OPTYCs SPOTLIGHT 2025 Issue 48
May 8, 2025 Issue #48
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
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Please take our annual participant survey You are being asked to complete this survey because you have participated in the Organization for Two-Year College Physics (OPTYCs; optycs.aapt.org). Your responses are very valuable for OPTYCs as the project leaders work to ensure that the activities are valuable for the two-year college (TYC) physics and astronomy communities. This survey is being sent just once per year to minimize your time. |
Upcoming events
- The Physics of Climate Change 2025 - Gabriel Rios, Dr. Jhordanne Jones, Sheila Cáceres, Dr. Veeshan Narinesingh
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Hands-On Quantum: Teaching Core Quantum Concepts with Bloch Cubes -
- Quantum Or Not 2025 - This session, brought to you by the Perimeter Institute, will explore a hands-on classroom activity that engages students and introduces them to the key principles of quantum physics: uncertainty, superposition, entanglement, and wave-particle duality. The mathematics in this activity is minimal and only involves basic algebra. Facilitator: Damien Pope (Perimeter Institute)
Recent events
Resources and Programs for Educators and Students from the NRAO (May 02, 2025)
Kris’ corner
Tips, summaries, and musings from Kris Lui (OPTYCs Director).
Sandra McGuire describes the Study Cycle in her book Teach Students How to Learn (Stylus Publishing, 2015), advocating it as a near-guaranteed method to improve academic performance. The Study Cycle requires: Preview, Attendance, Review, Intense Study, and Assessment. Before class, students PREVIEW the material by taking about 10 minutes to skim the relevant chapter or notes, highlighting some key terms or processes, as a way to prime their brains for learning. Class ATTENDANCE is necessary and requires active participation by taking notes in their own words. As soon as possible after class, REVIEW those notes, fill in any gaps, and note any areas of uncertainty. The INTENSE STUDY SESSION involves goal setting (What does the student want to learn/accomplish/master?), followed by a 30-45 minute period of practicing (or reading or organizing, depending on their goal), then a 10 minute break, and finally taking a few minutes to review what they did or learned in that cycle. McGuire urges students to do many of these 1-hour intense study sessions every week. Finally, students conduct a self ASSESSMENT by asking themselves if they could teach the topic to someone else or if they could do similar problems without any help. While this study cycle may seem obvious to us, many of our students have long equated ‘reading’ with ‘learning’, that if something appears familiar, then they have mastered it. What they haven’t yet grasped is that familiarity is only the first step; being able solve their homework problems without the use of any external resources and in a limited time is the ultimate gauge of whether they are prepared for their next assessment.
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.
