The custom open textbook Physics 132: What is Light? What is an Electron? was just finished yesterday and is currently being used for Physics 132 this semester! Thanks to Emily Hansen for all of her hard work to help bring this to completion.
Continue reading Finished Physics 132 Textbook!Tag: 132
Brokk’s reflections on AAPT Summer Meeting 2018
During my AAPT SM18 experience, I focused on presentations and posters from three main areas in which I have deep personal interest: IPLS/curriculum development, diversity/equity in physics, and self-efficacy/attitudes. In addition, I attended several sessions related to areas of interest for our department, specifically on integrating computation through the curriculum. In this post, I will synthesize and reflect on my take-aways from the conference. I saw a lot of good talks. As such, this post is somewhat long.
Continue reading Brokk’s reflections on AAPT Summer Meeting 2018
UMass-Amherst Goes to AAPT SM18!
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.
Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) as a Diversity Course?
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?
Getting students to solve problems effectively
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