February 12, 2026 Issue #56

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.

Announcements 

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

• CLASS 2026 February 20, 2026 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST The purpose of the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) is to “measure students’ self-reported beliefs about physics and their physics courses and how closely these beliefs about physics align with experts’ beliefs”. In this session, we will discuss what the CLASS can tell you, similar assessments of students’ attitudes and beliefs, and tips for giving and scoring the CLASS in your class. Facilitator: Leon Hsu (Santa Rosa Junior College)

• 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
  Pivot 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)

Recent events

Improving Student Understanding of Energy and Momentum Concepts using the EMCS. (January 30, 2026)

Lovett et al. write in their book How Learning Works: 8 Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching (Jossey-Bass) “Even though some of us might wish to conceptualize our classrooms as culturally neutral … students cannot check their sociocultural identities at the door, nor can they instantly transcend their current level of development… It is important that the pedagogical strategies we employ in the classroom enable multiple ways to engage…” These statements characterize the first learning principle: that identities and experiences influence learning and performance. By diversifying our pedagogy, we have the opportunity to reach more students. Many of the strategies described to promote better learning outcomes based on this principle refer to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) practices. Some suggestions that resonate with me include: presenting multiple representations of the same concept, providing students with choice, and giving feedback along with encouragement that they can achieve the high standards. 

How to stop fearing mistakes and start celebrating them | Hannah Sabo | TEDxBodø

• 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