June 6, 2024 Issue #30

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

• LaTeX 2024 Workshop June 14, 2024 from 2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
  In this free, virtual workshop, you will use LaTeX to write a solution to physics problems of your choice following an approach that has been used for  in a two semester introductory calculus-based physics course at a two-year college. This workshop is especially suited for anyone who is interested in helping their students use LaTeX as a tool to professional present their written work. Facilitator: Joe Heafner (Independent Scholar, Coordinator for OPTYCs Continuing Professional Development Workshops).

• LHC Physics In the Classroom  July 7, 2024 in Boston, MA. Join us at AAPT Summer Meeting for this co-sponsored workshop with QuarkNet.

• TEAM UP Together & Transfer Students: Supporting student transfer between two- and four-year institutions. July 7, 2024 in Boston, MA Join us at the AAPT Summer Meeting for this workshop to support transfer students.

• Integrating Computation into Your Intro Physics Class July 30, 2024-August 1, 2024  Join PICUP for this 3-day virtual workshop to develop a computation activity for use in your classroom. This workshop is a very basic primer on integrating computation into introductory courses with easy-to-use, readily available computational tools. No programming experience whatsoever is necessary to participate.

“Do not assume your students know how best to approach your course. Embed resources and assignments that help make how-to-succeed transparent to all students,” writes Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy in their book Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom (West Virginia University Press, 2022). This is the underlying principle behind their use of the word ‘structure’. They give some examples of a high-structure class, such as: making outside-of-class work mandatory (so as to encourage all students to do it, not just those who already know that preparation and practice are necessary to academic success); increasing difficulty level predictably, from pre-class work, to in-class work, and finally to post-class work (which allows students to experience opportunities for success at all points of a learning journey); and providing guidelines, expositing expectations, and allowing for many practice opportunities before summative evaluations (thus removing suppositions and assumptions that students are making). In fact, students reported spending less time studying in a high-structure class, but had improved learning gains, according to one study (Casper, Eddy, Freeman, 2019).  Another way to conceptualize a high-structure class format is that “the only burden on students [is] to learn the material, not to spend time on organizing course assignments or produce their own checklists.” Imagine that - students putting their energy into learning, rather than course administration!

Now Recruiting Educators for Polar STEAM  Polar STEAM is recruiting educators for 2025/2026 collaborations with polar researchers in creating educational resources about polar regions and science. Applications are open for Arctic and Antarctic deployments as well as virtual collaborations in both regions. This opportunity is open to community college and minority serving institution faculty, middle and high school educators, and informal educators. The deadline for applications is August 4, 2024. https://polarsteam.info/programs/

The SETI Institute’s NASA Community College Network (NCCN) is a major initiative to bring NASA Subject Matter Experts (SME), research findings, and science resources into the nation’s community college system. https://nccn.seti.org/#news

Designed for those who teach introductory physics at universities, colleges and high schools. Graduate credit will be available through the University of Oregon

https://visualizingenergy.org

Visualizing Energy communicates trustworthy information on the link between sustainable energy and human well-being to decision-makers, media, companies, advocates, educators, and the public. A project of the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS). 

Symmetry Series: Artificial Intelligence

Symmetry A joint FermiLab/SLAC publication explores the ways scientists are using artificial intelligence to advance particle physics and astrophysics in a collection of articles. View the full collection here

• 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.