informal and interdisciplinary spaces are important for science identity development, especially for minority populations. We look to examine informal spaces that allow participants to cultivate and develop their physics identity with some of their other identities by blending physics with other fields/interests such as music, sports, hobbies, and art. Here we focus on a trial event created at an ice rink where children and families explored the physics behind an activity they already enjoy, ice skating! We aim to create future events that create an inclusive and welcoming physics environment.

  • • Intercultural Science Programs: A New, Collaborative Model for Informal STEM Education

    • PST2C02
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Claudia Fracchiolla, Michael Bennett, Zachariah Mmbasu

    • Type: Poster
    • As society becomes increasingly globalized, educational physics opportunities that promote both global thinking and increased representation are critically needed for ongoing the health of the STEM enterprise. To meet this need, informal physics educators from across the world have joined to develop a series of one-week camps designed to expose students in our local communities to collaborative and intercultural scientific experiences. These camps, will be implemented simultaneously at multiple global sites, will employ curricula featuring both real-time and asynchronous collaboration between student participants. Additionally, the cross-cultural nature of these camps is designed to facilitate their implementation in a number of locales, especially those with limited access to resources. We will discuss design philosophy, curriculum development, and aspects of volunteer training and testing for the camps, as well as future plans for implementation.

  • • A Two-tiered Approach to Radio Astronomy Instruction with RadioJOVE*

    • PST2C04
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Nicole Gugliucci, Derek Chisholm, Nathan Letteri, Ana Morrison, Lindsay Yurek

    • Type: Poster
    • The RadioJOVE Project allows middle, high school, and college students to build, maintain, and use a dipole to observe Jupiter’s emissions at 20 MHz. In Spring 2019, a RadioJOVE instrument was assembled at Saint Anselm College as part of Access Academy, an afterschool program for immigrant, refugee, and underrepresented high school students in Manchester, New Hampshire, through the Meelia Center for Community Engagement. Under the mentoring of one professor, four undergraduates with STEM backgrounds learned about the basics of radio astronomy instrumentation and observing, then led a group of 17 high school students in constructing and observing with RadioJOVE. This process required careful lesson planning on two levels: first, a self-directed learning program for the undergraduates, then a series of weekly structured lesson plans for the high school students. This poster will report on the lessons developed and on the outcomes of the project.

  • • Challenges and Learning Strategies in Studying AP STEM Courses

    • PST2C06
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Albert Bao*
    • Type: Poster
    • Students’ experiences in studying AP STEM courses can be an important factor influencing their interests in pursuing career development in STEM fields. Through surveying a group of high school students who have completed multiple AP STEM courses, this research investigates students’ experiences regarding typical challenges and learning strategies that students have in studying these AP courses. In addition, the possible influences from students’ learning experiences on their interests in developing future careers in the STEM fields were also investigated. This poster will present the outcomes of this study with detailed cases to show common difficulties encountered by the students and useful learning strategies implemented in their learning. Results on possible impacts from students’ learning experiences on their career preferences will also be discussed.

  • • Where Are the Stars? A Citizen Science Mass Experiment on Light Pollution

    • PST2C08
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Urban Eriksson
    • Type: Poster
    • Scientific studies have shown that scattered artificial light—light pollution—have unexpected and worrying negative effects on the biology of many organisms, ecosystems, and on human health. However, we use street lamps, illuminated signs, car-light to improve safety and make cities more attractive at night. In the Star-Spotting Experiment, hundreds of thousands of pupils, scouts, and members of the public in Sweden and other countries are being invited to contribute to scientific research about light pollution. The experiment builds on the fact that the more light there is, the fewer stars you see. Hence, we encourage people to count stars where they live, using a simple method, and report via an App. We present results on 1) peoples’ awareness of the night sky, 2) how this method compares to other measures of light pollution, 3) possible consequences for ecology, sustainability and urban planning.

• SPS Undergraduate Research and Outreach Poster Session

  • • Machine Learning for Quantum Multi-body Systems

    • SPS02
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    
    • by Yanran Li
    • Type: Poster
    • The study of quantum multi-body systems in the field of statistical physics has deepened people's understanding of physical phases and statistical laws, meanwhile, machine learning can do great jobs in classification. Through Monte Carlo, I simulated a 2-D Ising model for ferromagnetism and studied its phase transition. I use the neural network to do the classification of the above configuration: First choose different temperature as the high temperature phase to see differences of the prediction result. Then choose different length of the simulated lattice to see differences of the prediction result. By plotting, two curves can be obtained by inputting configurations with different temperatures, one of which represents the probability of low temperature phase at different temperatures. It can be found that there is a sudden change in the probability, which stands for the phase transition point of temperature.

  • • Effect of Light and Coating on Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

    • SPS03
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Orlando Patricio, Emiliano Castillo, Jonathan Gallegos, Jose Juarez

    • Type: Poster
    • Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are not as efficient as the more expensive synthetic solar cells. We will experiment on improving efficiency by coating the DSSCs, and adjusting the amount of light and temperature directed toward the solar cells. The experimental coating will be tested for heat-resistance; improving the light absorption efficiency of the DSSCs. We will be comparing synthetic light, UV-light, and natural sunlight for this experimental procedure. Based on the data gathered, we can conclude how the DSSCs’ efficiency has been affected.

  • • Roger That! A Collaborative Celebration of Space Exploration

    • SPS04
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Karen Gipson, Samhita Rhodes, Deana Weibel, Glen Swanson, Emily Hromi

    • Type: Poster
    • RogerThat! is a two-day public symposium on space exploration, organized by a multi-disciplinary team faculty at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in collaboration with staff at Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM). GRPM is home to the Chaffee Planetarium, named in honor of local hero Roger B. Chaffee, who lost his life in the Apollo 1 fire. The symposium includes field trips and family-friendly activities, a design challenge for 4th - 6th graders, and presentations aimed at college students and the general public. The keynote speaker in 2019 was astronaut Nicole Stott, the first person to create a watercolor in space. Stott delivered two public talks to audiences that included over 100 local Girl Scouts, delivering the inspiring message to "Dream Big!" The GVSU chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) supported this outreach effort through hands-on activities at GVSU on Friday and at GRPM on Saturday.

  • • Theoretical Study of Accelerator Neutrino Oscillation Experiment

    • SPS05
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Weijie Feng, Yixing Zhou

    • Type: Poster
    • Neutrino physics has been one of the focused areas in particle physics since last century. Recently, some new physics such as non-standard interaction and neutrino decay has become more and more popular since the discovery of neutrino oscillation. We simulate the baseline from CERN to PINGU and point out the advantages of this experiment. We also study the influence on the parameters of standard oscillation model after introducing the new models and obtain some reasonable conclusions. Furthermore, we give some new restrictions about the parameters of new physical models apart from the standard oscillation model.

  • • Numerical Study of Quantum Scattering in 1D Models

    • SPS06
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Trevor Robertson, Jay Wang

    • Type: Poster
    • Solving the fundamental time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) is an essential computational task in understanding the behavior of many microscopic systems. Robust and efficient algorithms to solve the TDSE is challenging, particularly in systems with continuum boundary conditions such as that encountered in atomic collision or scattering studies. In this study we use the well-known method for solving the TDSE, the finite difference method (FDM) but with an important modification to conserve flux. We analyze one-dimensional collisions with well-behaved as well as singular potentials. We report numerical techniques for robust extraction of scattering flux and compare with asymptotic theoretical predictions. Because the FDM is difficult for scaling to 2D or higher dimensions, we present preliminary results with mesh-free methods including the radial basis function methods and compare the results between the two approaches.

  • • Student Astronomical Research and Publication within a Community of Practice

    • SPS07
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Rachel Freed, Russell Genet

    • Type: Poster
    • The opportunities for students to conduct astronomical research and contribute to the scientific literature are growing with the expansion of remote telescope networks. The Las Cumbres Observatory Education Partnership has 22 participating institutions in its second year. Astronomy, referred to as the gateway science due to its intrinsic inspiration for students, provides an ideal target for programs that improve scientific literacy. The astronomy research seminar provides a true to life scientific research experience for students early in their educational careers, teaching students to write for scientific publication and to present their research. Over 450 students have co-authored 150 published papers over the past 10 years. For many it has been a transformative experience, as evidenced by the students who have created their own research seminars, coached others through the seminar, gone on to help facilitate international conferences on student astronomical research, and even participated on editorial boards for conference proceedings.

  • • Coefficient of Rolling Friction and Pressure Inside a Football

    • SPS09
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Gyaneshwaran Gomathinayagam, Siddhant Singhania

    • Type: Poster
    • A football at different internal pressures was rolled from rest down an inclined smooth wooden plank. The acceleration of its centre of mass was measured by video analysis using TRACKER software. It was found to increase with excess pressure inside the football until it reached a constant value at an excess pressure of 36.43 kPa and above corresponding to a minimum constant value of rolling resistance. The decrease in the acceleration at lower pressures was linked to the increase in contact area of the football, which resulted in greater hysteresis energy loss due to the deformation of the football while rolling. This was modelled by defining rolling resistance coefficient Sr as the offset distance of the line of action of the normal reaction producing a retarding torque on the football. Sr was found to be an inverse exponent function of excess pressure.

  • • Mechanics of the Bounce of a Ball off an Edge

    • SPS10
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Gyaneshwaran Gomathinayagam, Amal Bansode, Aneesh Agarwal

    • Type: Poster
    • A table tennis ball was dropped vertically from rest onto the sharp edge of an aluminium cube and the rebound angle was measured as a function of the separation between the ball’s centre and the edge. A Vpython simulation was made by modelling the collision of the ball against the edge using conservation of linear momentum and by treating the collision to be perfectly elastic. The rebound angles predicted by the simulation matched the measurements within the measurement uncertainties. The relationship between the rebound angle and separation between the ball’s centre and the edge of the aluminium cube was also derived analytically and confirmed by the measurement data.

  • • Modelling the Motion of a Magnet Falling through an Aluminium Pipe

    • SPS11
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Gyaneshwaran Gomathinayagam, Yash Gupta

    • Type: Poster
    • The motion of a magnet falling through an aluminium pipe with terminal velocity was modeled by assuming the magnetic braking force to be proportional to the velocity of the magnet. The predicted time of fall from the simulation matched the measurements for a wide range of weights for the magnet. The simulation was then used to answer questions such as - how do terminal velocity, time taken to attain the terminal velocity, and the distance fallen by the magnet before attaining terminal velocity depend on the weight of the magnet? The Vpython simulation was thus used as a virtual lab to conduct virtual experiments to answer new questions about the modeled phenomenon, which may have otherwise been rather difficult for a high school student due to lack of the required mathematical skills, apparatus or even time to conduct the experiments.

  • • Creating Multimedia Resources Depending on Instructors’ Needs

    • SPS12
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    
    • by Azita Seyed Fadaei
    • Type: Poster
    • In order to have appropriate multimedia resources, instructors need to prepare multimedia resources for their students. Videos prepared by the instructor can speed up the teaching process and help instructors use the “Multimedia Representation” in their real or virtual class. They can plan, make and prepare some part of curriculum needs, observing a phenomena , demonstrating, simulating and creating questions, practices and lab activities. In the teaching physics course in the subject of mechanics of motion we introduce Logger Pro to our students. So we prepared a video of how they can use this software in their lab activities. For making this video, we used a computer monitor video recording (Screen Recorder) and Logger Pro, which both are open sources. This video has been uploaded on Canvas for students’ usage and as an idea for our colleagues.

  • • The Correct Explanation for the Working of the Straw Oboe

    • SPS13
    • Sun 07/21, 7:30PM - 9:30PM
    
    

    • by Gyaneshwaran Gomathinayagam, Aditya Garg, Madhu Sudhan

    • Type: Poster
    • The standard explanation for the working of the straw oboe is that it has an air column which is open at both ends, and so when the flaps vibrate, they set up stationary sound waves in the air column (open at both ends) which have resonant frequencies based on the length of the straw. So shorter the length of the straw, higher is the observed pitch of the sound waves. However, the measured sound frequencies for each length were found to be 15 times lower than the corresponding predicted resonant frequencies. This can be understood by considering the sound to be due to the flaps in the wedge vibrating at around 15 times lower frequency than the corresponding resonant frequency for the length of the straw. This ‘correction factor’ of 15 could depend on the material properties of the flap like the size, shape and stiffness of the flap.

• Teacher Training/Enhancement

  • • FliP-CoIn – Multi-Cultural Concept Inventory for Flight Physics

    • PST1E01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Florian Genz, Lars Möhring, Kathleen Falconer, André Bresges

    • Type: Poster
    • The Flight Physics Concept Inventory (FliP-CoIn) provides feedback to college students, introductory physics courses and their teachers about naïve conceptions in fluid dynamics in the context of flight. FliP-CoIn was developed in English and German. Thefirst test statistics including all 59 questions (=30min including demographic questions) resulted in a Cronbach’s alpha for Reliability of ?=.81 (English version. German results to be published soon). Until the conference, the instrument will be shortened and revalidated with a big German student group. Further an automatic online scoring system will be introduced. FliP-CoIn is the first physics concept inventory which was developed concurrently in two cultures and languages. Therefore its evolution yielded many unforeseeable improvements and hurdles. FliP-CoIn was developed because the teaching of fluid dynamics was adopted by the German Physical Society (DPG) in its newest science standards recommendations (DPG 2016). DPG. (2016). DPG SchulStudie - Basiskonzepte. https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichung/broschueren/studien/schulstudie-2016/schulstudie-basiskonzepte.pdf

  • • North Pole Physics: Incorporating Real World Data into the Classroom

    • PST1E03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Danielle Bugge
    • Type: Poster
    • In May 2018 I had the opportunity to travel to Svalbard, Norway as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. The Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship is a competitive professional development opportunity for pre-K–12 educators that is made possible by a partnership between the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions. I was immersed in a field-based experience to further my students’ understanding of our interconnected planet. Reaching latitudes of almost 83 degrees North, I was able to make observations and collect data from a location few others had ventured. The resources I brought back for use in my classroom took the form of videos, pictures, audio recordings, and instrumental data. This poster shares how my involvement with the National Geographic Society has informed my instruction as well as physics lessons and activities created using authentic data.

  • • Developing Techlesson Plans for Physics Teachers: Undergrads in the Classroom

    • PST1E05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Hugo Santos, Katemari Rosa

    • Type: Poster
    • In this presentation, we share an experience of producing teaching materials exploring technology in the classroom for physics teachers in Brazil. Brazilian physics teachers face several hurdles to keep up with technology. First, our public schools rarely have working computer labs or other tech apparatus. Therefore, it is hard for teachers to update their practices when it comes to using technology in physics classrooms. Besides, a significant number of physics teachers lack proper training to integrate technology in the classroom, which leads to restricting their classes to PowerPoint presentations and traditional blackboards. Here we describe the partnership between university faculty, undergraduate students, high school teachers, and their students to promote the use of technology in a public school in Brazil. The result was a lesson plan on topics of modern physics, integrating simulations, plickers, and other resources to improve physics classes.

  • • Online Graduate Certificate Program in Physics Education for In-service Teachers

    • PST1E07
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by James Moore
    • Type: Poster
    • We describe an online 18 credit hour graduate certificate program in physics education that ties into the existing M.S. in Secondary Education at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Teaching physical science at the secondary-level requires deep discipline-based understanding in combination with knowledge and practice in science education methods, and specific understanding of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The program was designed for in-service physics teachers, with coursework based on PCK learning modules developed for the PhysTEC program, combined with new content-focused modules and research experiences. The program provides a pathway for teachers to become qualified to teach dual-enrollment and AP physics courses, while providing learning experiences directly applicable to their own classrooms. We present the framework for the program's development, the coursework and sequence, and preliminary experiences from the program’s first cohort.

  • • Successes, Trials, and Tribulations in Physics Teacher Preparation at Purdue University Fort Wayne

    • PST1E09
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Matthew Perkins Coppola, Mark Masters

    • Type: Poster
    • Purdue University Fort Wayne was selected as one of the first four PhysTEC Fellows sites in 2017. During the past two years this professional development opportunity has allowed us to strengthened the partnership between physics and education faculty at our institution. We tout three early successes: (1) the creation of a Teacher Advisory Group composed of local high school physics teachers from across the region, which meets monthly, (2) the beginnings of a learning assistant (LA) program, and (3) the creation of a Learning and Teaching in Physics pedagogy course for LA's and TA's. We have also identified challenges to growing the physics teaching major, including recruitment and institutional administrative challenges.

  • • Preparing the Next Generation of Educators

    • PST1E02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    
    • by Alexandru Maries
    • Type: Poster
    • Graduate students across the United States are currently playing an important role in the education of students as they often teach laboratories, recitations, and discussion sections. It is important to provide professional development for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), not only because this will have a positive impact on students now, but also because it can have an impact on the students of tomorrow. This poster summarizes the important takeaways from the literature on effective TA programs along with how this literature has helped shape a particular GTA professional development program. Finally, results from over three years of implementing this program are presented, in particular, by focusing on the pedagogical practices of the GTAs.

  • • Assessing the NGSS Alignment of Next Gen PET

    • PST1E04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Meghan England, Paula Engelhardt, Steve Robinson

    • Type: Poster
    • Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (Next Gen PET) (1) is a set of research-based, guided inquiry curriculum materials for preservice and inservice elementary teachers. While the intention was to provide learning experiences aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), that alignment has not been formally assessed. The Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric (2) was developed to provide criteria by which to measure how well K-12 instructional and instructor support materials are consistent with the intent of NGSS. In this poster, we will describe the outcome of applying the EQuIP rubric to the Next Gen PET materials, together with their associated instructor support. We will discuss to what degree the materials provide an NGSS-aligned learning experience for preservice teachers, as well as the implications for possible revisions.

  • • Guided Inquiry Physical Science for Pre-Service Teachers and Explanations of Physical Phenomenon*

    • PST1E06
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Roger Key, Alvir Sangha, Dermot Donnelly, Frederick Nelson, David Andrews

    • Type: Poster
    • Pre-service teachers continue to struggle with science instruction especially elementary teachers. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provides opportunity to reconstruct science education for future teachers. This study investigates how a redesigned guided-inquiry physical science curriculum impacts pre-service elementary teachers’ explanations of scientific phenomena. Research methods quantitatively measure changes in students’ explanations through pre/post assessments consisting of nine conceptual open-response items; three physics, three chemistry, and three integrated items. Initial analysis of fall 2018 and spring 2019 data provides evidence that future pre-service teachers begin physical science courses with many non-normative ideas. Findings will provide insight on students’ conceptual difficulties and how a guided-inquiry curriculum supports students in developing coherent explanations of scientific phenomena. This study provides important aspects for teacher education programs to consider in restructuring science instruction in light of NGSS.

  • • What Thriving physics Teacher Education Programs Do: The PTEPA Rubric*

    • PST1E08
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Stephanie Chasteen, Rachel Scherr, Monica Plisch

    • Type: Poster
    • The Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis (PTEPA) Rubric is a new instrument designed by PhysTEC to provide a specific, objective, and reliable measurement of the activities and structures that may be present in physics teacher education programs. The PTEPA Rubric was developed based on site visits to eight “thriving” physics teacher education programs (those graduating five or more physics teachers per year), and extensive validation, creating a detailed taxonomy of possible program elements (such as institutional characteristics, recruitment of teachers, and pedagogical preparation). In addition to self-reflection for program leaders, the rubric allows new research opportunities. We encourage the PER community to engage in studies using the rubric, including further validation, and using the instrument to further our knowledge about effective physics teacher education programs.

• Teaching and Engaging Students at HSIs

  • • Alma Project: Cultivating Cultural Capitals in Physics through Reflective Journaling

    • EG03
    • Tue 07/23, 3:00PM - 3:30PM
    
    

    • by Kim Coble, Khanh Tran, Alegra Eroy-Reveles, Imani Davis, Arreguin Mireya

    • Type: Poster
    • Reflective journaling has been shown to promote positive, meaningful learning experiences. At San Francisco State University, the Alma Project was created to support and encourage connections to the life experiences of STEM students through reflective journaling. Pulling from frameworks in Ethnic Studies and social psychology, the Alma Project aims to make learning STEM more inclusive by affirming the intersectional identities and cultural wealth of students in STEM classrooms. In spring 2017, the Alma Project was piloted in select sections of the Supplemental Instruction (SI) program, which offers 1-unit courses that support “large lecture” STEM classes. In fall 2018, the project was expanded to all SI classes and to all introductory physics and astronomy labs. Each month, students spend 5-10 minutes responding to questions designed to affirm their values and purpose for studying STEM in college. Students also spend time in class sharing their responses, including common struggles and successes.

  • • Constructing STEM Mentorship Pathways to Empower Students in Low Socioeconomic Communities

    • EG05
    • Tue 07/23, 3:00PM - 3:30PM
    
    

    • by Brandon Rodriguez, Shirley Yong, Malak Kawtharani

    • Type: Poster
    • In this workshop we will explore how we have developed a science pipeline within K-12 schools. With one volunteer from NASA, we were able to train local college students on activities based on upcoming space missions. These students then in turn volunteered at a local high school, mentoring these students, who in exchange recreated these activities at a neighboring middle school. Utilizing this ripple effect from one scientist led to a passion for science and sharing that excitement down the pipeline. Now in its second year, what was once a point source, is now hundreds of students being visited a handful of times of year by familiar faces from within their community, each continuing to reaffirm their peers about their potential as future scientists. This presentation will highlight the hands-on activities we used to train the student volunteers, the data showing favorable perception of science, and highlight simple methodologies to implement similar mentorship pathways in your school.

  • • Report on the EUPP-HSI Conference

    • EG06
    • Tue 07/23, 3:00PM - 3:30PM
    
    
    • by Juan Burciaga
    • Type: Poster
    • In January 2019 AAPT and NSHP jointly sponsored a conference on Enhancing Undergraduate Physics Programs at Hispanic Serving Institutions (EUPP-HSI). The conference report summarizes the discussions at the conference; suggests practices of physics teaching, learning and mentoring at HSIs; and provides a list of recommendations for program change initiatives for physics departments, professional societies, and funding agencies.

• Technologies

  • • Analyzing Student Learning Behavior Through Robotics Programming and Virtual Software

    • PST2D01
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Michael Zurba, Richard Hechter

    • Type: Poster
    • Many schools have taught programming logic with LEGO EV3 robots to implement or enhance STEM education. There are different approaches to robotics that educators can take considering available equipment or financial resources. We will assess student learning through observations of behavior while learning with actual robots or virtual robotics software (or both simultaneously). Learning behaviors will be selected that are congruent with the direction of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) under the assumption that they will be more relevant to modern students, educators, and the corporations in relevant fields (Krajcik, Codere, Dahsah, Bayer, & Mun, 2014). The Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive (ICAP) framework (Chi & Wylie, 2014) predicts that students will become more engaged with materials and learning will increase as they progress from passive to interactive learning. This study will analyze these learning behaviors of the students as a reflection of individual student learning during different treatments.

  • • Costs and Benefits of a Functional Programming Language in Physics Teaching

    • PST2D03
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Scott Walck
    • Type: Poster
    • Functional programming languages, such as Haskell, have a reputation for being difficult to learn and use. There is some truth to this, but functional languages are difficult to learn in the same way that physics is difficult to learn; both invite and sometimes require a structured thinking. The thinking required to use Haskell matches surprisingly well with that required for physics. The benefit is that, once learned, functional language allows one to focus less on the computer's needs and more on the structure of physics. We show an example of a PICUP exercise implemented in Haskell to see the benefits. The presenter will also speak from his experience about the costs.

  • • Mechatronics: Integrating a Makerspace in Introductory Physics Courses

    • PST2D05
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Stefan Jeglinski
    • Type: Poster
    • A Makerspace component has been integrated into three different courses taught by the Physics and Astronomy Department. The courses are a First Year Seminar in Mechatronics for students of any intended major (first year only); a course in How Things Work, for any student fulfilling a General Science requirement; and a Physical Computing course, primarily for but not restricted to STEM majors. I will present my experiences determining the scope and type of Makerspace projects, share outcomes when students are given either free reign or tightly controlled specifications, how to evaluate projects involving the Makerspace, and lessons learned.

  • • Teaching Kinematics with Drones and Video Analytics

    • PST2D07
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    

    • by Lars Möhring, Andre Bresges, Florian Genz

    • Type: Poster
    • We present best-practice lessons as well as empirical data of learning outcomes at intro physics classes, measured with the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). Our drones are hexacopters programmable in SCRATCH via any mobile device. This enables a predict-observe-explain cycle promoting skills of content knowledge, measuring and observing as well as programming and (physical) modeling. Autonomous drones or UAVs become more and more part of our everyday life but the teaching of “real-life” context kinematics still utilizes the behavior of cars, ships, or trains. Knowing the future positions of an object by having access to it’s starting point, velocity and acceleration is one of the main problems in kinematics. The reduction in scale and price leads to new possibilities for studying their behavior in 3-dimensional space. The author is interested in discussion about drones in classrooms and further challenges.

  • • Using JupyterHub/Lab for Coursework and Student Research

    • PST2D09
    • Wed 07/24, 9:30AM - 10:15AM
    
    
    • by Daryl Macomb
    • Type: Poster
    • Computational skills and experience are increasingly important in upper-division physics and astronomy courses. Unfortunately students often have widely disparate levels of expertise, use many different programming languages, and have facility with different operating systems. One potential way to overcome these difficulties is through JupyterHub, a server-side facility for providing students access to Jupyter notebooks in several languages. This presentation describes using JupyterHub for computer labs, homework, and research projects for astrophysics students. We describe positives, negatives, and moving towards JupyterLab.

  • • BuckeyeVR 3D Plot Viewer – A Free Resource for Smartphone-based VR*

    • PST2D02
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Chris Orban, Joseph Smith, Chris Porter

    • Type: Poster
    • Although there are a number of smartphone apps that can produce interesting stereoscopic visualizations using a cheap VR viewer (often called Google Cardboard), until recently there did not exist a resource to allow STEM educators to use this VR technology to display user-defined functions, curves and vector fields. The BuckeyeVR 3D plot viewer is a free resource that allows educators to both render a user-defined function in a web interface and to quickly view this function in stereoscopic 3D using smartphone-based VR. This is made possible by a freely available smartphone app for Android and iPhones that can take information from the web interface and reproduce the visualization on the smartphone. This resource is available at buckeyevr.osu.edu and we encourage STEM educators to adopt it and to collaborate with Ohio State in examining the pedagogical benefits of this technology

  • • Design and Evaluation of a Teacher Dashboard for Interactive Simulations

    • PST2D04
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Diana López Tavares, Katherine Perkins, Michael Kauzmann, Carlos Aguirre Velez

    • Type: Poster
    • Do you assign PhET simulations for homework? Do you wonder how your students are engaging with the simulations? In this poster, we present a dashboard prototype that aims to provide useful information to teachers about student-sim interaction that they can use to inform their sim-based instruction, using accessible and interpretable visualizations. The dashboard uses several approaches to visualize student mouse activity data, showing individual student interaction patterns with the simulation as well as the aggregated information of an entire group. Through interviews with teachers, and data collection from college physics courses, the graphs, design, and the ability of the dashboard to provide useful information was evaluated. We find that the dashboard helps to describe student performance, identify students that may be having difficulties, plan future lessons, and improve activity design. We invite you to review and provide feedback on these dashboard designs with your ideas for improvements.

  • • Statistical Data Basics with Smartphone Sensors

    • PST2D06
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    
    • by Martín Monteiro
    • Type: Poster
    • Uncertainty is inherent to any measurement. In electrical instruments, part of the uncertainty is due to the noise (thermal, electrical, mechanical) present in every device, as well as in any type of signal, causing the measurements to fluctuate in a random way. This is a fundamental physical principle that imposes limits on the accuracy of any measurement. This applies, in particular, to the smartphones built-in sensors: acceleration, angular velocity, magnetic field, luminance, pressure, etc. The unavoidable noise of the sensors, so annoying in any way, can be used, however, in a favorable way, to illustrate basic concepts of statistical treatment of measurements. In the introductory courses of laboratory and experimental physics, it is usual to perform some practice that involves repeated measures of the same physical magnitude, to analyze them statistically. As we will explain here, the same can be done from a series of measurements recorded with the accelerometer of a smartphone.

  • • Technology in the Physics Classroom: The Brazilian Landscape

    • PST2D08
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Katemari Rosa, Rebeca Dourado, Felipe Bacelar

    • Type: Poster
    • Claims for the use of technology in the classroom have been long documented in PER. The effective use of technology, however, can vary across countries. In this presentation, we review the use of technology in Brazil through physics education literature.Looking at high impact publications in Brazilian physics education journals from the last decade, we describe some of our experiences with technology in the classroom. Our findings show a slow growth in articles published discussing technology over the years with a peak in 2012 and a focus on articles about simulations. Even though some growth in the number of articles over the years was found, it’s still lower than expected when noted how much technology developed in the last 10 years and even how much we know technology is used in many classrooms. We also found that authors differ greatly in an understanding of the use and potential of learning managing systems, as well as of the concept of virtual experiments.

  • • Visual Simulation of Objects Moving Due to Gravitational and Electromagnetic Forces

    • PST2D10
    • Wed 07/24, 10:15AM - 11:00AM
    
    

    • by Mevlut Bulut, Ferhat Zengul, Aysegul Bulut

    • Type: Poster
    • Visual simulations without technical nomenclature can be used to lure people (of all ages) towards the beauty and intricacy of matter interactions through gravitational and electromagnetic forces. We will demonstrate a simulation by which, an arbitrary number of objects can be assigned mass, charge, initial velocity, and initial position and then their motions under gravitational and electromagnetic forces can be observed with a real-time animation interface using a state of the art, highly accurate and stable algorithm. Users can keep the full trace history or clear the accumulated traces at any time they want. Object properties can be manipulated during the simulation and setups can be saved and shared with other people.

• Upper Division and Graduate

  • • A New Model for Advanced Lab and Introduction to Research

    • PST1F01
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    
    • by Todd Zimmerman
    • Type: Poster
    • A new Advanced Lab course was developed to give students experience with soft skills. The advanced lab course was offered in conjunction with a freshman level introduction to research. This combination of two different levels of students was done to populate a traditionally low-enrolled course and to provide senior students with leadership experience. Each senior-level student was paired with one to two intro students to act as a team leader. Both courses had two 3-hour lab sessions that met together and a separate 1-hour lecture session for each course. The introductory course focused on basic scientific research methods, keeping lab notebooks, working as a member of a team, scientific ethics, experimental design, and scientific communication while the senior course focused on these topics at a more advanced level. The structure of the two courses and the opinions of the students’ will be discussed in this poster.

  • • Investigating Transfer of Learning in an Upper-Level Quantum Mechanics Course*

    • PST1F03
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Alexandru Maries, Ryan Sayer, *Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • Transfer of learning from one context to another is considered a hallmark of expertise. Physics education research has often found that students have great difficulty transferring learning from one context to another. We examine upper-level and graduate students’ facility with questions about the interference pattern in the double-slit experiment with single photons and polarizers in various orientations placed in front of one or both slits. Answering these questions correctly in the context of the double-slit experiment requires transferring learning about concepts from the context of a tutorial on Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) with single photons and polarizers in various paths of MZI. We discuss the extent to which students who worked through the MZI tutorial were able to transfer what they learned in that context to another context involving the double-slit experiment.

  • • Improving Students' Understanding of Lock-in Amplifiers

    • PST1F05
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Seth DeVore, Alexandre Gauthier, Jeremy Levy, Chandralekha Singh

    • Type: Poster
    • A lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve students' understanding,we have developed and evaluated a research-based tutorial which utilizes a computer simulation of a lock-in amplifier. The tutorial is based on a field-tested approach in which students realize their difficulties after predicting the outcome of simulated experiments involving a lock-in amplifier and check their predictions using the simulated lock-in amplifier.Then, the tutorial guides and helps students develop a coherent understanding of the basics of a lock-in amplifier.The tutorial development involved interviews with physics faculty members and graduate students and iteration of many versions of the tutorial with professors and graduate students. The student difficulties and the development and assessment of the research-based tutorial are discussed. Supported by the NSF.

  • • Student Difficulties with the Basics for a System of Non-interacting Identical Particles

    • PST1F07
    • Mon 07/22, 8:30PM - 9:15PM
    
    

    • by Christof Keebaugh, Chandralekha Singh, Emily Marshman

    • Type: Poster
    • We discuss an investigation of upper-level and graduate students' difficulties with fundamental concepts involving a system of identical particles. The investigation was carried out in advanced quantum mechanics courses by administering free-response andmultiple-choice questions and conducting individual interviews with students. We find that students share many common difficulties related to these concepts.

  • • How Do Departmental Policies Influence Graduate Physics Students’ Self-efficacy?

    • PST1F02
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Diana Sachmpazidi, Charles Henderson

    • Type: Poster
    • Graduate attrition in STEM fields is an increasingly observed and persistent phenomenon. Four out of 10 students that enroll in a physics graduate program will end up not completing their degree. Previous studies found that students’ entering academic ability is not related to attrition. This study shifts the focus on the relationship of departmental supportive structures to students’ self-efficacy and persistence. In addition, we examine how experiencing certain departmental structures affects graduate students’ perceptions of career outcome expectations upon the completion of their degree. We collect survey and interview data from physics graduate students from multiple institutions across the U.S. The results of the study will help us identify the factors that influence persistence and career outcome expectations either directly or through the effect of self-efficacy. Our goal is to create recommendations for policymakers in physics graduate programs that can improve students’ experiences and increase retention.

  • • Survey on Upper-Division Thermal Physics Content Coverage

    • PST1F04
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Katherine Rainey, Bethany Wilcox

    • Type: Poster
    • Thermal physics is a core course requirement for most physics degrees and encompasses thermodynamics and statistical mechanics content. However, the primary foci of thermal physics courses vary across universities. This variation can make creation of targeted materials or assessment tools for thermal physics difficult. To determine the scope and content variability of thermal physics courses across institutions, we distributed a survey to over 90 institutions to solicit content priorities from faculty and instructors who have taught upper-division thermodynamics and/or statistical mechanics. We present results from the survey, which articulate key similarities and differences in thermal physics content coverage across institutions. We will discuss implications of these findings for the development of instructional tools and assessments that are useful to the widest range of institutions and physics instructors.

  • • Quantifying Jargon*

    • PST1F06
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Shannon Willoughby, Jenny Green, Leila Sterman, Bryce Hughes, Brock LaMeres

    • Type: Poster
    • Determining the amount of jargon in a given piece of writing or a speech transcript can be challenging, but necessary because excessive use of jargon can hamper communication between experts and laypeople. We report on an equation, ‘jargonness’, which calculates the amount of jargon in any text using a logarithmic scale so one can determine how much jargon is in any written text, and directly compare one text to another. Initially developed in 2015 by Sharon and Barm-Tsabari, the researchers used text from British English. We have re-engineered the code in R to be compatible with contemporary American English, and we have calculated the amount of jargon in several classic texts, transcripts from STEM graduate students who have applied to our oral communication grant, grant proposals, and publications from several STEM disciplines. We present the freely available R code and initial comparisons of our jargonness calculations.

  • • Measuring the Activity of Radioactive Isotopes in Soil Using NaI Detector in the Advance Physics Lab

    • PST1F08
    • Mon 07/22, 9:15PM - 10:00PM
    
    

    • by Rebekah Aguilar*, Peter Siegel, Nina Abramzon

    • Type: Poster
    • Experiments involving nuclear radiation detection are routinely performed in the undergraduate physics curriculum. Common detectors found in many undergraduate institutions are sodium iodine (NaI) gamma detectors. These detectors are relatively inexpensive and are well suited for the teaching of basic spectroscopic techniques. For the study of environmental samples high-resolution gamma detectors are ideal however these detectors are less common. We report on the use of NaI detectors to study environmental samples. Known decay products from the higher-end energy spectrum sources were used for calibration, gamma energy peaks that were measured include: 1440 keV for Potassium-40, 1764 keV for the Uranium-238, and 2614 keV for the Thorium-232 series. A secular equilibrium was used to assume that the activity of each isotope within their decay series were the same. Our results indicate that NaI detector can be used by students to measure the activity of radioactive isotopes in a soil.