Teaching physics novices at university: A case for stronger scaffolding

In 2006 a new type of tutorial, called Map Meeting, was successfully trialled with novice first year physics students at the University of Sydney, Australia. Subsequently, in first semester 2007 a large-scale experiment was carried out with 262 students who were allocated either to the strongly scaffolding Map Meetings or to the less scaffolding Workshop Tutorials, which have been run at the University of Sydney since 1995. In this paper we describe what makes Map Meetings more scaffolding than Workshop Tutorials—where the level of scaffolding represents the main difference between the two tutorial types. Using a mixed methods approach to triangulate results, we compare the success of the two with respect to both student tutorial preference and examination performance. In summary, Map Meetings had a higher retention rate and received more positive feedback from students—students liked the strongly scaffolding environment and felt that it better helped them understand physics. A comparison of final examination performances of students who had attended at least 10 out of 12 tutorials revealed that only 11% of Map Meeting students received less than 30 out of 90 marks compared to 21% of Workshop Tutorial students, whereas there were no differences amongst high-achieving students. Map Meetings was therefore particularly successful in helping low-achieving novices learn physics

The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire: Validation and implementation for undergraduate physics practicals

Physics is a discipline associated with diverse emotions; some enjoy it, others don’t. Yet, students’ emotions when studying physics are under researched. This study adapts the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) to measure the emotions of students with first year physics undergraduate practicals. The aims of this research are to validate the AEQ in our context and to probe students’ emotions towards two practicals; the control which is of standard format and the intervention which incorporates colour and historical aspects seeking to produce more positive emotions. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and descriptive statistics conducted with a sample of 320 students confirm the reliability and internal validity of the adapted AEQ (AEQ-PhysicsPrac) for the purposes of this study. Differences in emotions between the control and intervention are detected indicating that the AEQ-PhysicsPrac has utility in physics education

Innovative physics teaching spaces

There are often heated debates around teaching and learning spaces, from collaborative spaces for student centred learning to abolishing teacher centred lecture theatres. In both school and university contexts, economics and practicalities have led to designing multi-purpose learning spaces which can be used by different disciplines and for different purposes. Consequently, it is often a challenge to justify and advocate for dedicated discipline-based laboratory teaching and learning spaces.  In this workshop we will share a particular innovative space specifically designed as a physics laboratory, with the functionality of being used as a recitation/tutorial space, project space as well as for studio teaching with mini lectures.  We will also share our experience of running Physics labs in this space. We will show how particular demands:  to be ‘multipurpose’ across different modes of physics teaching allowing for in-depth learning of physics, be able to accommodate various level of experimental classes, provide ability of skills development including open-ended projects, grant effective teaching technical support, could be implemented in design solutions. We will discuss how features of teaching space influenced teaching modes. Participants are requested to bring designs of their teaching and learning spaces, share experiences of fit-for-purpose learning spaces as well as pick up some tips if designing new learning spaces. In particular, the space could be welcoming, has a pleasant ambience and has been well received by both staff and students. Given the current context of ‘going online’, physical learning spaces need to be something extra special as we move into the future. Bring along your future-looking extra special learning space designs! Intended Audience: University and Secondary-School Physics Educator

IMPACT OF COVID-19: STUDENTS’ EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT WITH FACE-TO-FACE LABS TRANSITING TO ONLINE MODE

During semester 1 of 2020, which was disrupted by COVID-19, first year physics students at The University of Sydney undertook three face-to-face labs, followed by a 3-week break, and 4 totally online labs. Using the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire, AEQ- PhysicsPrac (Pekrun, Goetz, & Perry, 2005; Bhansali & Sharma, 2019) we probed students’ emotions towards Physics labs during this time of pandemic and compared them to emotions measured previously in the regular face-to-face labs. Our sample consisted of 100 students who were given the survey towards the end of semester 1 of 2020. Comparison with regular electricity experiments in semester 2 of 2018 with 117 students showed that students’ anxiety increased during COVID-19. We also compared students’ emotions with 2 experiments from semester 1 of 2018; a control experiment with black and white lab notes which was perceived by 133 students as quite negatively emotionally engaging, and an intervention practical with a short, colourful, historical story which was perceived by 187 students as positively emotionally engaging (Bhansali & Sharma, 2019). Intriguingly, our comparison showed that the emotions reported during COVID-19 were somewhere in between those reported for the control and intervention. The COVID-19 labs had decreased enjoyment, and increased anxiety and hopelessness when compared with the intervention; while COVID-19 labs had increased pride and anxiety, and decreased boredom when compared with the control. This paper focuses on the implications of our findings in terms of the influence of the reported emotions on students’ attention, focus and the will to continue studies

Thermal conductivity: Concept and apparatus

The study of the physical mechanisms involved in heat transfer phenomena is important as they influence many aspects of our life. However, thermal physics practicals are one of the most challenging in the Junior Physics lab, mostly due to conceptual difficulty, equipment problems and safety issues. In this presentation we describe one of our new thermal experiments – thermal conductivity. This topic is of considerable pedagogical importance since it requires a good understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in heat transfer and can be exploited in junior and senior physics courses in different ways. This practical consists of two parts – qualitative and quantitative. In the first part we describe how a daily experience such as the touch of hot and cool objects with the hands can be used to learn concepts related to heat transfer. The second part is devoted to quantitative measurements of thermal conductivity. If you apply heat to one end of a copper rod and hold the other end, the atoms in the hot end become excited, i.e., they have higher energy, and share their energies with their neighbours, and they in turn share energy with their neighbours, and so on along the rod. So eventually, your end of the copper rod starts becoming warm. See Abstract PDF for the equation heat flux is determined by. In-house built apparatus consisting of four rods, four heaters, heat sink, and 4 thermal probes provides opportunity to explore Eq1, as we can vary A and k, by varying rod’s diameter and material. Four thermal probes provide temperature gradient. During the practical, students determine the thermal conductivity of each rod using Eq.(1), the heat conduction equation

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF THE "QUESTION-SOLUTION-REFLECTION" FRAMEWORK

It is agreed upon in the literature that reflection is a vital part of learning, yet it is seldom focused on in the physics education context. This presentation will summarise three studies into reflective thinking in the physics education multimedia context, and the development of the “question-solution-reflection” framework. According to Dewey (1933) and Rogers (2002), reflection can be thought of containing phases - • An experience, and the spontaneous interpretation of that experience • The articulation of the problem or question that arises out of the experience • The generation of possible explanations for the question • The explanations need to be examined and tested The videos used, and developed for the present studies, followed these phases. In the first video, an experience was shown, and a question was asked. The students wrote down their answers to the question, and then watched the second video, which contained the solutions. The students were prompted to write down if they changed their answers, and the reasons for doing or not doing so. Over 3000 responses to this format have been received as part of the three studies, and we argue that the results show that this framework is effective at promoting reflective thinking. REFERENCES Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Courier Corporation. Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey and reflective thinking. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 842-866

WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CASUAL TEACHING STAFF

Casual academics teaching staff, such as tutors and laboratory demonstrators, play a vital role in our undergraduate teaching programs. Indeed, this casual academic workforce often forms the vast majority of the academic teaching staff at most universities, especially in the first-year units/courses. In particular, casual laboratory teaching staff possess several responsibilities such as, ensuring adherence to the health and safety policies, assessing student performance and output, developing undergraduate students' practical and transferable skills, mentoring and correcting misconceptions in theoretical understanding (Herrington & Nakhleh, 2003; Rodriques & Bond-Robinson, 2006). Literature suggests that there is a strong positive correlation between how students interact with their laboratory demonstrator and how these same students rank their interest in (and attitudes towards) their undergraduate science courses (Pentecost et al., 2012; Osbourne, Simon & Collins, 2003). What is unclear however: how do these casual academics perceive their own teaching roles and how does this influence both their own teaching practices and the learning environment experienced by the students? A recent study undertaken by Flaherty et al. (2017) showed the positive impact of psychological empowerment on both the self-efficacy of the teaching staff and its ability to create a more positive, student-centered teaching environment. Preliminary quantitative and qualitative data collected through questionnaires of laboratory teaching staff at Monash University and the University of Sydney have been collected investigating the perceptions of our casual teaching staff (George-Williams, 2019; Spreitzer, 1995; George-Williams, 2020), particularly towards their own teaching roles. The results of these studies will be discussed alongside potential future directions for this study. REFERENCES Flaherty, A., O'Dwyer, A., Mannix-McNamara, P. & Leahy, J. (2017). The influence of psychological empowerment on the enhancement of chemistry laboratory demonstrators' perceived teaching self-image and behaviours as graduate teaching assistants. Journal of Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 18, 710-736. George-Williams, S. R. (2019) Unpublished results, Monash University. George-Williams, S. R. (2020) Unpublished results, The University of Sydney. Herrington D. G. & Nakhleh M. B. (2003). What Defines Effective Chemistry Laboratory Instruction? Teaching Assistant and Student Perspectives. Journal of Chemical Education, 80(10), 1197-1205. Osborne, J., Simon, S., & Collins, S. (2003). Attitudes toward science: A review of the literature and its implications. International Journal of Science Education, 25(9), 1049-1079. Pentecost, T. C., Langdon, L. S., Asirvatham, M., Robus, H., & Parson, R. (2012). Graduate teaching assistant training that fosters student-centered instruction and professional development. Journal of College Science Teaching, 41(6), 68–75. Rodriques R. A. B. & Bond-Robinson J. (2006). Comparing Faculty and Student Perspectives of Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Teaching. Journal of Chemical Education, 83(2), 305-312. Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological Empowerment in the Workplace: Dimensions, Measurement, and Validation. The Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442-1465

Enjoying physics undergraduate labs in a pandemic

It has been well documented (Rice et al., 2009) that student engagement when learning physics and science is most powerful when experimenting in laboratory classes. With the forced shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of weeks, making online laboratory activities ‘hands-on’ to the same extent of in-person experiments was difficult. In the rush to convert to online delivery, much of the ‘fun’ element of the exercises had been left out – designing the experiment, working with equipment, being in a team. By the second semester into the pandemic, we were able to reflect on students’ experiences and engagement and design a new set of experiments based on ‘emerging good practices’ for online learning (Olympiou & Zacharia, 2012) that incorporated choice, experimental design using simple, everyday equipment and data collection, including simulations and activities – the fun element, while still restricted by lockdowns and quarantines. A survey to measure student engagement during this time (Kota et al., 2021) explores student enjoyment in physics undergraduate online laboratory classes through an open-ended question. We discuss the qualitative results of the survey and how the implementation of the ‘emerging good practices’ led to improved student enjoyment and engagement in an online environment. REFERENCES Rice, J. W., Thomas, S. M., O'Toole, P., & Pannizon, D. (2009). Tertiary science education in the 21st century. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Council of Deans of Science. Olympiou, G. & Zacharia, Z.C. (2012). Blending physical and virtual manipulatives: An effort to improve students' conceptual understanding through science laboratory experimentation. Science Education, 96, 21-47. Kota, S. D., den Besten, J. L., Lazendic-Galloway, J., & Sharma, M. D. (2021). Snapshot on student voices in COVID-19 physics labs. Proceedings from WCPE III, Hanoi, 2021.