February 7, 2024 Issue #23

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

• ISLE 2024 Workshop  February 10, 2024 from 1:00pm- 5:00pm EST In this (free and virtual) workshop, you will experience learning physics through the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach. The ISLE approach helps students learn physics and develop confidence that they can do it by engaging in activities that mirror scientific practice. Facilitators: Eugenia Etkina (Rutgers University) and Anna Karelina (Saint Mary's College of California)

• Energy First 2024 Workshop  February 21, 2024 from 4:00pm- 6:00pm EST
  In the Energy-First physics curriculum, energy is the starting point for the rest of the course. In this workshop, you will learn more about this approach, available supporting materials, and how you can implement it in your courses. Facilitator: Chris Fischer (University of Kansas)
  

• Scientific Reasoning Labs 2024 Workshop  March 1, 2024 from 3:00pm- 6:00pm EST
  In this free, virtual workshop, you will learn about a set of introductory college-level physics labs that help students develop scientific reasoning skills. Facilitators: Kathy Koenig (Univ. Cincinnati) and Krista Wood (Univ. Cincinnati - Blue Ash College)

• Parallel Pedagogy 2024 Workshop April 27, 2024 from 12:00pm- 2:00pm EST
  Parallel Pedagogy is a curriculum that introduces core concepts simultaneously, helping students apply physics to different scenarios. This workshop is intended for anyone interested in curricular changes that guide students away from approaching problem-solving as plug-and-chug problems and towards improved applications of physics concepts. Facilitators  Dean Stocker (University of Cincinnati - Blue Ash College) Pete Schwartz (California Polytechnic State University) Jennifer Klay (California Polytechnic State University)

Recent OPTYCs events

• January 26, 2024 Teaching Fields 

“Why do yellow and green refract more than blue on the OPTYCs logo?” asks Joe Farrell, via the OPTYCs website’s Contact Us . Good question! We didn’t think much on this, to be honest, when we devised the logo - we just liked the way the colours worked. But, it is counter to refraction of light that we teach: the frequency-dependent dispersion is a natural phenomenon, with higher energy light being more refracted. However, metamaterials have been engineered to reverse this phenomenon; these negative-dispersion materials can be used to counteract natural dispersion, say in optical fibres (e.g. D. R. Smith et al., Metamaterials and Negative Refractive Index. Science 305,788-792(2004). DOI:10.1126/science.1096796). This got me thinking about the OPTYCs logo, and the place OPTYCs might have within the greater physics community. If we think of the status quo as a ‘regular’ material, then OPTYCs, with its negative dispersion, is designed to act counter to the existing state. OPTYCs is designed to help reduce systemic effects, focus efforts, and bring people together, thus countering the physics status quo. Thanks, Joe, for this inspiration! I like this take on what OPTYCs is and can do for the physics community, and I hope it resonates with all of you as well!

Source: https://ww2.aip.org/statistics/whos-hiring-physics-bachelors

Related article: Science experiments and endless enthusiasm led a physics professor to TikTok stardom

From Quanta Magazine

• 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.