» OPTYCs SPOTLIGHT » Issue 55

OPTYCs SPOTLIGHT 2026 Issue 55

January 8, 2026 Issue #55

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.

OPTYCs News

Announcements

TYC Mid-Career Reset

OPTYCs, with the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Astronomical Society, presents a Mid-Career Reset Program designed specifically for Two-Year College Physics Faculty. Revitalize your energy, refresh your knowledge, and renovate your curriculum in this 14-month long cohort-based program.

You are invited to join our inaugural cohort for full-time, two-year college faculty teaching physics or astronomy! In this program, you will be guided through a series of learning and reflection activities, work with peers in affinity groups to develop a project plan, and have support during its implementation. As an experienced faculty member, your expertise and experience will be vital to broaden the knowledge and skills in our TYC physics and astronomy community.

Applications open January 17. Click here for more details

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

EMCS 2026 January 30, 2026 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
The Energy and Momentum Conceptual Survey (EMCS) is a multiple-choice survey that contains a variety of energy and momentum concepts including potential and kinetic energies, work energy theorem, mechanical energy conservation, impulse-momentum theorem, and momentum conservation in both one and two dimensions. Prior studies suggest that many concepts on the survey are challenging for introductory physics students and the average student scores after traditional instruction are low. We will elaborate on these findings and discuss strategies to improve student understanding of these concepts. Facilitators: Mary Jane Brundage (Misericordia University, PA) and Chandralekha Singh (University of Pittsburg, PA)
Unistellar Workflow 2026 February 21 at 9:00pm EST - February 28, 2026 at 11:00pm EST
Sky conditions permitting, I will present a live demonstration of the workflow for making and submitting observations with a Unistellar telescope for doing Citizen Science. Facilitator: Joe Heafner (Independent Scholar, OPTYCs Coordinator)
Astronomy Labs 2026 March 14, 2026 from 1:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
In this workshop, I will share the lab activities and capstone projects I designed under a grant funded by NASA SCoPE, in collaboration with the NASA SCi-ACT teams of Universe of Learning (UoL) and the NASA Community College Network (NCCN). These include: galaxy visualization, the Hubble constant derivation and ladder methods, and light curves generation using photometric image analysis. Facilitator: Mojgan Haghanikar (Chicago City Colleges)
DIRECT 2026 March 20, 2026 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric Circuits Concepts Test (DIRECT). Description forthcoming. Facilitator: Paula Engelhardt (Tennessee Tech University)
Pivot Interactives 2026 March 27, 2026 from 3:00pm - 4:30pm EDT
P ivot Interactives is an online experiment platform for physics and astronomy education. Instructors can choose to use the built-in labs, modify from the community library, or create their own using Pivot’s analysis tools (such as measurement options, video tracking, and collaborative notebooks). In this workshop, participants will experience some examples from physics and astronomy classes, and see how they can build their own lab curriculum.
Facilitators: Todd Leif (Creighton Prep) and Glenda Denicolo (Suffolk County CC).
iSTAR 2026 April 17, 2026 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Inquiry in Scientific Thinking, Analytics, and Reasoning (iSTAR). Description forthcoming. Facilitators:
Krista Wood (University of Cincinnati - Blue Ash College) and Kathy Koenig (University of Cincinnati)

Highlights

Foothill College's Physics Show puts the fun in science fundamentals

Books, Articles, and Media

Community College to Physics Degree: What the Data Shows

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

optycs.aapt.org