OPTYCs SPOTLIGHT 2025 Issue 45
March 27, 2025 Issue #45
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.
OPTYCs News
Upcoming events
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TEAM UP Scholars Program - REU Opportunity in Illinois -
Are your students interested in doing physics or engineering related research? The Illinois TEAM-UP Scholars Program is designed specifically for TYC students. The program brings together a cohort of students for an intensive, paid in-person training July 2025, supporting students virtually with continued training and preparation throughout the academic year, with a research experience for Summer 2026. Join us to learn more about this opportunity. -
Learning Assistants Programs - Classes with LAs have been shown to improve conceptual understanding and course pass rates. The number of LA programs at two-year colleges (TYCs) is growing. Join us in this interactive session to learn about LA programs, and hear from TYC faculty who have incorporated LAs into their teaching toolkit. Facilitators: Jim Rabchuk (Oakton Community College, IL), Mel Sabella (Chicago State University, IL)
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Aurora Magnetic Fields 2025 - This workshop will use aurora and associated data as a way to teach about magnetic fields. The auroral currents in the ionosphere will be modelled as current-carrying wires. We will work with Biot and Savart’s law, with wires with current, and with the right hand rule. Real field data from auroral were obtained from the Magnetic Observatory Network. Facilitator: Francesca Viale (Northern Virginia Community College, VA)
Recent events
Supporting Physics Education with Gameplay (March 14, 2025)
Kris’ corner
Tips, summaries, and musings from Kris Lui (OPTYCs Director).
In her book Teach Students How to Learn (Stylus Publishing, 2015), Sandra McGuire addresses the age-old question of “Why don’t our students already know how to learn?” Many students haven’t needed to learn in order to get sufficiently high grades. (See my blurb on ‘studenting’ from Issue #13, with thanks to Peter Liljedahl.) As well, there is the fallacy that most people believe they are smarter than average, and thus don’t need to learn how to learn. So to excel academically only requires innate intelligence. To be effective teachers, we must believe that learning is a fundamental skill that we can hone and grow. After all, none of us were born knowing how to walk or read or speak or do the many daily tasks that come automatically to us now. McGuire’s book includes a wide variety of tools, tips, and strategies that have been shown to positively and significantly transform student performance in college level classes by explicitly explaining to students how to learn. “Students are creative in their innocent and often unknowing attempts to avoid learning, so we must be very specific about what we want students to do.” The process begins with some metacognition, facilitated by sharing Bloom’s Taxonomy for learning. Asking students to explore the difference between ‘studying’ and ‘learning’, and having them realize for themselves that they have been in the mode of ‘studying’ instead of ‘learning’ is powerful.
Resources
- 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
The work of OPTYCs is supported by NSF-DUE-2212807.
