October 9, 2025 Issue #52

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.

You can find a list of upcoming events and of the recordings of past events on the OPTYCs calendar.

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

• Demos 2025 October 17, 2025 from 3:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
  During this workshop, you will see some of my favorite demos, some which are listed in the PIRA200, which we’ll touch on, and others are just plain cool. We can talk about proper presentation of demonstrations so students can make maximal learning gains from that precious use of class time.
  Facilitator: Sam Sampere (Syracuse University) 

• CSEM 2025 October 24, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
  In this presentation, how the CSEM was created will be discussed.  Also discussed by the presenters will be how they use the CSEM in their introductory physics courses and their institutions.  The results for the CSEM will be discussed from a variety of institutions and how those results are used by various faculty.
  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
  The Minnesota Assessment of Problem Solving (MAPS) rubric was developed as a tool to score students’ written solutions to physics problems. This presentation will include an introduction to the five general problem-solving processes assessed by the rubric and criteria for attaining a score in each, as well as examples for how to apply the rubric to students’ written solutions.
  Facilitator: Jennifer Docktor (University of Wisconsin La Crosse)

• Quantum In Intro Physics 2025 November 22, 2025 from 1:00pm - 3:00pm EST
  In this workshop, we will show content from two classes worth of material to develop what a single photon is and how we do experiments with them. Participants will have opportunities to try some activities through student worksheets.
  Facilitator: James Freericks (Georgetown University, AAPT Treasurer)

• CDPA 2025 December 5, 2025 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
  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

Quantum or Not? Workshop (September 12, 2025)

Mechanics Assessments: FCI, FMCE, and MBT - What they are and how to use them (PER-Interest group discussion)(September 26, 2025)

Beyond the Red Pen: Leveraging AI to Enhance Student Feedback and Assessment Workshop (September 27, 2025)

Providing positive feedback is crucial to maintaining interest and motivation. Sandra McGuire in her book Teach Students How to Learn (Stylus Publishing, 2015) describes the Motivation Cycle: Increased motivation leads to increased learning, which leads to increased success and positive emotions, which leads to increased motivation… While we might wish to ignore messy concepts like emotions, these are essential to being human. Understanding how to increase positive emotions in our students (and in ourselves!) helps us improve motivation.

A corollary is the concept of learned helplessness. “When faculty give students assignments that are inappropriately challenging at the beginning of a course, students become convinced that they cannot handle even appropriate challenges. Demoralization becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Providing opportunities for early success helps all of us feel motivated to keep going when the going gets tough. 

MacGuire cites a study showing that an instructor’s attitude and their course structure account for half of a student’s motivation in the class - positively or negatively. By expressing your belief that students will succeed, by making expectations very clear, by providing multiple opportunities to demonstrate competency, you can do more to help your students succeed than the clearest lecture.

Here is an exercise that MacGuire recommends you do with your students. Ask 

“Think of a subject/task/activity that you think you are bad at. What evidence do you have that you are bad? How do you feel when someone asks you to perform this task?” 

Follow this reflection with “Think of a subject/task/activity that you have become very good at. What evidence do you have that you are good? What did you do to become skilled? How do you feel when someone asks you to perform this task?” 

These reflections will help your students connect mindset, emotion, motivation in their learning - they will lay the foundation for setting up a positive motivation cycle.

• 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