Tag: books and articles

Perceptions of interdisciplinary critical thinking among biology and physics undergraduates – Review and thoughts

This is a collection of my thoughts from reading:

A. B. Heim, G. Lawrence, R. Agarwal, M. K. Smith, and N. G. Holmes, Perceptions of interdisciplinary critical thinking among biology and physics undergraduates, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 21, 010138 (2025).

The paper is available on the PaperCast at https://open.spotify.com/episode/394yVw46zKSA8gPYLKLaGh?si=7bb3c2173d9545aa

Structure

This post is a series of thoughts on different topics that arose as I read the paper.

Tasks as the basis of research as well as curricular design and sharing

Listening to this paper on interdisciplinary curricular design, one justification they mention for focusing on learning tasks is that tasks are a manageable level for curricular design research. Tasks are simpler than entire courses, and once designed, they can be sequenced into a full course. An additional argument is that approaching a course holistically is simply too complex. While I agree that designing a course by first defining overarching goals and objectives, then breaking those down by unit, and only then developing tasks to meet the established goals, is more complex, I believe it produces a much stronger result. My initial experience designing 131 is an example wherein I designed tasks first and then strung them together did not produce an effective course. Thus, while I recognize the value of research on tasks and understand why they serve as a convenient focal point for curricular design research, I struggle with the idea that tasks should be the starting point. This perspective connects with ideas I’ve been developing for my new graduate TA training system. Graduate TAs often focus on designing lectures and other tasks, but I want to encourage a more holistic perspective—thinking critically about course goals and objectives first. In summary, while I agree that tasks are a critical part of curricular design and a convenient unit of research, I do not believe they are an appropriate starting point. That approach feels backward to me. It’s like designing the perfect brick before knowing what you’re going to build. If you’re building a house, that brick might be useful. But if you’re building a boat, that perfect brick may not help—and trying to use it could result in a boat made of bricks, which is ineffective at best.

Physics education, especially for biology students and even engineers, is at a point where curriculum reconsideration may not be absolutely necessary, but is certainly warranted. We need to ask: what are we teaching, and why? This line of thinking is influenced by the Hake paper1, which emphasizes that active learning is where learning happens. However, active learning takes time. This means that designing a course requires hard decisions: what do you teach, and—more importantly—what do you drop? I would encourage others, as Redish2 does in his reconsideration of introductory physics for biologists, to start by digging into what you want students to learn and why—then move on to the tasks.

The “Earthworm Problem” as a Level-2 Problem

This is referring to

Alice Churukian, David Smith, Colin Wallace, Duane Deardorff, Daniel Young, and Laurie McNeil, Living Physics Portal: PALS Breathing Worms, https://www.livingphysicsportal.org/details/d7a0eea7-e6a5-4fb9-a644-c276ee0968bf.

Later in the same paper, they discuss the Nexus Physics curriculum’s well-known earthworm problem. This involves comparing oxygen absorption through the skin with oxygen usage in the body—a scaling law problem. Surface area scales with R², and volume with R³. For cylinders, surface area scales linearly with radius, and volume (or cross-sectional area) scales with R². This relationship is relevant here.

While the problem is solid in concept, I still find it somewhat lacking. Perhaps not inauthentic, but not as engaging as it could be. The main issue is that students are told exactly what to do: create this equation, graph that one, identify where the lines intersect. While this applies physics problem-solving techniques to a biological context—which the paper classifies as “level two”—I don’t like that the path is laid out so explicitly.

In my IPLS course, I want students to figure out how to approach problems. They may need some guidance, but ultimately, I want them to be able to look at a biological or chemical situation and apply physics tools independently. The goal is for them to encounter something in a biology or chemistry course and think, “I’ve seen something like this before in physics. I know how to use physics to better understand this phenomenon.”

Importantly, I want them to apply this reasoning to new contexts—not just replicate what we’ve done in class. That’s why my exams use novel scenarios. If they can look at something like bird vs. bumblebee flight and think about the role of Reynolds number, or apply physics when studying blood flow in chemistry or biology, then they’re doing what I hope they’ll do. If an instructor mentions the electrical properties of blood, they should be able to draw on physics problem-solving to deepen their understanding—not just memorize the concept.

So, while the earthworm problem has value, I believe it would be stronger as a more open-ended task. For example: “Why do earthworms have limited cross-sectional area per unit length?” Something that invites critical thinking, not just procedural execution.

Presumed Uniformity of Introductory Biology Curricula

I also want to mention another critique of the paper: its assumption about the universality of biology curricula. In adapting Nexus materials at UMass Amherst, I’ve found that our students arrive in IPLS with different backgrounds than those at the University of Maryland. This makes me wonder whether biology curricula vary more than physics curricula across the country.

My conversations with biology colleagues suggest that variation exists even within UMass. For example, Laura Francis emphasizes a mechanistic and quantitative approach, while Caleb Rounds focuses on data literacy and graph interpretation. Others still follow a more traditional memorization-based approach. These differences suggest limitations in the universal applicability of the paper’s ideas.

For this reason, I believe authentic IPLS development requires close collaboration with local biology and chemistry faculty. These partnerships help align course design with the actual experiences of students. A good example is how my focus on HOMO-LUMO transitions in organic chemistry—used to motivate quantum mechanics—emerged from conversations with Laura. Using shared language and figures, and teaching this content simultaneously in chemistry and physics, reinforces its authenticity for students.

In short, one must be cautious when trying to generalize IPLS implementations from one institution to another. Biology prerequisites and emphasis vary, and effective course design must reflect this.

The Importance of Language in Problem Authorship

Another interesting example from the paper involves two different prompts for protein unfolding. The first is essentially a physics problem imposed on a biological context—no more authentic than a cheetah chasing an antelope. While it might be fun, it doesn’t feel authentic to many students, and in my experience, some even resent such forced pairings.

The second prompt, involving the energy landscape, feels much more authentic. In addition to structural differences, a key factor is the use of biologically native language. This aligns with ideas from my mutual mentoring work: authenticity is enhanced when you speak the language of the students.

This is something that I find missing in many IPLS discussions. Language and conventions matter. For example, I used to describe HOMO-LUMO transitions as “excitation from ground to first excited state”—the physicist’s language. Calling it a HOMO-LUMO transition, though, immediately felt more authentic to students. I don’t have hard data to support this, but my classroom experience strongly suggests it helps.

The Value of Level-One Tasks

One final point: what the paper calls “level one” tasks can actually be counterproductive. Many students are perceptive. They recognize when a problem is a forced attempt to make physics seem relevant. When it feels fake, they may conclude that physics has nothing to offer biology. In fact, the paper eventually makes this same point.

What I’ve found effective are tasks where students can draw relevant biological, chemical, or medical conclusions. For example, calculating eyeglass prescriptions based on eyeball size, predicting absorption lines of organic molecules, or solving for a 70 mV membrane potential. These are meaningful, relevant facts, but students often don’t know their origins. When they see physics helping them understand such concepts, engagement increases.

  1. R. R. Hake, Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses, American Journal of Physics 66, 64 (1998). ↩︎
  2. E. F. Redish et al., NEXUS/Physics: An interdisciplinary repurposing of physics for biologists, American Journal of Physics 82, 368 (2014). ↩︎

Structuring groups for gender equitable equipment usage in labs – Review

These are my thoughts on

M. Dew, E. M. Stump, and N. G. Holmes, Structuring groups for gender equitable equipment usage in labs, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 21, 010162 (2025).

Listenable on the PaperCast at https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ZG4lZH9dXpUHODtij31Bo?si=bbb689ca533640f4

I would like to examine some of the citations within the introduction. Also, the paper does not discuss the alternative educational goal for a first-semester mechanics lab: cohort formation, which is why we rotate groups. I would be curious to see the impact of semester-long groups on this cohort formation process. However, I am already starting to think that, first, forming our own groups as we currently do is the best approach, and second, that some sort of final exam at the end is almost certainly beneficial. The authors indicate that even in some other studies with group formation that resulted in equitable equipment usage, there was still inequitable computer usage. This phenomenon of inequitable computer usage is definitely something I have observed in the Physics 181 lab. Therefore, some sort of lab practical involving computer usage along with other basic skills seems helpful in establishing equitable use.

Following up, I think there is value in asking students to list people with whom they would like to work, as well as those with whom they would prefer not to be partnered. Finally, I do like the question of whether they would prefer to be in a majority-woman group, a majority-man group, or have no preference. The self-described category will be difficult to manage because of the numbers. We will need to think about an effective way to address that.

The paper seems to suggest that rotating groups is generally detrimental to equitable equipment usage. However, they cite a prior paper by the same author that shows this effect can be mitigated by using partner agreements in conjunction with a lab practical exam. I have already considered implementing a lab practical exam for the 181 lab this coming semester. I also see some value, particularly in the first semester, in rotating groups to facilitate cohort cohesion. Moreover, my groups remain the same for three weeks, as opposed to the two-week duration used in this study. It seems to me that the most optimal system for my particular course and goals would be to rotate groups every experiment—that is, every three weeks—and to include some time at the beginning for a partner agreement. Teaching students how to create and use partner agreements also has value beyond the 181 lab. These students will be working in pairs and groups throughout their undergraduate curriculum, so teaching them how to facilitate those interactions is, in itself, a valuable skill.

In short, I believe the best solution is fixed groups, which I was already planning to implement, combined with partner agreements. I should look up that earlier paper and see exactly how those partner agreements were structured, along with incorporating the lab practical I was already considering.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Review and Application to 13X

I have been reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions1, and, while dated, I found it quite interesting. I would love to hear the thoughts of a colleague from psychology or sociology. I feel that many of his thoughts and conclusions suffered from, essentially, selection bias as a former practicing physicist: many of his examples are drawn from the history of physics and the adjacent sciences of chemistry and astronomy with few from biology and even fewer from further afield.

However, I did find one thought potentially relevant for my interdisciplinary work with 131 and 132: the question of “Is helium a molecule?” In the text, the author asserts that physicists and chemists gave different answers to this question. A chemist says yes because it behaves like a molecule on the kinetic theory of gases. A physicist, on the other hand, may not say that it is a molecule because it does not possess the interatomic bonds necessary for molecular Construction. This is a cool example and citation for our discussion on different ways of knowing between the different Sciences.

  1. T. S. Kuhn and I. Hacking, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition (University of Chicago Press, Chicago ; London, 2012). ↩︎

Incorporating Student Choice into IPLS

Listening to the most recent paper-cast episode on student choice has given me some good ideas. This paper makes a very good case for providing students with choices of additional work beyond that which is mandatory. One way this could be done in 131 and 132 is by allowing for the option of Perusall comments within the textbook. This would allow students to opt in to the Perusall, an assignment which I believe to be valuable, but has traditionally been divisive. Perhaps that would encourage more detailed reading along with the homework.

Another idea would be for students to turn in additional practice problems. Many students request that I collect the additional practice problems for a grade. I have traditionally not done as an acknowledgement of the amount of work required for preparation in these flipped courses. However, if students can opt in to that assignment, then my concern is rendered moot.

Of course we wouldn’t be able to grade all of the problems. However we might be able to do a grade a subset or allow students to you know choose to turn in a certain number and we will grade a subset of that or some combination. For example we could require students to turn in a total of 10 problems with you know at least two from each worksheet by the end of the unit we would then grade five of these 10 on a 0-1-2-3 type scale.

In terms of the overall course grade distribution, we currently have a small percentage dedicated to the metacognitive journals which I also believe to be valuable but are, again, divisive. Some students find them quite valuable, but others see it as busy work. I suspect this is mostly a reflection of the amount of time students’ spend on it. However, I could make that percentage a student choice: they could choose for that portion of the grade to be one of these assignments. Perhaps even allowing for some switching over the course of the semester on a unit-by-unit basis. Students would then have the option of choosing an activity that best supports their learning, or they could choose to do none of these activities and have that additional portion of the grade just be reallocated to the standard preparatory homework or something to that effect.

Thoughts on A Case for Domain-Specific Curiosity in Mathematics

I recently finished listening to this review on curiosity in mathematics forwarded to me by Bethany Lisi at the University of Massachusetts Center for Teaching and Learning. As I read I’ve had some thoughts: 

First: The distinction between curiosity and confusion and frustration is important:

  1. In curiosity a solution is visible even if not immediately visible one can see how to approach the solution. 
  2. In confusion, one doesn’t see exactly how to get to a solution but believes that it is possible. 
  3. In frustration one doesn’t even have enough information to begin to see how a solution is possible. 

This is very important for the instruction of physics as well because students often report feeling confusion or frustration when what I’m really going for is curiosity. A key to making to helping students with this transition could be making sure that they have sufficient information to approach the problem, and letting them know about these different distinctions themselves because of course I can’t possibly provide enough information for everyone all the time.

Another important thought from the paper is that students generally believe that any math problem math homework problem should be solvable in 2 minutes. Furthermore, the amount of time that they report being willing to spend on a problem before giving up is somewhere between 11:00 and 12 minutes this is an important thing to begin to address particularly for 131 students but also for my physics 181 lab. It is really important to know that many students have this expectation in fact it might be worth asking them what their expectation is and clarifying how much time they should spend on various problems. However, if you do that you need to make sure that your homework assignments reflect that time expectation. I think, I’m going to ask faculty graduate students and my new undergrads how much who are Majors how much time they think they should spend in designing an experiment before giving up before they think that that path of exploration is in fact ultimately fruitless. If I can get this information before class on Friday then I could fold it in to my lecture.