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July 13–17, 2013
Tuesday morning
of a learning curve associated with unfamiliar probes and equipment. Fur-
thermore, a portable eTALK lab does not sacrifice the important real-time
TA interactions that characterize traditional lab courses and are often miss-
ing in endeavors to develop distance learning labs. The eTALK project is
currently deployed in first-semester calculus-based general physics labs at
NC State. Results from the project, including a comparison with traditional
labs, will be presented.
*eTALK is supported by the NC State Large Course Redesign Program and the
National Science Foundation.
Session CB: Using Simulations and
Models for Pre-High School Teaching
Location: Broadway III/IV
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in Pre-High School Education
Date: Tuesday, July 16
Time: 7:30–9 a.m.
Presider: Nina Morley Daye
CB01:
7:30-8 a.m. Models and Simulations with Preservice
Elementary Teachers
Invited – Wendy K. Adams, University of Northern Colorado, Department of
Physics, Greeley, CO 80631;
At the University of Northern Colorado our Teacher preparation program
for preservice elementary teachers includes a capstone course titled
“Principles of Scientific Inquiry – Finding Order in Chaos.” The overarch-
ing learning objectives for the course include understanding what it means
to “do science” and to provide ideas about how to teach this explicitly to
elementary students; although, it is not a methods course. One of the sub-
objectives of “doing science” relates to models—what are different types
of models and what makes them useful. In this presentation I’ll describe
how this objective is integrated throughout the course and present several
specific activities where the students engage with scientific models. Some
of the activities use everyday hands-on materials, some use ideas or repre-
sentations, while others use PhET Interactive Simulations.
CB02: 8-8:30 a.m. PhET’s Future: Enhanced Teacher
Resources, HTML5, and Touch!
Invited – Ariel J. Paul, PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO 80309;
Katherine Perkins, Emily Moore, Noah Podolefsky, The PhET Team, Univer-
sity of Colorado
The PhET Interactive Simulations project (
) has
several new efforts to support K-12 teachers in the modern classroom. For
the past three years, we have been specifically researching design and use
of our interactive simulations at the middle school level. This endeavor has
improved our design principles and led to the development of guidelines
for effective implementation and facilitation of our simulations in the class-
room. To share the resources we have created for teachers, we are creating
a companion website specifically devoted to teachers and the fostering
of our teacher user community. In addition, we have begun a large-scale
effort to port PhET sims to HTML5 to support the changing landscape of
technology and allow our sims to run on touch-enabled devices. This effort
will not only increase the accessibility of PhET, but also opens exciting pos-
sibilities to study the learning opportunities afforded by a touch interface.
CB03:
8:30-9 a.m. Simulations and Models that Engage
Students in Thinking about Physics
Invited – Susan B. Ramsey, Virginia Advanced Study Strategies, 820 Bruce
St., South Boston, VA 24592;
In this session, we will look at a variety of online simulations and models as
well as paper and pencil simulations and models that help connect students
to physics concepts with meaningful understanding. The use of student
prediction prior to the introduction of a simulation or model is crucial,
and adequate time must be given for students to correct their misconcep-
tions and explore the concept. Online simulations and models are also
great pre-teaching material so that students come to class with exposure
to a concept and more quality questions. I will provide a list of current
online resources that span physics as well as other science concepts to help
students develop an interest in physics.
Session CC: Teaching Physics Online
Location: Skyline III
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges
Date: Tuesday, July 16
Time: 7:30–8:40 a.m.
Presider: Brian Holton
CC01:
7:30-7:40 a.m. The Effect of Online Lecture on
Performance in a Physics Class
Contributed – John Stewart, University of Arkansas, Physics Building, Fay-
etteville, AR 72701;
This talk will describe the difference in student performance between
students attending lecture in person and students choosing to watch the
lecture on video as part of an online class. The video part of the class was
implemented mid-semester so that the performance of the same set of
students could be compared. Video watching patterns will be presented.
The difference in performance of students primarily watching video to
those primarily attending lecture on in-semester examinations and the
Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism will be presented. The ef-
fect of the access to video on student study behavior and time management
will be analyzed. In general, while the students electing to primarily watch
video were a measurably different population than the students electing to
primarily attend lecture, the shift in performance from attending lecture to
watching video was small.
CC02:
7:40-7:50 a.m. Barriers to Effective Online Physics
Laboratory Courses*
Contributed – Ann M. Reagan, IEC Services, PO Box 22, Lusby, MD 20657;
Many barriers exist to providing laboratory content online, including facul-
ty acceptance, accreditation, student expectations, cost, liability, academic
integrity, accessibility, transferability, persistence rates, student privacy,
and a lack of objective assessment standards for evaluating the pedagogi-
cal effectiveness of lab courses. This study focuses on the transferability of
online lab credits between institutions of higher learning. Methodology
and results are given for a nationwide survey of 120 college/university
department chairs and transfer specialists assessing the transferability of
credits for laboratory courses delivered in various online formats. A pre-
liminary assessment is also made of the pedagogical effectiveness of each of
these online formats against the AAPT “Goals of the Introductory Physics
Laboratory” and the goals of laboratory experiences identified in the NRC
“America’s Lab Report.”
*See
pp 34-35 for descriptions of formats for delivery of online
lab content.
CC03:
7:50-8 a.m. Collaborative Online Experimentation and
Pooling Data with Google Docs
Contributed – Dean A. Zollman, Kansas State University, 116 Cardwell Hall,
Manhattan, KS 66506;
Adrian Madsen, Kansas State University
In some experiments or simulations collecting a large number of measure-
ments can be very helpful in understanding a concept. A difficulty arises
because repeating measurements many times by an individual student is
somewhat tedious. We have addressed this issue by asking each student
in a class to collect several points and then enter the results into a com-
mon Google spreadsheet. In one case the probabilistic nature of quantum
