Dimension-Five Operators in Grand Unified Theories

Extensions of the standard model with low-energy supersymmetry generically allow baryon- and lepton-number violating operators of dimension four and five, yielding rapid proton decay. The dimension-four operators are usually forbidden by matter parity. We investigate to what extent the appearance of dimension-five operators at the Planck scale may be constrained by the different grand-unified gauge groups. Dimension-five operators are suppressed in models based on E_6 and SU(3)_C x SU(3)_L x SU(3)_R, where four matter fields do not form a gauge singlet. An intermediate scale offers the possibility to sufficiently suppress these dimension-five operators.Comment: 4 pages, v3: version to appear in PR

Fluctuations in Student Understanding of Newton's 3rd Law

We present data from a between-student study on student response to questions on Newton's Third Law given throughout the academic year. The study, conducted at Rochester Institute of Technology, involved students from the first and third of a three-quarter sequence. Construction of a response curve reveals subtle dynamics in student learning not captured by simple pre/post testing. We find a a significant positive effect from direct instruction, peaking at the end of instruction on forces, that diminishes by the end of the quarter. Two quarters later, in physics III, a significant dip in correct response occurs when instruction changes from the vector quantities of electric forces and fields to the scalar quantity of electric potential. Student response rebounds to its initial values, however, once instruction returns to the vector-based topics involving magnetic fields.Comment: Proceedings of the 2010 Physics Education Research Conferenc

Qualitative Measures of Equity in Small Groups

We investigate the utility of two qualitative measures of equity. Our data are videos of groups of first-generation and Deaf or hard-of-hearing students in a pre-matriculation university program designed to help them persist in STEM fields by developing their metacognitive practices. We analyze video data of students in small groups trying to accomplish various tasks. We analyze how groups engage with proposed ideas (inchargeness) and create a space of open sharing (civility). By capturing different aspects of each group, these measures combine to help our understanding of what an equitable group could look like.Comment: Accepted to International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 201

Using Social Network Analysis on classroom video data

We propose a novel application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) using classroom video data as a means of quantitatively and visually exploring the collaborations between students. The context for our study was a summer program that works with first generation students and deaf/hard-of-hearing students to engage in authentic science practice and develop a supportive community. We applied SNA to data from one activity during the two-week program to test our approach and as a means to begin to assess whether the goals of the program are being met. We used SNA to identify groups that were interacting in unexpected ways and then to highlight how individuals were contributing to the overall group behavior. We plan to expand our new use of SNA to video data on a larger scale

Emerging Physics Education Researchers' Growth in Professional Agency: Case Study

Improving the physics enterprise to broaden participation in physics is one of the main goals of the physics education research community. Many classically trained physics faculty transition during their faculty career into engaging in research investigating the teaching and learning of their discipline. There is scarce research on the support and needs of these faculty as they engage in their first projects in this new research field for them. We investigate agency growth of two emerging physics education researchers and one emerging mathematics education researcher as they participate in a professional development program. We ground our case study analysis of interview data in a theoretical framework on agency. We identify the elements of the professional development program that were transformative in our case study participants' trajectory in education research. Receiving get-started information, building mechanisms to sustain research projects and engaging with a supportive community help participants transform general interests to specific questions, articulate concrete next-steps and increase their sense of self-efficacy. During this professional development program all three case study participants gain agency in this new area of research for them. These identified program elements that affect agency growth can inform professional development opportunities for faculty transitioning into discipline-based education research, which expands our understanding of how to build capacity in the field.Comment: Submitted to PhysRevPE

User-Friendly Multimedia Authoring with Pachyderm

This session will focus on the products and process of using the open-source Pachyderm authoring tool to produce interactive multimedia presentations. Presenters from the library, museum and developer communities will present Pachyderm projects, discuss the training process and learning curve and demonstrate a new, feature rich version of the authoring software. The session will conclude with a Q&A session and audience discussion

Traditionally taught students learn; actively engaged students remember

A common narrative in physics education research is that students taught in lecture-based classes learn less than those taught with activity-based reformed methods. We show this narrative is simplistic and misses important dynamics of student learning. In particular, we find students of both methods show equal short-term learning gains on a conceptual question dealing with electric potential. For traditionally taught students, this learning rapidly decays on a time scale of weeks, vanishing by the time of the typical end-of-term post-test. For students in reform-based classes, however, the knowledge is retained and may even be enhanced by subsequent instruction. This difference explains the many previous pre- and post-test studies that have found minimal learning gains in lecture-based courses. Our findings suggest a more nuanced model of student learning, one that is sensitive to time-dependent effects such as forgetting and interference. In addition, the findings suggest that lecture-based courses, by incorporating aspects designed to reinforce student understanding of previously covered topics, might approach the long-term learning found in research-based pedagogies