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TOP02: Topical Discussion: Trouble-
shooting Apparatus
Location: STSS 420B
Sponsor: Committee on Apparatus
Date: Monday, July 28
Time: 12–1:30 p.m.
Presider: Luke Donforth
If you have lab equipment that doesn’t work or makes you believe in pol-
tergeists, if you have a new use for old equipment that you want to share, or
if you have stuff in storage you can’t even identify, bring pictures and we’ll
have a roundtable discussion on keeping the objects of hands-on education
functional.
TOP03: Topical Discussion: Physics
and Society
Location: Tate Lab 210
Sponsor: Committee on Science Education for the Public
Date: Monday, July, 28’
Time: 12–1:30 p.m.
Presider: Brian Jones
Join your colleagues for an informal discussion about physics-related
societal issues such as climate change, energy use, nuclear power, nuclear
weapons, resource extraction, and pseudoscience. Share your ideas about
effectively teaching these issues and communicating such information to
the general public, and hear what others are doing as well.
TOP04: Topical Discussion: PER Solo
Faculty
Location: STSS 432A
Sponsor: Committee on Research in Physics Education
Co-Sponsor: Committee on Professional Concerns
Date: Monday, July, 28
Time: 12–1:30 p.m.
Presider: Steve Maier
Are you the only professional active in PER within your department? Are
there only one or two colleagues in close proximity you can talk “PER
shop” with? The membership of Solo PER is larger than you may think, and
more diverse than most suspect. Join us for this crackerbarrel to connect
with other Solo PER professionals and learn what is being done to help
our/your endeavors. As in the past, bring questions, ideas, and professional
concerns to share.
TOP01: Topical Discussion: YouTube
Share-a-thon
Location: Tate Lab 210
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in High Schools
Date: Monday, July, 28
Time: 1:30–3 p.m.
Presider: Dean Baird
Show us a favorite YouTube video for use in physics instruction. And tell us
how you use it. We’ll have a computer connected to the Internet, a projec-
tor and speakers. You bring the video’s web address and, say, 50 copies of
curriculum materials you use with the video (or a URL for the PDF). This
session is always great fun in addition to being a treasure-trove of instruc-
tional gems; laughter is guaranteed!
Session BA: Panel – MOOCs and You
Location: STSS 312
Sponsor: Committee on Educational Technologies
Date: Monday, July 28
Time: 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Presider: Saif Rayyan
We’ll cut through the hype about MOOCs (Massive Open Online
Courses) to present what physics teachers and education research-
ers might want to know about them: What MOOCs are available
in physics? How are they different? What are the implications of
MOOCs on introductory physics offerings? How can you blend
one with your on-campus course? Do people learn anything in
them, what insights offered for teaching on-campus courses, and
what opportunities do they offer to the education research com-
munity? This panel will provide an overview of MOOCs, short
contributions by people who’ve run Physics MOOCs, followed by
questions and discussion.
BA01:
1:30-3:30 p.m. From Online to Blended: Making the
Transition
Panel – John W. Belcher, MIT, Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139;
Saif Rayan, Peter Dourmashkin, Lori Breslow, MIT
The MIT Physics Department has offered two edX MOOCs based on our
introductory physics courses in mechanics and electromagnetism. The
department built these online offerings around the 35 recordings of Profes-
sor Walter Lewin’s lectures in each subject, complete and in sequence. Each
course had about 30,000 initial registrants, with about 2000 certificates
granted. The structure of the online courses paralleled that of the resi-
dential course. Based on our experience in building these courses online,
we are now using the same platform in residential education at MIT to
provide resources to students, in a blended approach. The key to realizing
the potential of technology in education is the collaboration of experts in
teaching and learning, educational researchers, computer scientists, and
disciplinary specialists, and we have assembled such a team to guide us in
our residential use of the edX platform, as we will discuss.
BA02:
1:30-3:30 p.m. Affordances of MOOCs and Humans:
A Study Comparing in-person and MOOC Offering In-
struction in Physics 1
Panel – Noah D. Finkelstein, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 390- Dept.
of Physics, Boulder, CO 80309;
Michael Dubson, Katherine Goodman, Edmond Johnsen, Jack Olsen, Univer-
sity of Colorado Boulder
David Lieberman, Queensborough College
With all the attention to MOOCs, in fall 2013 we set out to explore this
space, create and offer a MOOC, and to conduct a research study on how
it was offered, how it was used, and the impacts on student learning and
participation. Physics 1 for Physical Science Majors was simultaneously
offered through Coursera and to a live class. Through a variety of measures
(of student learning, participation, demographics), we found a variety of
take-home messages from these various media. We find that this MOOC:
supported participants in different ways (pedagogically, temporally, and
geographically), demonstrated that students can learn in these environ-
ments, addressed different audiences, tended to select for high- performing
(well-prepared) students, limited potential forms interactivity, and caused
significant consternation at the university administrative level. Many more
details will be found in Dubson’s talk Wednesday afternoon. In this session,
we seek to engage in a(n evidence-based) discussion, based on community
interest [the YOU part] on: how to run, lessons learned, opportunities /
concerns, politics, research studies needed and more.
Monday afternoon
