The Integration of Computation via Spreadsheets

As mentioned in the section describing Unit III: Space & Time on the page describing the specifically life-science attributes of the course, I also have integrated computation throughout Physics 131. The ultimate aim is that, by the end of the course, students will be able to write a numerical simulation of an object with

• The relevant forces in each direction as a function of time and other kinematic quantities.
• A complete numerical integration of the kinematic quantities based on these forces.

Spreadsheets as a Programming Platform

These students build their simulations in spreadsheets. I teach using Google Sheets, but students are free to use any spreadsheet program they like and are explicitly told that almost everything we do will work the same in any program.

The choice of spreadsheets, as opposed to Python for example, was based on “market research” with the relevant client departments. I learned that these same students use spreadsheets for data analysis in some of their later advanced biology labs.

The importance of integration to Kinesiology

The biggest surprise for me was the importance of numerical integration to the about 20% of our students who are kinesiology majors. When I spoke to academic advisors from that department in January 2023, they indicated an immediate unanimous and strong preference for physics teaching spreadsheet-based numerical integration even if it was at the expense of static torque!

I was truly shocked by this preference. In fact, the entire reason I had kept static torque in the curriculum up to that point was for the kinesiology majors under the, apparently mistaken, impression that this would be the most important topic for these students. However, the academic advisors said, “you teach them to simulate, we’ll teach them torque.” The justification was that simulation was critically important and more difficult to master than static torque. Thus, an earlier exposure to the principles of simulation would be most useful.

Making Sure Students Are Ready to Simulate: Integrate it Throughout the Curriculum

When I began to incorporate numerical simulation, it was as a single stand-alone unit. However, such a structure was highly ineffectual. Many 131 students have low computational self-efficacy with phrases such as “I’m not a computer person” being frequent. Moreover, many 131 students do not see the importance of computation to either a physics class or to their major course of study more broadly. These sentiments were also made clear via statements such as, “Why are we learning spreadsheets? and “why are we doing this in a physics course?” As a consequence of these incoming perceptions, many students would simply decide to not try and just “take the loss on this one.” Such a strategy was possible, with minimal impact on a students’ final grade, due to the inclusion of computation as a single one-off stand-alone unit. 

Even students who were committed to learning the material often struggled. During the simulation unit, students would often be focusing on the logistics of spreadsheet usage, how to add etc., instead of focusing on using simulations to enhance physics knowledge.

In order to address these challenges two changes were made. First, computation was more thoroughly integrated into the curriculum starting with exploring the consequences of increasing the number of particles in a system on that system’s entropy. The second key innovation was requiring the use of spreadsheets instead of calculators throughout the course. Students are taught the basic functions in their preparation as needed and then must use these functions on the beginning-of-unit quizzes as well as on exams. Thanks to these strategies, students are much better prepared for the thorough use of simulation when we get to that unit, and are capable of using these tools to deepen their understanding of the relevant physics. As visible in the poster, this approach of requiring spreadsheets-as-calculators is quite unpopular at the semester’s start, but grows to be generally recognized as the most useful skill learned by end-of-course evaluations.