September 6, 2023 Issue #14

SPOTLIGHT is the OPTYCs bi-weekly newsletter. It brings you OPTYCs activity updates, highlights from recent publications related to physics education, and news & resources for Two-Year colleges.

Upcoming events

• Workshop: STEP-UP: Careers in Physics September 9, 2023 from 12:00pm-1:30pm EDT.
  Learn how to implement the STEP-UP lesson on Careers in Physics. 

• Workshop: How Your Values Affect Classroom Experience September 15, 2023 from 3:30pm-5:00pm EDT. Explore your values and how they guide your teaching and your students' experiences

• PER Journal Club Discussion September 22, 2023 from 3:00pm-4:00pm EDT
  Join us to share what you do in labs in this discussion about best practices.

• PER Journal Club Discussion October 27, 2023 from 3:00pm-4:00pm EDT
  Join us to talk about physics for life sciences.

Announcements

• SPOTLIGHT is planning to add a section named "Reader's corner" that will feature contributions from readers. Please consider sharing comments, tips, ideas, resources you have come across or anything that you think might benefit your physics TYC colleagues.
  Contact me directly if you have any question or suggestion: karim.diff@sfcollege.edu

OPTYCs Programs

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Change Teams: The goal for this two-year-long program is to create a capacity-building learning community among two-year college physics-related teaching instructors to support efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion for our students. We are now accepting applications for Cohort 1 (until Oct. 20, 2023).
• OPTYCs Leadership Institute 2024: The TYC Leadership Institute is an innovative fellowship specially designed for Two-Year College Physics faculty, aiming to develop and enhance their leadership skills. The application deadline is October 20, 2023.

Is your classroom a ‘thinking’ classroom - one where students’ brains are engaged in the hard task of learning? Chances are high that it is not. In his book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics (Corwin - Sage Publishing, 2021) education researcher Peter Liljedahl summarizes years of research into K-12 math classes, and offers radical approaches to disrupt the status quo. The first few chapters of this book highlight the uniformity of classroom experiences. Nearly all classrooms look the same: neat rows of desks all facing a ‘front’, where the educator and visual aid devices are located. This triggers automatic responses in students: studenting behavior. 

Changing the structure of your space helps. As much as possible, group students together, preferably standing, around vertical non-permanent writing surfaces, and be sure you are not standing at the designated front of the classroom. Even simply by not being at the front of the classroom signals to students that this is a different space than they were expecting, and is likely to disrupt their habitual behaviors. 

You can listen to Peter Liljedahl in these Math Moment Interviews

Announcements

Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges

First zoom gathering of Fall 2023 for friends and members of the AAPT Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges.
Topic of discussion "Increasing the sense of belonging in Physics students, a few strategies.”
Time: Sep 8, 2023 12:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join the Zoom Meeting: https://smc-edu.zoom.us/j/84668010285
Meeting ID: 846 6801 0285

Collaboration opportunity

Benjamin Pollard from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute is interested in finding collaborators from the TYC community on research on alternative grading strategies in physics. If you missed his presentation at the TANDEM meeting this summer in Sacramento on Ungrading you can watch this short video. You can contact him at bpollard@wpi.edu

Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP)

Community college students are highly encouraged to apply to the APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) on January 19-21, 2024. Applications are now open and will close on October 23, 2023.
For more information Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics

• This set of videos from the well known YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown explores the effect of sugar on the polarization of light and provides amazing visualizations of the radiation field from accelerating electric charges.
• Restructuring Classes Can Level the Playing Field: A study of university-level physics classes shows that changes in course structure can help to eliminate grade gaps between student groups with different races, ethnicities, or genders.
  
• American Journal of Physics: The September issue includes a Special collection on the environment, sustainability, and climate change.

• The American Association of Physics Teachers 
• Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges (AAPT area committee)
• Join the TYC Google group: Send an email to tycphysics@googlegroups.com
• PhysPort Recommendations about teaching methods, assessment, and results from PER
• PER Central A resource collection for physics education researchers 
• Physics Review Physics Education Research Fully open access journal for PER 
• arXiv Physics education The arXiv repository for physics education papers
• AIP Statistical Research Center Data on education, careers, and diversity in physics, astronomy and other physical sciences

optycs.aapt.org

The work of OPTYCs is supported by NSF-DUE-2212807.