Development and Uses of Upper-division Conceptual Assessment

The use of validated conceptual assessments alongside more standard course exams has become standard practice for the introductory courses in many physics departments. These assessments provide a more standard measure of certain learning goals, allowing for comparisons of student learning across instructors, semesters, and institutions. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed several similar assessments designed to target the more advanced physics content of upper-division classical mechanics, electrostatics, quantum mechanics, and electrodynamics. Here, we synthesize the existing research on our upper-division assessments and discuss some of the barriers and challenges associated with developing, validating, and implementing these assessments as well as some of the strategies we have used to overcome these barriers.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, submitted to the Phys. Rev. ST - PER Focused collection on Upper-division PE

Anatomy of STEM Teaching in American Universities: A Snapshot from a Large-Scale Observation Study

National and local initiatives focused on the transformation of STEM teaching in higher education have multiplied over the last decade. These initiatives often focus on measuring change in instructional practices, but it is difficult to monitor such change without a national picture of STEM educational practices, especially as characterized by common observational instruments. We characterized a snapshot of this landscape by conducting the first large scale observation-based study. We found that lecturing was prominent throughout the undergraduate STEM curriculum, even in classrooms with infrastructure designed to support active learning, indicating that further work is required to reform STEM education. Additionally, we established that STEM faculty’s instructional practices can vary substantially within a course, invalidating the commonly-used teaching evaluations based on a one-time observation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Leading departmentally-based change initiatives: The Science Education Initiative Handbook

Educational change efforts focused at the department level can be powerful. Positive outcomes, however, are not automatic. In this poster, we share some of the big lessons learned from the Science Education Initiatives founded by Carl Wieman at the University of British Columbia and University of Colorado Boulder, which centered on department-based Discipline-Based Education Specialists (DBESs), disciplinary experts with training in the science of teaching and learning who served as catalysts in transforming undergraduate science and math education by supporting a shift to research-informed teaching practices. The design, stories, and outcomes of the SEIs are described in detail in Wieman’s 2017 book, Improving How Universities Teach Science, while we have compiled recommendations and resources into the complementary SEI Handbook, an open resource that is available for reading and download at https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/seihandbook/. This poster offers a high-level summary of the Handbook and its recommendations for its three main audiences: initiative leaders who pull together and oversee project activities in the department; departmental leaders who plan the work, engage with colleagues, and supervise the DBESs; and the DBESs themselves, who are agents of change as department-based educational developers. As such, this work will be of value to anyone interested in collective efforts to transform teaching at their institution. Chasteen, S. V., and Code, W. J. (2018). The Science Education Initiative Handbook. Accessed at https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/seihandbook/. Wieman, C. E. (2017). Improving how universities teach science: lessons from the Science Education Initiative. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press

Chapter 07: Change from Within: The Science Education Initiative

The Science Education Initiative (SEI) is a university-funded project to with a goal to achieve highly effective, evidence based education for students by applying the latest advances in pedagogical and organizational excellence. To achieve these goals, the SEI supports work at the departmental level to establish what students should learn, determine what students are actually learning, and improve student learning. The outcomes of SEI work are diverse and include the transformation of a specific course, addressing department and institution cultural issues, researching the impact of pedagogical techniques on learning, and dissemination of course and related materials. In the chapter an example of an SEI course transformation in physics is discussed in detail.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/circle_book/1006/thumbnail.jp

Developing the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis rubric: Measuring features of thriving programs

Given the insufficient number of well-qualified future physics teachers in the U.S., physics programs often seek guidance for how to address this national need. Measurement tools can provide such guidance, by both defining excellence in physics teacher education (PTE) and providing a means to measure progress towards excellence. This paper describes the development of such a measurement tool—the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis rubric. The rubric was developed by identifying common features and practices at 8 “thriving” PTE programs, defined as large U.S. programs consistently graduating 5 or more future physics teachers in a year. The rubric consists of 89 items, each with 3 levels of achievement (developing, benchmark, exemplary), plus a not present level, which are organized into 6 standards. The rubric has demonstrated a variety of forms of validity, including a strong theoretical basis, empirical validation through program visits, and expert review. The rubric and its associated supporting materials are intended to help program leaders in using a process of continuous improvement and assessment to strengthen existing PTE programs or to establish new pathways for student licensure. The rubric also provides substantive opportunities for research, through further validation and development of the rubric, and by using rubric results to learn more about effective practices in physics teacher education

Upper-division students’ difficulties with Ampère’s law

This study presents and interprets some conceptual difficulties junior-level physics students experience with Ampère’s law. We present both quantitative data, based on students’ written responses to conceptual questions, and qualitative data, based on interviews of students solving Ampère’s law problems. We find that some students struggle to connect the current enclosed by an Ampèrian loop to the properties of the magnetic field while some students do not use information about the magnetic field to help them solve Ampère’s law problems. In this paper, we show how these observations may be interpreted as evidence that some students do not see the integral in Ampère’s law as representing a sum and that some students do not use accessible information about the magnetic field as they attempt to solve Ampère’s law problems. This work extends previous studies into students’ difficulties with Ampère’s law and provides possible guidance for instruction

Initial findings of the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis rubric: What do thriving programs do?

Systematic research on physics teacher education (PTE) programs in the United States is rare, owing both to the great variety of practices and structures enacted by U.S. PTE programs and to the lack of measurement tools available to measure what successful PTE programs do. To help meet the need for a specific, objective, and reliable guide for research on PTE programs, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition developed the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis (PTEPA) rubric, which characterizes the practices and structures observed at “thriving” PTE programs (defined as programs in the U.S. that frequently graduate five or more physics teachers per year). Initial research based on the PTEPA rubric suggests that thriving programs are strong in multiple areas (especially institutional commitment, leadership, and collaboration among partners in education and physics), and that several areas of strength align with those indicated by the existing PTE literature. However, thriving programs are not necessarily strong in all areas, instead reflecting local conditions at the institutional and state level. Such findings illustrate the opportunity for measurement and hypothesis testing about the most important features that PTE programs should have

A Research-Based Approach to Assessing Student Learning Issues in Upper-Division Electricity & Magnetism

As part of our efforts to systematically improve our junior-level Electricity & Magnetism I (Electro-and MagnetoStatics) course, we have developed a conceptual instrument, the CUE (Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics) diagnostic. Two central goals of this tool are: to assess impacts of transformed curricula, and to systematically identify and document student learning difficulties. We find persistent issues involving students' ability to conceptually approach and visualize E&M, to accurately communicate that understanding, and to appropriately identify and apply upper-level problem-solving strategies. Our work underlines the need for further research on the nature of student learning -and appropriate instructional interventions -at the upper division

Tapping into juniors’ understanding of E&M: The Colorado Upper-Division

Abstract. As part of an effort to systematically improve our junior-level E&M I course, we are developing a tool to assess student learning of E&M concepts at the upper-division. Along with a faculty working group, we established a list of learning goals for the course that, with student observations and interviews, served as a guide in creating the Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) assessment. The result is a 17-question open-ended post-test (with an optional 7-question pre-test) diagnostic, and accompanying grading rubric. We present the preliminary validation of the instrument and rubric, plus results from 226 students in 4 semesters at the University of Colorado, and 4 additional universities