Brokk Toggerson, Chris Ertl, David Nguyen, and Jake Shechter are currently presenting their work at the AAPT Summer 2018 Meeting in Washington, DC.
Chris Ertl, is presenting on the fully-online labs he has been developing for the online versions of Physics 131 and 132.
Brokk Toggerson is presenting a poster on Physics 131, a poster on P132, and a presentation on P390T.
Jake Shecter is presenting on Physics 691 on Graduate TA Training and Professionalization.
In the development of Physics 131, we have been working backwards: refining the course starting with the last unit on entropy and then moving towards the start of the semester. Due to this approach, our first two units on the mathematical foundations of physics and forces are now our weakest two units. Moreover, Unit 3 – Forces and… covers a LOT of material: impulse, work, and torque. One of our (many!) goals for the summer is then to revamp these first two units – hopefully making the labs a more valuable experience at the same time. One of the big guiding principles of this revamp is to use the idea of expansive framing described in Engle et al [1].
Is there a sense in which IPLS courses like Phys 131 and 132 here at UMass, are courses with diversity as a central component? A recent meeting of my Teaching for Inclusivity, Diversity, and Equity Fellowship which had Including Aspects of Identity in Course Design as the theme, got me thinking about this question.
Continue reading Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) as a Diversity Course?
Brokk Toggerson, along with Lara Al Hariri, Caleb Rounds, and Adena Calden have been awarded a Mutual Mentoring Grant by the UMass-Amherst Institute for Teaching Excellence and Faculty Development (TEFD) to develop a mutual mentoring network to connect the, predominantly junior, faculty who are responsible for teaching the introductory sequence of courses for life-science majors. This collaboration would be truly interdisciplinary connecting faculty from biology, chemistry, physics, math, and kinesiology. The mentoring network will strive to develop a curriculum that is aligned both in content and skills, thereby helping students develop the tools of knowledge transfer and interdisciplinary thinking critical for a modern workforce. In addition, the network will also share pedagogical best practices particular to large-enrollment STEM courses.
Congrats to the group!
I just gave the second midterm in my P132 course covering physical/wave optics and electrostatics with a few questions on the previous material of quantum mechanics and geometric optics. One of the comments I often see when I ask students to reflect on their preparation is along the lines of, “I did all the extra practice problems but still did poorly on the exam.” When I ask these students one-on-one about their study habits, it seems that often, while they do try every problem, their procedure when they get stuck is inefficient.
Continue reading Getting students to solve problems effectively