Workshops

Various Times & Rooms Listed Below
Workshop Presenters:  Please follow the instructions provided here.

Workshop: W-A

Getting Articles into Journals

Organizer:  Robert Beichner (beichner@ncsu.edu), North Carolina State Univ.
Where:  Delta Suite
When:  8:15 – 9:45 & 1:45 – 3:15, Thursday, August 5

Goal: Participants will learn how to be more successful in getting research articles published.

Theme: Research isn't really "science" until it has been peer-reviewed and published. This workshop will present ways to increase the publishability of articles. Attendees will examine different types of journals, learn how to meet their individual formatting standards, and gain insight into how reviews are conducted.

Activities: Participants will compare different journals to help them "fine-tune" their writing style, review citation formatting, learn how to manage article layout, etc. They will see how to create articles using RevTex, the preferred form for submission to APS journals and the American Journal of Physics. After a thorough review of the steps required for a detailed review, attendees will work in groups to review example articles. (If space becomes a concern, we may need to limit attendance to only one participant per research group.).

Back to Top

Workshop: W-B

The Physics Portal: Building a Self-Sustaining Internet-based Education Network

Organizers:
        David Hestenes (hestenes@asu.edu), Arizona State University
        Bernard Haisch, ManyOne Network
        Joakim Lindblom, ManyOne Network
Where: Auburn Room
When: 8:15 – 9:45 & 1:45 – 3:15, Thursday, August 5

Goal: This workshop will introduce the PER community to a teriffic new opportunity for web based physics education on the forthcoming “ManyOne Browser” (check it out at http://www.manyone.net) We propose that the PER community represent the AAPT as stewards of a Physics Portal on the new “ManyOne Network." This would put PER in charge of world-wide internet access to the best physics and physics education web sites.

Theme: ManyOne Network, which will be wholly owned by a non-profit foundation, is building a global alliance of institutions, organizations, educators and other experts whose goals are: (1) to make available a new web browser that uses rich media, 3-D navigation to interactively convey information and education-oriented content, usable even with a dial-up Internet connection, and which is open-source based to foster unlimited development; and (2) to catalyze a worldwide effort in which stewards (experts, organizations, universities) organize the best information on the Internet into a Digital Universe that will be free to all and will create a public-service oriented, advertising-free subset of the Web (a PBS of the Web) that will over time become the "Encyclopedia Galactica" envisioned by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. The browser and access to all educational material will be free to the public in perpetuity. Operating revenues are generated not from advertising, but by offering Internet access and other services to paid subscribers. We propose an educational partnership in which, representing the AAPT, the PER community takes stewardship of the Physics Portal, providing original content and editorially selected links to the best physics websites. The AAPT may also at its discretion choose to offer ManyOne paid services to its members in return for a share in the monthly revenues.

Back to Top

Workshop: W-C

Laboratory Mathematics and Science for Cognitive Development -- Dealing with the Real Level of our Physics Students

Organizer:  Jerome Epstein (jepstein@duke.poly.edu), Polytechnic University
When (Where):   8:15 – 9:45 (Folsom Room)  &  3:45 – 5:15 (Auburn Room)
 

Description: This is a hands-on session allowing participants to experience directly material from the beginning, middle, and end of a comprehensive integrated program in basic mathematics and science, designed specifically to promote formal level thinking, developed 20 years ago under NSF sponsorship. Diagnostic testing shows that far more students than is commonly known enter physics with cognition and basic quantitative skills far lower than most believe, and probably far too low to benefit sufficiently from even high quality Interactive Engagement physics programs. The program is designed to meet this need. It has been well tested and information on outcomes will be available. The program is designed to gradually produce higher level thinking and skill levels, taking students in two semesters from having no concept of fractions and decimals to doing numerical calculus, and Newtonian kinematics and dynamics without resort to memorized formulas. Gains in basic skills are high and success in succeeding courses is increased. The presenter will suggest a trial of this program, for those who test as needing it, preceding a good I-E physics program. The overall normalized gain can be compared with those who test similarly on basic skills, but go directly into physics without this program.

Back to Top

Workshop: W-D

Transferring PER Results from the Domain of the Researcher to the Domain of the Practitioner

Organizers:
       Kenneth Heller (heller@physics.umn.edu), University of Minnesota
       Patricia Heller, University of Minnesota
        Edit Yerushalmi, Weizmann Institute
        Thomas Thaden-Koch, University of Minnesota
Where:  Folsom Room
When:  1:45 – 3:15 & 3:45 – 5:15, Thursday, August 5

Goal: Our goal is for participants to become familiar with fundamental difficulties of physics faculty using PER-inspired curricular materials, and with the importance of conducting research focused on physics faculty to address these difficulties. A further goal is that participants become familiar with a technique for collecting data about faculty conceptions and a useful representation of that data. Finally, we hope that an initial look at some data from the domain of physics problem solving will start a discussion about the need for other research directions.

Theme: The workshop theme is transferring knowledge about teaching and learning from the domain of the researcher to that of the practitioner. This transfer is both necessary and difficult. Although PER groups have produced research-based curricula and instructional methodologies that are superior to traditional instruction, most physics faculty have not chosen to incorporate them into their teaching. It is clearly difficult to communicate PER results in a way that is useful for physics instructors. Clear explanation, data, and coherence with accepted theory are not sufficient. In the same way that an improved understanding of students has aided the development of instructional methods more useful to students, an improved understanding of physics instructors should aid the development of curricular materials more useful to instructors. Research is necessary to guide the curriculum developer (the “transfer agent”), who must translate the results of PER from the research domain into the practitioner’s domain.

Activities: The primary activity will allow participants to experience the technique of interviewing instructors about artifacts (solutions to an introductory-level physics problem); participants will perform short, structured interviews with each other. A follow-on activity will allow participants to familiarize themselves with research results, in the form of concept maps that represent hypotheses about instructors’ beliefs about the teaching and learning of problem solving; participants will try to map results of their interviews onto the concept maps. Participants will also discuss implications for the design and packaging of instructional materials and for future research directions.

Back to Top