September 11, 2025 Issue #51

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

During the 2025-2026 academic year, we are offering a series of presentation-discussion-workshops to share some of the many research-validated assessment instruments used in the physics education community. Join us to learn how you can use these instruments to inform your teaching, to assess your students' learning, and to contribute to a wider body of knowledge about physics students at two-year colleges.

Upcoming events

• Quantum Or Not 2025 September 12, 2025 from 2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
  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)

• Mechanics Assessments 2025 September 26, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
  The FCI, FMCE, and MBT are some of the oldest recognized concept inventories in Physics Education Research. Their impact stretches back to late 1900’s and their legacy includes continuing to shape contemporary research questions. In this talk, we will cover the history of these instruments, their domains and applicability, the advantages of each, and explore some valuable critiques. Additionally, we discuss how to use (and not to use) these instruments to inform decisions about one’s day-to-day teaching. Facilitator: Jeffrey Marx (McDaniel College)

• AI Grading 2025 September 27, 2025 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
  Discover how AI-powered grading can revolutionize your physics teaching practice in this engaging 2-hour workshop. Using ScoreWise AI as our primary tool, participants will explore how machine learning can provide faster, more consistent, and more detailed feedback on student work across mechanics, electricity & magnetism, and other core physics topics. Facilitator: Jeremy Durelle (Northeast Iowa CC)
  

• CSEM 2025 October 24, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
  Using the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism. Description Forthcoming
  Facilitators: Tom O'Kuma (Lee College), Dwain Desbien (Estrella Mountain CC), Brian Lee (Santa Fe College)
  

• MAPS 2025 November 21, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
  Minnesota Assessment of Problem-Solving
  Description forthcoming.
  Jennifer Docktor (University of Wisconsin La Crosse)

• CDPA 2025 December 5, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
  Concise Data Processing Assessment
  The Concise Data Processing Assessment (CDPA) is a ten-question, multiple-choice diagnostic designed to measure students’ abilities with measurement, uncertainty, and data handling—skills essential in any physics or astronomy lab. This session will provide an overview of the CDPA’s purpose, what it can and cannot reveal about student learning, practical tips for implementation and interpretation.
  Facilitator: James Day (University of British Columbia)

Recent events

Teaching Quantum Cryptography Workshop (August 16, 2025)

Research-Based Assessment Instruments (PER Interest Group Discussion) (September 25, 2025)

Why do you assign and grade homework? When I started teaching, I assigned homework because, as a student, I had been assigned homework. Being a diligent student, I completed all my homework assignments and earned good grades. However, looking back, I realize that I rarely learned anything from doing homework - it was another box to be checked off. Likely, that makes me seem like a poor student; certainly, I was not terribly efficient at learning. However, I was very efficient at getting the points necessary to get a good final grade.

Reflecting on these ideas, I gradually moved away from collecting and grading homework. I assigned practice questions, and asked students to work on them. I provided my own hand-written solutions, organized in the format I wanted my students to use. My students were encouraged to try the assigned questions - or other questions that seemed interesting to them - and stop by to ask me questions if they got stuck. I explained that I did not grade homework because these assignments were for students to check on their own understanding, and to seek hints and help where they needed it. I made it explicit that homework was for their benefit.

I certainly have no delusions that all of my students did this, but many of my students expressed appreciation for this attitude towards homework. With time, I learned to be more explicit about how one might use homework as a learning tool - to document what main concepts were relevant to a problem, to articulate when you were stuck and what was the aha moment that helped you get unstuck. These were tips I wish I had had as a student working through my homework assignments!

Convince students to use homework to test themselves. Ask students if they would rather make the mistakes while doing homework, or on the test? Because mistakes will be made.  As Sandra McGuire writes in her book Teach Students How to Learn (Stylus Publishing, 2015), “If students want to ace the real exam, they should practice first.” (p.57) And what better way to practice than through homework assignments?

Part of Physicists To-Go, the Quantum To-Go program matches quantum science professionals with educators seeking to introduce students the concepts and opportunities in quantum science and technology. Teachers can request a quantum professional to visit for biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering, and more. Register 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